The Missing Heavenly Stele

The Yellow River here was exceptionally turbulent, its yellow waters surging in waves several meters high. A person or livestock falling in would vanish without a trace under a single breaker.

But Xiao Chen was no longer the child who once played along its banks. As a half-god in the Mortal World—a realm utterly starved of spiritual energy—he was akin to a divine presence. Diving into the Yellow River was trivial; even the raging sea could not hinder him.

With a splash, he plunged into the churning yellow waters, descending by memory. He did not know how many meters he had gone when darkness enveloped him, thick and sightless. At last he touched the riverbed. But the Heavenly Stele was gone—no trace of it remained!

Xiao Chen was deeply perplexed. He clearly remembered that the Heavenly Stele had been right here, in this very spot. The stele that had forged his entire cultivation held a unique place in his heart, and he knew its resting place in the Yellow River with absolute certainty.

He searched meticulously, opening his heavenly eye until the riverbed shone as bright as day, every detail laid bare. Still, no sign of the Heavenly Stele. How could this be?

Xiao Chen was baffled. Such a colossal monument could never have been swept away by the current. It had lain here, immovable, for endless ages—how could it have vanished in just a few years? The part of the stele above ground was only a small fraction of its whole; its bulk was buried deep underground, impossible for the river to shift even a hair.

He searched on, but found nothing. He had to accept the truth: the Heavenly Stele was no longer in its original place. Full of doubt and confusion, he followed the Yellow River downstream, scanning the bed as he went. The water pressed in on him with tremendous force, yet even with his heavenly eye wide open, he discovered no clue.

After diving for over a hundred li, Xiao Chen surfaced, accepting that the Heavenly Stele had disappeared.

He broke through the water with a splash and rose above the Yellow River.

This stretch of water was relatively calm, like a great slab of yellow jade set into the earth. On both sides, green mountains rose in towering ridges, verdant and lush, filled with the cries of apes and roars of tigers. It resembled a reservoir more than a river—a long, narrow valley where the water had widened many times over.

Just then, Xiao Chen keenly sensed fluctuations in the air above. Figures seemed to be flying toward him in the distance.

Practitioners who could fly? In the Mortal World, that was extremely rare—almost unheard of.

There was no time to hide. Two silhouettes had already come into view, and they had clearly spotted him.

They were a man and a woman, both young. The man was handsome and dashing, the woman pretty as a flower. Both stood on foot-long flying swords, approaching rapidly.

Experts of the Imperial Order? Xiao Chen was surprised. The villagers had told him that the practitioners of the Imperial Order all rode flying swords and could travel through the air. He had not expected to encounter them so soon.

Swoosh, swoosh.

The two shot over and blocked his path.

The man was far from jade-like elegance, and the woman was hardly a peerless beauty, but both possessed a unique aura beneath their good looks. Dressed in white, they stood on flying swords, robes fluttering—they truly seemed like immortals descended among men.

"Who are you?" the young man barked.

The words shattered his otherworldly bearing, revealing a smug arrogance. The pretty woman also stared at Xiao Chen, her eyes full of suspicion.

"None of your business," Xiao Chen said carelessly, his tone even sharper than the man's.

"Insolence!" The young man's brows shot up, and icy light flashed from his eyes. "I, an imperial inspector, am questioning you, and you dare to talk back?"

"You are out of line!" the woman added sharply. "State your identity at once. What are you doing here?"

Xiao Chen glanced at them sideways, then landed casually on a rock jutting out of the water. He pointed toward the sky and said, "See that?"

The pair, still on their flying swords, were baffled. The man asked angrily, "What are you getting at?"

"I mean, get lost. As far as you can."

"Trying to run? Too bad… too late."

Xiao Chen appeared before them like a ghost, materializing out of thin air and blocking their escape. Both were horrified. They had always believed that on flying swords, no flying martial artist could match their speed. But now… everything was beyond their imagination.

"What do you want?"

"To kill you," Xiao Chen said calmly, uttering those three words with perfect stillness.

The handsome young man and the pretty woman both showed terror. Their voices trembled. "No… no! If you kill us, you… you won't survive either. Do you know who we are? You cannot… oppose the forces behind us. Spare us… and we'll pretend we never saw you. That way… everyone wins."

"I would like to spare you, but unfortunately… I cannot. If I let you go, many people would be implicated because of me. And you are not innocent—a disagreement and you wanted to take a life. That alone seals your fate." Xiao Chen pronounced their death sentence.

"You… you must know that we are not of this world. We are Cultivators, not something a mere martial artist can contend with. Kill us, and you will not live long either!" the man shouted, his bluster a thin mask over his fear.

"Oh? Cultivators, you say. Then tell me—where do you come from, and why are you building at the Yellow River's banks?"

"We come from the Cultivation World!" the man declared arrogantly. "The strongest of all cultivation realms."

