Paragon of Sin

Hazy and indistinct.

Surreal and floating.

A world of overflowing golden light spewing out from catastrophic fissures, bleeding across the landscape and transforming the lands as far as the eyes can see into a resplendently, beautifully gorgeous metallic sheen of gold. A liberating feeling ruled by intense combat, flesh met flesh, metal met scales, and two souls clashing unhesitatingly with everything on the line.

A sudden loss.

It wasn't unsatisfying or undeserved.

"Hah!!" A deep, greedy inhale resounded as the world returned. Pakhet felt her body lunge upwards slightly as the feeling of being awake, alive, and aware flushed her soul, zapping across her senses, and slowly dawning upon her hazy consciousness.

Her first sight was a warm, white light from a glowing stone of gentle aura, diffusing a rich, medicinal, yet incredibly flagrant, and floral scent stimulating her senses of touch and smell.

'I'm alive?' Her most recent memories slowly returned as her rising torso fell back down as turbid air left her functioning lungs and the faint feeling of dried sweat sticking to her skin. The last thing she remembered was a tall, nearly divine figure wielding a cosmos and the endless expanse, crashing it against her body without mercy.

She remembered death.

A steady, oddly magnetic, and easy-to-listen voice caught Pakhet's attention. With what little strength she had, her eyes moved to see a peerless beauty that was not the slightest inferior, perhaps even greater than Sage Imentet, sitting beside her on a wooden chair next to a small table that had a wash bin and rags.

The young woman's appearance was astonishingly breathtaking, her eyes contained the purest light, with the darkest hair that could bring a beautiful night to shame, and her smile could steal the stars and sway the world. She was none other than the Shard of Heaven forever changed, Wei Xiaotian.

Pakhet's mind rapidly calmed down as she felt her bodily strength was non-existent. She couldn't muster the slightest bit of her extraordinary strength nor access her once vast wellspring of mystic energies. Her body was bereft of all essence.

"Where am I?" She weakly asked.

Wei Xiaotian glanced over Pakhet's slender, physically toned, and exquisitely beautiful body acquired after extensive physical training. She slowly grabbed a fresh rag and dipped it into the medicinal liquid. "Lady Pakhet, you're in His Majesty's private residence—the Original Dawn Palace. While it's not the true Original Dawn Palace within his territory, I'm told it's no less inferior."

"..." Pakhet fell silent and somber. She was alive and currently in the Original Dawn Palace? There was no need to question who 'his Majesty' was. Who else but Wei Wuyin? The Neo-Dawn Alchemic Saint and Neo-Dawn Ascendant Emperor?

'He kept his word after all,' Pakhet admitted her loss, but she genuinely hadn't expected that Wei Wuyin would have followed through and saved her life after she had essentially imbued her body and soul with heaven's power, becoming an avatar of the Law of Metal. She had been too far gone.

Wei Xiaotian began carefully wiping off the sweat from Pakhet's body using gentle dabs of the wet rag. She then got a dry rag and proceeded to dry her skin, causing it to glisten with a healthy shade after a while. She did this until Pakhet's body was entirely clean, bathed, and dried like an infirm elder.

"We lost." Her enfeebled state slowly improved as she silently allowed Wei Xiaotian to wipe every inch of her body clean. She wasn't the slightest embarrassed or ashamed of being taken care of. Her mind was not so weak to accept her circumstances. Moreover, it was better than having Wei Wuyin himself clean her body.

"You did," Wei Xiaotian softly admitted.

Pakhet's right hand began to twitch until it half-clenched into a fist, and then she let it go as a turbid breath left her lips. They were tricked. While the others were likely unaware, Wei Wuyin had planned it step-by-step until they were cornered. Every reaction was calculated, and every emotion he had leaked was certainly fabricated to suit his stage.

The No-Name Galaxy?

All of it—lost.

However, she couldn't gather any feelings of hatred or grievance toward being schemed against. Perhaps in the depths of her heart, she wanted the state of the No-Name Galaxy to be changed. But without a Supreme Sage, the eight differing opinions of the Sages of the galaxy were unable to fully determine a leader. She was strong, but it wasn't as if any of the eight Sages could force the others to submit given their unique circumstances of shared cultivation bases and interconnected souls.

Moreover, some of them were obstinate and overly ambitious, so they wouldn't submit in good faith. The previous status quo was in their favor. Why change?

Now, things were destined to change. Whether they liked it or not. Things will change.

She turned her head with difficulty, feeling the softness of the pillow and the coolness emanating from it. Surprisingly, she didn't feel lost, only curious. What awaited the future? For the first time, she didn't know what to expect.

"Where is he?" Pakhet asked slowly.

Wei Xiaotian organized the rags. "Out sorting matters pertaining to the new vassals of our Neo-Dawn Empire." When she first heard of how Wei Wuyin had seized the opportunity to acquire a galaxy as his vassal, she was deeply astonished given how short his stay had been. However, step-by-step, as she was told by Su Mei of the developments leading to that defining wager, and the cunning trick used to placate and lure the leaders of this galaxy into his plot, she was able to understand with little disbelief.

They had lost the moment he had stepped foot in this galaxy.

They just hadn't known it yet.

"..." New vassals. The losing portion of their wager was to submit to the Neo-Dawn Empire as vassals, and it wasn't limited to a specific individual, but every major and minor leader that had been gathered across the galaxy for this galactic discussion had been a part of it. They had all sworn the greatest of oaths imaginable, a Heaven-Bond Mythical Oath, and there was no turning back.

Looking back, the discussion to gather all those crucial voices was carefully planned. The theft was likely performed all for that single purpose. How sinister.

Pakhet's lips curved into a faint smile.

