CHAPTER 25: CHAPTER 25

In the ten years Ethan had spent at Serene Mirror Lake, the system’s seemingly endless stream of rewards had left him a small trove fit for a sect’s war hall.

He had gained blades sharper than wind, daggers keen enough to split spiritual auras, and armors light yet harder than steel.

Most of these weapons were top-quality spiritual artifacts, worthy of envy in any large sect.

A few were of the legendary earthly rank—rare, but still not peerless.

Only two items in his collection could be called heavenly treasures

The first, an indestructible suit of armor, woven with runes of protection and self-defense.

The second, a pair of ethereal wings crafted from the gleaming white-gold bones of a true ancient phoenix.

The wings were Ethan’s dearest treasure, countering his one true weakness—flight. Unlike spiritual cultivators who could soar for hours even in the Qi-Refining Realm, Ethan’s physical cultivation alone offered only short, exhausting bursts in the air. Now, when the wings were unfurled, every beat sent him streaking through the sky with a speed and grace near that of a phoenix soaring over mountains at dawn.

He was just holding that pair of wings, running fingers over their feathery runes, when a subtle shift brushed his senses—a ripple in the air, a footfall too measured for any of his neighbors.

Someone approached.

Instantly, Ethan dismissed the heavenly treasures to the system’s vault, letting his ordinary blue robe and bamboo hat remain his only armor.

A moment later, a clear, calm woman’s voice sounded at the gate.

"Does Ethan reside here?"

He approached the courtyard door, one hand resting casually on the latch but spirit taut as a drawn bow.

"Who are you?" he called, opening the door with the easy confidence of a man with nothing to hide and no intention of showing weakness.

At the threshold, poised like snow on the eaves, stood a young woman in radiant white silk. Her ponytail was bound by icy-blue ribbon, and on her brow a silver hairpin glimmered. Beneath the dignified lines of her dress, she moved with a chill grace, face as beautiful as the first frost and twice as cold. The arrogance and distance in her violet eyes could have frozen moonlight itself.

"The Saintness, Seraphina," she replied. Her voice was as even as the still lake in midwinter.

A beat of surprise flickered in Ethan’s eyes before his expression returned to unimpressed indifference.

The saint herself, here? After ten years away, Seraphina had returned from her legendary solitary cultivation—and now she had come, unbidden, to his humble door.

What is this? Are you here to humiliate me in person this time? Accuse me again? Maybe you’ll say I’m still too filthy to be your protector, not fit to stand with you. Or is this all just for show, to satisfy the sect’s decorum? The old bitterness flared for a heartbeat, but Ethan masked it beneath a stony calm.

"What do you want?" he said evenly, lips set in a line.

No sooner had he spoken than a new voice rang out, sharp and contemptuous.

"How presumptuous! How dare you speak to the Saintness in such a tone!"

A young man stood behind Seraphina, blade at his hip, face both handsome and familiar. He carried himself with the confidence of someone who had found the right side of power early and never left it.

Ethan’s memory snapped into focus. The features, the stance, the subtle edge of rivalry—the man was Kain, his old adversary from the outer sect.

Though Ethan had beaten him three years running in the official duels—each time one-sided—Kain had still managed, somehow, to leap into the inner sect before him.

So, that’s how it is. Pulled up by the Saintness herself. No wonder he made it through before me, even with only middling talent.

The memory stung, but Ethan felt only distant bemusement now as he sized Kain up. The sword-bearer was still proud, his aura cultivated but lacking fire.

"Who are yo—" Ethan began, then cut himself off, recognition blooming. "I remember now. You’re Kain, aren’t you? I never expected someone so unremarkable to stand beside the Saintness. Truly, this world is full of surprises."

Kain’s face contorted, pride and humiliation warring behind his eyes. "You...!" He had spent years trying to erase the memory of his defeats by Ethan, yet here, it became public knowledge again with just a few words.

Ethan’s tone dropped to mock gentleness.

"You lost to me three years in a row, always with the hopes of the peak behind you. Yet you sailed into the inner sect ahead of me—must have been a little help from your... connections. It’s not talent, is it?"

Kain bristled, but Seraphina cut through the tension, her tone icy.

"Ethan, don’t be presumptuous. I did not come here for petty arguments. I have a message for you."

Her maturity and self-restraint were obvious.

In ten years, she had changed—her face older, her presence a little heavier, but the aloofness, the wall of superiority, was unchanged.

"You’re here to deliver a message?" Ethan’s laugh rang out coldly, eyes narrowing with skepticism. "What words should we exchange, you and I?"

Seraphina’s gaze was unblinking.

"Control yourself, Ethan. My master has sent me to resolve the events of ten years ago. Listen carefully, for what you did—peeking at female disciples bathing—you have endured ten years’ punishment at Serene Mirror Lake. Now, if you acknowledge your mistake and offer true repentance, the sect will allow you to leave exile. You may reclaim your place as an inner sect disciple."

Kain stepped forward, his voice brittle, "You should be grateful, Ethan. The sect could have destroyed your cultivation, cast you out to die alone. Yet Master shows mercy. Don’t be stubborn."

Seraphina pressed, each word crisp with command.

"Repent, and the punishment ends. This is the will of Master. Do not be ignorant of the fortune before you."

Ethan’s expression didn’t so much as twitch.

"Repentance? For what crime? The false charge your sect placed on me? The whisper campaign, the ruined name, the exile that nearly broke me?"

Kain’s fists clenched, anger boiling from years of suppressed shame.

"How ungrateful can you be? The sect has tolerated you long enough—why can’t you recognize right from wrong?!"

A sharp chill entered Ethan’s eyes, his gaze became a sword, slicing into Kain’s bluster. "Do you have the right to speak here?" he asked coldly.

Seraphina stiffened, her breath caught. The tension in the courtyard snapped tight, the air between the three tense as drawn steel.

And so they stood, the snowy silence pressing down, the long shadow of the past rising anew at Ethan’s door.