"The strongest? With specimens like you?" Xiao Chen laughed.

"We… we are merely ordinary. But the old monsters who have cultivated for endless ages—any one of them could destroy the entire Mortal World!" the woman cried.

Xiao Chen chuckled lightly. "How terrifying. Then why don't they come?" He pressed on, "How did you get to the Mortal World?"

At this question, both fell silent at once.

Xiao Chen's sharp instincts told him something was wrong. To return from the World of Immortality to the Mortal World was incredibly difficult. This newly heard Cultivation World must be similar, or else why had no one from that realm been heard of for thousands of years?

"Speak—how did you come here? And what is your purpose?"

The young man and woman exchanged a glance, then suddenly burst apart, turning into two clouds of blood mist. They had seemed afraid of death, yet this question drove them to suicide—far beyond Xiao Chen's expectations.

He flicked his fingers lightly, and the Lingxi Sword Wave pulsed out, reducing the falling remains to ash, not a single speck left.

Xiao Chen stood above the Yellow River, lost in thought. The Cultivation World… he had never heard of such a realm before. Something was brewing in the Mortal World; a more powerful world had actually sent its practitioners down. For what purpose?

He was hearing the term "Cultivation World" for the first time, but "Cultivation" itself was not new. There were many ancient legends in the Mortal World of a time when countless cultivation systems existed, and among them were the Cultivators—an exceedingly mysterious and powerful system, said to be far superior to martial artists. But it had vanished long ago, for reasons unknown.

"Cultivation… the strongest system?" A cold smirk curled at the corner of Xiao Chen's mouth.

Using the Eight Aspect Worlds for extreme speed, Xiao Chen flew upstream along the Yellow River. In the blink of an eye, he covered a hundred li and appeared at his home village.

The moment he landed, the old and young of the village all crowded around, thanking him for his kindness. No one had expected that Xiao Chen would truly free them from their corvée labor and rescue them from misery.

Now a half-god, Xiao Chen still maintained a low profile before the villagers. He did not want these honest folk to look at him with strange eyes. Among those dear to him, he refused to play the god; he did not want his friends and family to worship him from afar—what would be left of kinship and friendship then?

Many visitors came to their home to thank Xiao Chen for his great kindness. His parents bustled warmly, inviting everyone to stay for a meal.

During the conversation, Xiao Chen casually mentioned the Heavenly Stele at the village's edge of the Yellow River. To his surprise, he obtained a useful piece of information.

An elder of his father's generation said, "Strange thing, that. A group of immortals riding flying swords—could travel through the air—made a big commotion searching the Yellow River in front of the village for a long time. They even went door to door asking about that stone monument."

Xiao Chen was startled. "Did they find it?"

"No. They went away empty-handed. Very odd—everyone in the village knows that sacred stele is at the bottom of the Yellow River by the village entrance. They found out about it too, and sent many people to dredge, but after months of effort, they found nothing."

Xiao Chen was also puzzled. Why had the Heavenly Stele disappeared? It hadn't been found by outsiders—had it flown away on its own? Or hidden itself?

That was quite possible. The Heavenly Stele's power was unfathomable.

At the same time, he realized that the ancient stele that suppressed the Yellow River was somewhat different from the two steles he had seen in the World of Immortality. The giant stele on Dragon Island and the one before Paradise Lost were both impossible to approach, their auras overwhelming. But the Yellow River stele was entirely different; he had touched it himself as a child, and the villagers had washed the mud off it with water, burned incense, and kowtowed before it—nothing dangerous or terrible ever happened.

Several days passed peacefully. Xiao Chen either accompanied his parents or talked with old friends, never leaving the village once.

Every evening, he would wash marrow and open channels for his parents, infusing his own life essence into their bodies. In just a few days, it was obvious that their wrinkles had grown shallower; they were full of spirit, and strands of black hair had even grown among the white.

On the seventh day, Xiao Chen told his parents he was going to meet some friends and would return in the evening. Then he left the village again.

At the village entrance, he shot into the sky. As he rose, his bones crackled and popped. Though the divine art of forging weapons into the body had been discarded, his current martial body was even stronger than before. He easily altered his appearance, then flew upstream along the Yellow River, heading straight for the Ancestral Dragon Terrace.

He had to change his looks—if a fight broke out, it would implicate the villagers.

Xiao Chen landed far away and walked on foot toward the imposing Ancestral Dragon Terrace. Over a hundred thousand slaves were hauling massive stones, the air hot with their labor. Among the crowd, Xiao Chen spotted a familiar figure—wasn't that Su Ying from the next village? The daughter of the old master, the most beautiful flower for miles around.

When he was studying with the old master, the little girl had been his shadow, always running after him. Then she grew up, and Xiao Chen left the Yellow River for a life of martial wandering.

