Yan Yu had a huge secret. If people knew, it would shake the world. After all, what happened to her was unimaginable, something even an immortal probably couldn't do.

She had somehow come back to the past.

At the end of her life, when her cultivation was burned, her talismans spent, and she was as weak as an ant with the Heavenly Spear flying like a comet toward her heart, she could only pray beneath the dark clouds and flashing lightning for a second chance.

When the spear pierced her heart and exploded, she returned to the fateful day when her fiancé broke their engagement, leading to her banishment from the Yan clan. Initially, she mistook it for a dream. There's a saying that when someone faces death, their life flashes before their eyes. However, after living through several days, she realized this was her new reality.

Since that day, Yan Yu spent every waking moment training and cultivating. She tried to become as strong as possible to face the huge calamity that would start the Era of Chaos later.

Yan Yu swore to make that bastard--her former fiancé --pay a thousandfold and vowed to be strong enough to defeat him. That's why she was here, in the Purple Moon Sect.

In her past life, she had barely been accepted as an outer disciple in a small sect called Frozen Palace Sect, a sect that only accepted women with special physiques. While she would miss her sister and master in the sect, her desire for strength trumped her feelings, and she decided that in this life, she would come to the Purple Moon Sect.

The Purple Moon Sect was one of the strongest sects on the Dark Forest continent, and she would certainly become stronger faster here. That's why she aimed to be an inner disciple as soon as possible, then a core disciple, and eventually an elder to unleash the full power of the sect on her enemies.

The path ahead was hard. The Purple Moon Sect was unique. In any other sect, a strong and talented disciple would be poached by an elder and given large resources. But here, every disciple needed to become an outer disciple first, then an inner disciple, and then a core disciple. The elders in this sect could only have a maximum of three disciples at a time, making the process to become an inner and core disciple hard for everyone, even the patriarch's son.

But Yan Yu would not give up. Her talent in this life was great, her potential not wasted, and her knowledge gave her a head start. Now, she needed to seize every opportunity to grow faster than everyone else.

After the outer disciple guide showed her the houses, dorms, and caves for new disciples, Yan Yu didn't hesitate to go to the caves area and live there. While the caves area had thinner qi, the difference was not that significant for her. She wanted a silent place to cultivate without disturbances.

She chose the first cave she came across. While she realized that the cave was occupied with some spare clothes, a desk with papers on it, and unwashed clothes in the corner, she didn't care and started to cultivate.

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For a while, she cultivated peacefully, but then a man came and knocked on the door, disturbing her cultivation.

Yan Yu was annoyed. She didn't want to search for another cave and waste her time. She wanted this cave, and this man needed to accept her decision. After all, Yan Yu was talented and destined for greatness. If that bastard hadn't shown up and ruined everything, she would have been guaranteed to become an immortal.

"You wasted my time," Yan Yu said.

Yan Yu didn't know this man, which meant he wasn't some talented or genius cultivator destined to shake the world.

Yan Yu materialized ice shards and attacked. The man jumped backward, and she pursued him outside, to the front of the cave where a clearing awaited.

With every step Yan Yu took, the air around her grew colder, her eyes sharper and bluer, like glowing blue gems under moonlight.

More flying shards materialized around her, and soon, ice shards filled her surroundings like a swarm of wasps ready to strike, causing the temperature around her to drop tremendously.

"Give up, I don't want to waste my precious time on you."

"Give me back my cave!" answered the man.

Yan Yu narrowed her eyes and waved her hand. Like a tsunami, all her ice shards surged towards her enemy.

She was only at the Lock Opening fifth stage, and the Flying Shards was one of her basic attacks, but for a normal disciple, even one from the Purple Moon Sect, this attack was too dangerous.

"It's over."

While she didn't want to spill unnecessary blood, she wouldn't hesitate to kill someone who became her adversary.

"You're too cocky."

The man stood calmly and assumed a stance, his left hand pointing at her in a strange way, as if holding something invisible. As the tsunami of ice shards approached, electricity materialized in his right hand.

The first shard that arrived was smashed smoothly with his lightning-coated right hand, followed by the second and third. He destroyed every shard that came at him and then began to move closer, carving a path through the swarm of ice shards.

Seeing this, Yan Yu realized she had overestimated her power and underestimated her opponent. As expected from a Purple Moon Sect disciple, an attack that could kill a normal cultivator of her stage was being deflected by this disciple. But Yan Yu was not impressed.

The man's right hand moved fast and strong, like a cobra striking its prey. Each time his right hand destroyed a shard, a puff of ice powder bloomed. Yan Yu estimated her ice shards now numbered over three hundred, and she continued to create more until her opponent was spent.

Already, the man had lost his momentum. He held his ground, destroying the ice shards in front of him but unable to move further.

"Let's see if you can hold this."

Yan Yu pointed at him. The shards moved like soldiers directed at the enemy. The man destroyed the shards one by one with his right hand, but let's see if he could deflect shards coming from other directions.

Yan Yu swung her index finger left and right. The ice shards suddenly moved in three different directions: the first swarm moved straight like arrows, the second curved left, and the third curved right.

The man glanced left and right, his expression calm, as if he already knew how to solve his problem. He pointed his left hand at the swarm on his left, then with a twitch of his index finger, one of her shards turned into a puff of ice powder.

Yan Yu narrowed her eyes, trying to see better, but she couldn't discern what he did.

To deal with the swarm that came from the front and right, the man flexed his lightning-coated right hand, and suddenly a lightning blade grew from it.