Gu Tian, who had appeared on the periphery of the Secret Realm, was wondering how to proceed.
"Is the primary problem the magical beasts?" Gu Tian murmured, a trace of doubt in her voice. Knowing that this place should be infested with magical creatures made her waver. Although she possessed several self-protection treasures, encountering a beast at the Golden Core level, or even one in the Foundation Establishment stage, would be enough to erase her from existence before she could even react.
"What else that I should know are you hiding from me, Master?" Gu Tian demanded in frustration.
"Do not dwell on nonsense. If I haven't told you, it's because it lacks importance," Luo Yan declared coldly. "Furthermore, if you cannot even resolve such trivial setbacks, speaking of ascension is useless; even recovering your Spiritual Root would be an impossible dream."
Luo Yan spoke without mincing words. She didn't care in the slightest if Gu Tian complained; her only interest was determining if the young woman was worthy of her inheritance or if she should move directly to the next candidate. As a former Empress, her soul was immortal; if this prospect failed, she would simply sleep for a few hundred years until she found that youth named Su Feng, before her soul's stability was compromised.
"The current generations are far too soft," Luo Yan added with disdain. "In my time, challenging Golden Core monsters while barely in the Qi Refinement realm was nothing out of the ordinary."
Upon hearing her, Gu Tian couldn't help but roll her eyes. She found it hard to believe such a feat was possible, but considering she was talking about the Ancient Era, she supposed the laws of possibility were very different back then.
Although she had many words held back, she chose to keep them to herself. This was her last chance to recover her Spiritual Root and aspire to ascension; although facing such beasts would be a nightmare, she would simply have to find a way to avoid them.
With that thought, she began to move forward cautiously through the thicket.
Due to her slow pace, the journey took much longer than she would have liked. "Being a mortal is truly a nuisance," she muttered in frustration as she cut her way through.
If her protector were still with her, she could have reached the center of the Secret Realm in the blink of an eye, but since he had been left behind, it was useless to lament. "Given that he hasn't appeared in all this time, he most likely died at the hands of that bastard from the demonic cult," she said with a bitter sigh, accepting her solitude.
Hours passed quickly, and a persistent thought began to unsettle her.
"Isn't it a bit too empty?" Gu Tian asked aloud, breaking the silence.
There was no trace of beasts, no sounds of fighting, nor anything out of the ordinary. The atmosphere felt strangely desolate.
"Could they have gone extinct?" she wondered, though she knew it was unlikely.
It was the only explanation she could imagine, unless luck was simply on her side and she hadn't run into anything in all that time. However, in a Secret Realm, such calm felt more like a warning than a relief.
"Master Yan, how close is the first node?" Gu Tian asked, stopping.
"You are standing right on top of it," Luo Yan replied immediately.
Gu Tian frowned and looked down. She could only see common earth and wild vegetation; she observed closely but perceived no trace of a formation or spiritual energy.
"Did you hide it?" Gu Tian inquired.
"If I hid it, not even an expert in the Nascent Soul realm could find it; it would be pointless," Luo Yan replied. "It seems someone destroyed it a long time ago. You are not the first challenger to set foot here," she murmured, a hint of surprise in her voice.
"Could it have been those youths from the Tian Yu Sect?"
"Not at all. I can distinguish the residual traces; they are centuries old."
"This is strange," Gu Tian murmured as she continued moving through the Secret Realm. "Do you think they took care of eliminating all the beasts?"
"It is a possible deduction, but unlikely."
"Why do you think so?" she asked.
"I had designed isolated spaces for the beasts to breed, anticipating that someone might try to annihilate them all without completing the trial. However, it seems there was some kind of failure and those creatures never descended to fulfill their purpose," the Master explained.
Gu Tian half-accepted her words. Regardless, in the absence of beasts or immediate dangers, she decided to head directly toward the heart of the Secret Realm.
Due to her mortal condition, she was forced to rest on several occasions; however, relying on the use of various artifacts, she finally managed to reach the center of the domain. But what she found there left her petrified.
The lush vegetation of the place had been reduced to ashes. As far as the eye could see, there stretched only a wasteland of charred earth and desolation; it was a truly apocalyptic scene.
"This is..." she stammered, shocked by the magnitude of the disaster. "Master, what does this mean?"
"I did not design this place like this at all," Luo Yan declared. Her voice was dry, heavy with a dark mood that made one's blood run cold. "Some bastard actually dared to profane and destroy what I had created with such care."
Gu Tian said nothing more. The silence that followed was sepulchral, broken only by the crunch of ash beneath her feet.
She kept moving until she reached the epicenter of the realm. There, an ancient palace still stood firmly, but what should have been a marvelous sight had been transformed into a grotesque vision.
The walls were charred and bore deep gouges—slashes several meters deep that furrowed the stone like open scars. If the construction materials hadn't been of exceptionally high quality, the structure would have collapsed centuries ago.
Witnessing it, Gu Tian felt a shiver. The degree of violence carved into every column and every wall was extreme. It was clear that whoever had caused such devastation harbored a visceral hatred toward the creator of this place.
Gu Tian swallowed hard, noting her master's somber and complicated mood. With a hesitant step, she continued forward until she soon reached her final destination. However, just before crossing the threshold, a voice forced her to stop dead in her tracks.
"Luo Tian?"