Ascension of The Unholy Immortal

Wu Jiang gaze turned solemn as he looked toward the final gate, the one wreathed in silence and black mist.

"…is the Gate of Silence. It contains no opponent, no flame, no lightning. Only a space where time is disordered and thought turns against itself. There, your heart will be laid bare. You must endure the void, confront your truths, and find clarity amid madness. Fail… and you will lose yourself entirely."

Kai frowned slightly. That one… sounded the most dangerous of all.

The illusion faded, the gates vanishing like mist in the wind. Wu Jiang turned back toward Kai, his eyes cold and unwavering.

"These are the Three Martial Trials. Few have passed one. Fewer still survived . Only three people managed to completed all three and all of them ascended along time ago."

Wu Jiang turned back, expression cold and regal. "You have three days to prepare. Once you begin, there is no retreat. Pass all three, and I will grant you my Fate Aura."

"Very well," he said. "I'll pass all three."

Wu Jiang nodded once. "Good. Then prepare yourself. On the dawn of the fourth day, the First Gate will open."

He vanished into mist, leaving Kai and Sia alone atop the bone platform.

Sia turned to Kai, her eyes inscrutable. "You realize what you're walking into, don't you?"

Kai gave a faint smile and nodded.

Sia studied him, her eyes narrowing ever so slightly. She had seen countless prodigies in her time—kings, demons, saints, monsters—but something in Kai's expression gave her pause.

It wasn't arrogance. It wasn't recklessness. It was.....

"…Good," she said at last. "Because once you step into the Furnace of Will, even I won't be able to reach you."

Kai didn't answer. He turned his gaze toward the projection's lingering afterglow, where the Gate of Flame had once hovered. Even though the vision was gone, the sensation lingered in the air—like distant heat on the skin.

Three days.

Three days to prepare for a trial that had shattered saints, humbled geniuses, and burned away countless ambitions.

But Kai wasn't afraid.

Fear was a mortal sentiment. And he had long since set foot on the path to sever mortality.

He exhaled slowly, sitting cross-legged once more upon the white-bone platform. His mind withdrew from the outside world as he entered meditation—but this time, his focus was honed like never before.

In the vast inner sea of his consciousness, the black mirror emerged, hovering silently above the soul alter.

Qi flowed into him in torrents, He circulated his cultivation technique again, he needs to be on the best condition.

Above him, clouds churned into a spiraling vortex.

Sia watched for a long moment, then turned to leave.

As she drifted away, her form began to fade, mistlike, like the revenant she truly was. But before she vanished entirely, her voice drifted back to him, soft as a sigh.

"Don't die, Kai. I didn't go through all this just to see you end in flames."

Then she was gone.

The platform fell silent once more. Only Kai remained.

Three Days Later — At Dawn

The heavens split open with a thunderous boom. Crimson clouds surged above the horizon, and from the heart of the mountains, the Gate of Flame erupted into being.

It hung above the scorched peak of Blazewind Mountain, its surface carved with the names of those who had entered—most, scarred and seared into the stone like epitaphs. Only ten names shone in golden script. The ten who had survived.

An eleventh inscription began to etch itself as Kai approached. His name burned itself into the obsidian wall: Kai.

Wu Jiang stood nearby, arms crossed behind his back. His gaze was impassive, but his aura pressed against the sky like an immovable spear. "No one can accompany you beyond this point. Once you enter, you are alone."

Kai stepped forward.

"I was always alone," he said quietly.

Then he stepped through.

The Gate flared, consuming him in golden fire—and slammed shut behind him with a sound like the heavens closing their eye.

Wu Jiang watched the gate for a moment, then murmured under his breath, almost too soft for the wind to carry.

"…Let's see.."

Inside the Gate of Flame

The world shifted.

Kai landed on a platform of molten iron, suspended above a sea of living fire.

…The heat was indescribable.

It wasn't the physical kind that scorched skin and hair—this flame bypassed the flesh entirely, burning directly into his soul, his will, his very intent. Even with his powerful cultivation and body, Kai felt as though he stood naked before a wrathful sun.

The molten sea below churned with violent fury, casting up jets of flame that formed twisted shapes—warriors forged from fire, ancient weapons that sang in tongues of agony, phantoms of failed trials eternally screaming their last.

Above him, suspended in a burning sky, a titanic furnace hung—its shape indistinct, more idea than form. It pulsed with will, breathing like a living creature. Every exhale sent down waves of flame-qi that slammed into him like divine decrees.

Kai grit his teeth, stabilizing his stance on the trembling platform.

A voice echoed from the inferno below, neither male nor female, ancient yet ever-changing.

"Here, forge thy will. Here, prove thyself. For fire reveals all things—what is weak, burns. What is false, crumbles. What is true… endures."

"Only your true Martial Intent shall remain. Step forward—and forge yourself anew."

As the words faded, the platform rumbled. A path of glowing obsidian stones rose from the molten sea, stretching forward into the heart of the firestorm. Each step ahead blazed with a different hue, some golden, others crimson, some a deep purple that twisted perception.

Kai narrowed his eyes.

He stepped onto the first stone.

Instantly, the world shifted.

His vision blurred, and he found himself elsewhere—a battlefield he recognized.

It was a long-forgotten memory—one from before the Separation, before the black mirror had ever come into his possession. A fragment from the days when Liang was still young, newly stepped into the boundless and treacherous world of cultivation.