When he returned at nineteen, he heard that the lively, clever little prodigy had married at eighteen. His friends told him that Su Ying had waited years for him, throwing tantrums and refusing to wed, until she could wait no longer and at eighteen married a gifted scholar from the same township.

Xiao Chen had always thought of her as a little sister. When he heard she had married, he made a special trip that year to see if the scholar was worthy of her and treated her well. The moment Su Ying saw him, she burst into tears and frightened him so much he ran away. He had never actually met the talented scholar.

"Some people are destined to be missed, and some are destined to be met, but I still want to cry…"

Xiao Chen still remembered the last time he saw Su Ying, her tearful words as she sobbed. Now, recalling them, he felt a pang of melancholy. At that time… he truly had seen her as a sister.

Dust stained her clothes, and her face was smudged with grime, yet Su Ying was still so pure and pretty. The years had left few marks on her face.

Hadn't she gone away with her talented husband? Why was she here?

A childhood friend, the little girl who used to trail after him, the gifted young lady—and now she too was serving in forced labor. How could Xiao Chen ignore it? Suddenly, his eyes widened in fury. Two loutish ruffians were harassing Su Ying, daring to molest her on the Yellow River's banks before so many onlookers!

At the same time, a dozen or so energy fluctuations came from upstream. A dozen people flew downstream on flying swords, led by two middle-aged men, the rest a mix of young men and women.

A dozen Cultivators!

Su Ying's screams of fright drew their attention. The leading middle-aged man glanced over, glared at the two ruffians, then continued downstream without pause.

"Let me go! Immortals, save me!" Su Ying cried out to the Cultivators, but they did not stop, flying away as if nothing had happened.

Xiao Chen's fury blazed. These people were truly malevolent!

His divine will lashed out with overwhelming force, and the two ruffians were struck as if by lightning. They let out terrified last cries: "Help… save…"

The departing Cultivators sensed something wrong. When they turned back, they saw the two men frantically waving their arms.

In a flash, the leader and a dozen young men and women turned and flew back.

This only made Xiao Chen angrier. A weak woman's pleas for help were ignored, but the shouts of two thugs brought them running. The injustice burned in his chest.

The ruffians' life force was rapidly fading. Xiao Chen controlled their bodies and forced them to jump into the Yellow River.

At the same moment, Xiao Chen shot into the sky, blocking the Cultivators' path. He flicked his fingers, and the Lingxi Sword Wave erupted. A destructive ripple slammed into two young Cultivators, shredding their bodies into clouds of blood mist that scattered on the wind.

"Who is it?!" The two middle-aged men at the head spun around in shock.

"Ah, a martial artist who can fly. Rare to see such an expert in the Mortal World. Impressive. But have you not heard of the Imperial Order? Cultivators are the kings among practitioners! A paltry martial artist like you—do you think you can stand against us?"

"Cultivation? What has it cultivated in you—dogs?! With a character like yours, you dare call yourselves cultivators, seekers of immortality?" Xiao Chen struck harshly, never one to hold back.

"How dare you! Insult our master—I will kill you!"

Two young men flew forward at once, followed by two pretty women. They rode their flying swords, robes fluttering, looking truly like immortals among men.

"That's 'dare'? He's your master, not mine. Let me show you what real daring looks like."

Xiao Chen stood in midair. The Perfect Vase Seal took shape, and a great crystal bottle appeared above his head, instantly spewing out a torrent of terrifying sacred light.

The two young men in front were horrified. One spat out a crimson flying sword that slashed forward; the other tossed a rope from his waist that grew and flew toward Xiao Chen, binding him. But their efforts were futile against the overwhelming radiance of the Vase Seal. The bloody sword shattered, the rope snapped into fragments, and sacred light flared.

Boom!

The figures in the air were wiped away completely; the two young men were reduced to ashes in an instant.

The two women who had followed were terrified and tried to flee, but it was too late.

Xiao Chen's cold voice sounded like a judgment from the depths of the underworld. "Space sever!"

This was the Space Divine Art he had mastered a year ago. A spatial prison materialized—points of light coalesced, and a blue spherical cage instantly trapped the two women. Then a massive blade of light flashed through it, and the power of space cut them clean apart.

The blue prison shattered. Blood sprayed into the sky.

"That… that is a Space Divine Art!" The two middle-aged leaders were greatly shocked. "You are no martial artist—you are a divine ability user!"

"I am a martial artist."

"Impossible. I witnessed the legendary Space Divine Art, the king among all divine abilities!" One middle-aged man sneered. "But what a pity. Cultivators are the true kings among practitioners. Both divine ability users and martial artists will be eliminated. Today, you die!"

Xiao Chen gazed at them coldly. "This martial artist wants to see what makes you Cultivators so extraordinary. Both of you attack together. Sending these young ones out is just a waste of lives."