Her smile gradually faded as she stared at Wei Xiaotian. "Is he…actually in the Mystic Star Phase?" She wanted to know. Was it a trick? A careful bit of wording manipulation that not a single person at their level or across the entire galaxy was able to determine. After all, they had outlawed methods that could affect cultivation, this went both ways, toward increasing and describing, while pellets such as the Mortal Returning Pellet were similarly forbidden.

Unlike mortals, Ascended beings couldn't lose their accumulation and regress in cultivation. An Earthly Saint, even if they lost their physical bodies, would forever be Earthly Saints. As an Ascended being, you could only become weaker or lose your cultivation entirely, such as Wu Yu who lost his physical body. You could only lose your Mystic Soul, not have it regress.

She couldn't figure out how Wei Wuyin had such impossibly strong strength as a mere mortal.

Wei Xiaotian blinked. "Of course."

Pakhet softly breathed out in relief. While she knew that Wei Wuyin had a terrifying physique and blood lineage to surpass the conventional logic of strength, she was satisfied with knowing that Wei Wuyin was a young, horrifying monster of a cultivator.

"What's your name?"

"Wei Xiaotian," Wei Xiaotian answered with a hint of pride in her voice.

"You're his relative? Or his wife?" Pakhet asked out of pure curiosity.

"Neither? Both? I don't know," Wei Xiaotian placed her index finger on her luscious lips as she thought about the topic. Technically, she had been completed by Wei Wuyin's Yang Source. In a way, she was his relative. However, to say they were blood-related wasn't exactly the truth or at least, the entire truth.

As for his wife, she wasn't certain either. In the end, it didn't matter to her much as long as she could cultivate freely and enjoy life.

"What a strange answer," Pakhet's curiosity remained unsated. She gave up trying to ask any more personal questions. "What of the others? The Sages."

"They're assisting His Majesty in taking control of the Major Regions and Minor Regions. He wanted to understand the various details of the galaxy more."

"How long have I been asleep?" Pakhet didn't find the Sages' actions as strange given they had lost the wager tethered by a Heaven-Bound Mythical Oath.

"Roughly thirty-two months, or nearly three years."

"What?!" Pakhet was taken aback.

"Don't be surprised. You can't sense it, but we're currently in accelerated time. It's only been a few days outside."

"You-you've been taking care of me since the beginning?" Pakhet had to quiet her beating heart as she asked in disbelief.

Wei Xiaotian shook her head. "His Majesty took care of you for two weeks. Your soul was in a near-irreparable state, your body was crushed into a million fragments, and your mind was mutated by heavenly radiance. According to what he told me before he left, you were no different than a living Supreme Heavenly Treasure, a destined opportunity that would have benefited your entire galaxy for tens of thousands of years if left alone.

"I've known that some cultivators could become heavenly treasures, but to think it was possible to revert them back into cultivators. His Majesty worked extremely hard and made great sacrifices to bring you back."

"..." Pakhet didn't need to know the entire process to realize that Wei Wuyin likely underwent an extensive surgical operation to repair her soul, body, and mind after she recklessly accepted the power of a heavenly realm of Law into her body. The fact she was still alive was a miracle in and of itself.

"What sacrifices?" Pakhet might be a Sage and a supremely powerful woman, but she was naturally a curious creature, and she felt a heart-pounding urge to find out what changed about her. Without her spiritual energy, she couldn't inspect her current condition.

"His Majesty said you might want to know. So I'll tell you: A Soul Pill. None other than that Soul Pill."

"..." Pakhet.

There were very few Sages across the vast Dark Void that didn't know about the Mystic-Heaven grade Soul Pill. There were even fewer who didn't yearn for it day and night, even if they didn't know it existed. While it could be likened to an Essence Pill by Resonant Soul Realm's Supreme Sages' standards, to those beneath that legendary realm, it was a heavenly blessing of the highest, and could grant them an opportunity to step into the Resonant Soul Realm!

"You don't have to worry too much, his Majesty said that a single Soul Pill pales in comparison to a Transcendent-quality Mystic-Earth graded Essence Pill, so it isn't too valuable." Wei Xiaotian stood up as she began to prepare a meal. The smell of chicken soup began to permeate the room. Pakhet couldn't digest solids yet.

Pakhet was in disbelief. Comparing a Transcendent-tier Mystic-Earth Essence Pill to a Mystic-Heaven Soul Pill was insane to begin with, yet she couldn't argue against it, mostly because she was entirely ignorant of a transcendent-quality Mystic-graded alchemical product and its effects. In fact, she hadn't even heard of a transcendent-quality Mystic-graded product ever appearing before.

Ever.

She could only sigh in her heart as Wei Xiaotian fed her delicious soup. Before, she was asleep, so Wei Xiaotian had to feed her by slowly pouring the soup into her mouth, but now that she was awake, she could properly eat, drink, and digest herself.

Pakhet had acquiesced to her circumstances and was willing to be taken care of by Wei Xiaotian, listening to Wei Wuyin's arrangements without arguments. She had no strength to fight against it. However, she was entirely unaware that Wei Wuyin hadn't given her the entire Soul Pill.

Instead, he carefully extracted a portion of its alchemical Essence and properties, lowering its quality from high to low, and liquidated it…creating a delicious chicken soup that was easily digestible.

After all, one of the paths of Alchemy was cooking. While a less traversed path, Wei Wuyin was no less proficient.

Wei Wuyin calmly observed the No-Name Galaxy from its outskirts, standing near the edge of the Minor Elysium.

Behind him, his Ascendants, Sages, Mystic Overlords, and Original Magistrates stood. Beside him, his wives and Wei Si stood. And before him, his new galaxy stood.

With a not-so-subtle grin, he stood triumphantly!

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