"It's a shame... It's just a mountain range."
Weaving swiftly through the dense forest, Su Min's mind raced with thought.
Minshan—similar to the Taishan mountains of her previous world—boasted high peaks but covered only a modest area. The true danger, however, lay in the endless plains that surrounded it. To escape, she would need strength enough to pierce through the layers of military encirclement and reach the distant, weaker outposts of the empire.
Until then, she couldn't afford to get entangled with the soldiers. Her current level, merely at the Body Tempering Stage, wasn't enough to dismiss the threat of sheer numbers. Besides, there was always a bigger fish. She had to stay cautious—always.
Finally reaching a relatively safe place, Su Min allowed herself a breath of relief. She had found refuge halfway up a mountain: a hidden cave tucked into the cliffside, invisible from below.
To reach it, one would either have to rappel down from the peak with a rope or, like her, scale the sheer face using the tiny, almost imperceptible cracks and outcroppings—a feat requiring a superhuman physique.
"Finally safe..." she thought, settling into the shadows of the cave. Only now did she have time to truly reflect on her situation—and the story unfolding around her.
"After all this chaos, I finally remembered—this must be the prologue of the game: 'The Empire's Collapse.'"
Back in her world, getting a helmet for this immersive cultivation game had been no easy task. By the time Su Min had secured one, it was already the third release batch. She hadn't even been able to play properly, relying instead on livestreams and secondhand accounts online.
As a game centered around immortal cultivation, its timeline spanned centuries. Players were tasked with continuously advancing before their natural lifespan ended; failure to do so often led to permanent character death. For new players, the safest path was to embrace a strategy of long-term survival—carefully building strength while avoiding attention.
Throughout the journey, NPCs would age, die, and leave behind descendants, with players interacting across generations. Yet random elements—especially birthplace—meant every story began differently, though all paths eventually converged onto the main storyline.
Su Min had chosen to be born a noblewoman. It made sense: her innate talents and abilities weren't focused on combat, so a privileged background offered a safer early game. If she had picked a battle-focused talent, she might have fought her way out by now, even at the Body Tempering Stage.
"But who would have thought I'd end up like this?" she smiled bitterly to herself.
"If I recall correctly, the first arc of the story is similar to the classic tales of deities and demons—beautiful enchantresses corrupting kingdoms, empires falling into chaos. The emperor seeks immortality, abandoning his humanity. Monsters and evil spirits rise… and this is only the beginning."
~Edit and rewritten by Rikhi, Reiya_Alberich, ReiNyam~
Su Min exhaled slowly and cleared her mind, returning to her cultivation. In the timeless silence of the mountains, days and nights blurred together. While Su Min cultivated steadily, at the foot of the mountain…
"This—"
General Ma grimaced at the sight before him: the corpse of the hunter Su Min had killed. According to the laws of Great Wei, the Minshan mountains, though vast, belonged solely to the emperor. Only families with hereditary hunting rights could legally enter. Regular civilians were forbidden.
This particular hunter had been among the best—one of the few remaining experts familiar with the treacherous terrain. Losing him now meant the army could easily lose their way deep in the mountains.
"You're telling me that a squad—what, fifteen men?—couldn't catch a single little girl?" General Ma barked, his expression dark.
The squad leader, flanked by two wounded soldiers being dragged to the medics, knelt stiffly under the general's withering glare. He had been the one to shoot an arrow at Su Min—an arrow she had effortlessly split midair with her sword before escaping the encirclement.
"The girl's skills are extraordinary," the squad leader said bitterly. "She cut my arrow in half and moved like a phantom. Besides, we were under strict orders to capture her alive. We couldn't risk letting fly with volleys."
They were an archer unit, capable of drawing great war bows. But with the live capture order in place, only the squad leader had carried arrows—the others bore shields and nets. General Ma's face darkened further.
"How could that be?" he muttered in disbelief, turning toward the brothel keeper who had been feeding him information. His look clearly said: You lied to me.
You said she had no real cultivation, just a momentary burst of strength at most—enough to kill one or two, but nothing more. And yet, she cut her way out of an encirclement with a single sword stroke, then vanished without a trace.
Ten steps, one kill; a thousand miles, no lingering shadow.
You call her a 'little girl'? Even the empire's top martial artists fight like that!
"This... is a big problem."
Ignoring General Ma's accusatory glare, the madam hurriedly excused herself and left the camp, her heart pounding with unease. She had to report immediately.
The worst-case scenario had come to pass. Somehow, that girl had crossed the threshold—the one separating mortals from cultivators. Now, she was far beyond anything the madam could handle.
Soon, deep in an underground chamber—
A young, beautiful girl struggled weakly in chains. As a sinister ritual completed, her skin withered in an instant, her youth consumed, leaving only a dried skeleton clattering to the floor. From the shadows, a decayed figure licked its cracked lips with grotesque satisfaction.
"Mistress," the madam knelt, trembling. "The worst has happened. That girl, she—"
Trembling, the madam knelt and recounted everything she had witnessed.
"Early Body Tempering stage—yes, that would explain it. She does indeed have that level of power now." To her surprise, her mistress remained calm.
"What?" she gasped.
"He's already begun mobilizing troops. A hundred thousand soldiers will flood the mountains from all directions. That girl... she won't escape."
The monstrous figure ran a shriveled tongue across its bark-like skin, a sickly smile tugging at its lips.
"The Human Emperor is born under the protection of the Purple Star's true essence (Ziwei Zhenyuan-- a royal-protective energy in cultivation lore). No cultivator can harm him. And the daughters of the Purple Star (Ziwei)… they are rare treasures in the mortal world. Unlike that girl, they can be harvested reliably. A shame, really—one of her would have sufficed, but now we'll need multiple Purple Star daughters instead…"
"Hiss—"
The madam shuddered. She had grown up in Great Wei. To her, the idea of forcing the emperor himself to offer up royal bloodlines was so audacious it bordered on madness.
But her master? Her master thought nothing of it.
In the deepening twilight, tens of thousands of imperial soldiers began to march.
From every direction, a vast human tide surged toward Minshan.
The hunt had begun.