Chapter 32: The Corpse Beneath Our Feet

  Adam sat quietly atop the roof of his abode, legs crossed, Red curled beside him like a coiled bundle of fur and light.

  The moon hung low tonight, swollen and pale, casting the clouds in a pearlescent sheen. The stars twinkled faintly beyond it, but Adam wasn't looking at the sky.

  He was staring east.

  Toward Eastwind Sect’s distant territory.

  "Celestial Delight Co.," he muttered.

  Mozart. Cheesecake. Pasta. A piano.

  Someone from Earth was out there.

  His heart beat a little faster at the thought. It had been a long time since anything reminded him of home.

  But as he considered it seriously, a frown crept onto his face.

  "Eastwind is... far," he murmured.

  He did the math, not out loud, but in the quiet corners of his mind.

  When he'd tested his flying boots, the best he'd clocked was eighty-one miles per hour.

  Not bad for a cultivator who hadn't specialized in speed.

  But even at full throttle, no stops, it would take him a full month of continuous flight to reach the edge of Eastwind territory.

  That was—

  "Fifty-eight thousand three hundred and twenty miles," he whispered, blinking. "...Wait."

  Adam stilled.

  He turned the numbers over in his head again.

  "...That’s way more than the circumference of Earth."

  He stared off into the horizon again, expression blank.

  A breeze tugged at his robes.

  Red gave a questioning whine, as if sensing the sudden existential dread bubbling within his master.

  Adam didn't reply.

  Instead, his thoughts wandered back—back to the moment in the Titan’s heart. The moment his body nearly became a sword. The moment that ancient, slumbering will whispered into his mind.

  It hadn’t said much.

  But among the chaotic visions and disjointed images… there was one thing he remembered clearly.

  A sense of scale.

  An understanding, not in words, but in feeling.

  the same dread that had flooded him in the Titan’s heart, when its living flesh became his sky, and molten history burned through his veins.

  That the very ground beneath him—the mountains, the valleys, the oceans—they were formed from the still-decaying body of a being so vast, so unfathomable, that the continents were mere bruises on its skin.

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  And now, with this simple calculation… it hit him.

  "This whole world," he muttered, voice barely audible, "is just one side of the Titan."

  He leaned back, hands behind him on the tiles, eyes wide as they stared skyward.

  "...At this speed, it would take me seventy years just to fly from one end of this corpse to the other."

  A low, bitter chuckle escaped his lips.

  "Seventy. Years."

  He looked down at his hands, flexing his fingers slowly.

  "We’re specks living on a corpse. Mites crawling across the body of a dead god."

  He wasn't even sure why the realization unsettled him so much. After all, he'd been in this world for a while now. He’d fought mantises the size of trees, seen beasts that could speak, stared into the eyes of things that shouldn’t have existed.

  And yet…

  This was different.

  Because this meant that everything—every war, every sect, every divine inheritance, every celestial phenomenon—was happening on something else's corpse.

  And that something had once lived.

  "What kind of being was the Titan?" Adam whispered. "And what kind of thing killed it?"

  He didn’t want to think too hard about that last part.

  Red nuzzled against his arm softly, grounding him. Adam gave the fox a weak smile and scratched behind his ears

  “…Thanks, buddy.”

  After a long silence, he stood.

  He stared eastward again, but this time... there was no urgency in his eyes.

  "One month just to cross this thing at full speed…" he muttered.

  He shook his head.

  "Nope. Not doing that."

  According to the gossip circling among the outer disciples lately, that bizarre restaurant—Celestial Delight Co.—was expanding. One of them had even claimed to see a merchant carrying branded crates from the company heading west. Another swore up and down that a branch had opened in a mid-tier sect only three territories away.

  Apparently, they were spreading like spiritual weeds in fertile Qi.

  It wouldn’t be long before one popped up here.

  And besides...

  The Sect Leader was approaching a breakthrough. After decades of bitter closed-door cultivation, he was on the verge of stepping into the Soul Transformation Realm. Once he did, the sect's territory and influence would grow—fast.

  Give it twenty-five years, Adam figured.

  By then, they'd have a branch here for sure.

  And he’d be stronger. More prepared. Hopefully not dead.

  “Let the restaurant come to me,” Adam said, stretching his arms with a lazy yawn. “I’ll wait.”

  Red barked once as if in approval, tail wagging lazily.

  Adam sat back down, eyes drifting to the star-choked sky above.

  There was time.

  And in a world built on a god’s corpse, where cities crawled across ancient flesh and rumors of Earth-born cheesecake echoed in mountaintop sects...

  Patience was more than a virtue.

  It was survival.

  For seventeen years, Adam walked the path of cultivation with the patience of a river carving stone.

  He used his Light Qi until its glow became second nature—until healing a wound took no more thought than drawing breath.

  He honed his Metal Qi until his sword-arm vibrated in a higher frequency, its edge singing through the air with lethal precision. And his body till even the organs of his body now felt like metal when Metal Qi flowed through.

  He tempered his Death Qi until it no longer felt like a curse, but a cold and steady companion—a shadow that walked beside him, neither enemy nor friend.

  And with every spell cast, every technique repeated, his Qi pathways widened—slowly, inexorably—until they could hold no more.

  No grand revelations. No sudden breakthroughs. Just the quiet certainty of a man who had spent nearly two decades grinding his way forward, one step at a time.

  When the work was done, he stood at the edge of Foundation Establishment’s third realm—his foundation unshakable, his path clear.

  Next stop: Foundation Establishment Fourth Realm.

  The fourth steps were brutal: strengthening the Qi pathways which he has expanded. His trifecta of Qi pathways which is separately connected to each dantians

  And to do that…

  He had to rupture them.

  Micro-ruptures. Controlled tearing of his own Qi pathways.

  Just enough to damage them. Not enough to destroy them.

  Like training a muscle, but instead of dumbbells, he’d be swallowing a Qi Pathway Stimulus Pill — a compound so potent that even advanced cultivators handled it with care.

  The pill forced Qi through his channels at insane speeds, rupturing them in microscopic layers. Then his body would regenerate stronger, thicker conduits. Rinse and repeat. Twenty rounds minimum before they were "ready."

  But here’s the kicker—

  One mistake?

  “With three dantians pulling Qi in triplicate, the energy wouldn’t just go rogue…”

  No.

  It would flood his body like a tidal wave through a straw, stretching his flesh from the inside out.

  He’d bloat like an overfilled balloon—skin bulging, bones creaking, eyes popping out like stress balls—

  Until finally…

  POP.

  A single wet explosion.

  Just guts, blood mist, and whatever was left of his soul swirling around like soup stock in a pressure cooker.

  Classic cultivation.

  Eight Years Later

  The sky was clear.

  Not a single cloud in sight—just a vast stretch of cerulean blue, endless and unmarred. The air carried the subtle crispness of high altitude, the kind that left one breathless if they weren’t used to the thinness. Crimson Peak’s main house stood tall, its crimson-tiled roofs gleaming under the noon sun like a polished blade.

  Adam stood at the edge of the veranda, arms crossed, wind brushing through his hair. Behind him, the three young cultivators he’d watched grow for over a decade now stood with steady footing and glowing eyes.

  Literally glowing.

  Lan Xiaomei’s eyes shone with a warm, blue-green hue, flickering faintly like a fountain of life. Aria’s glow was cool and crystalline, a deep blue that matched her regal bearing. Both had broken through to Foundation Establishment—First Realm.

  And then there was Lan Xiaoyan. The quiet storm. His eyes weren’t just glowing—they were alight, radiant like a soul lantern burning at full wick.

  Foundation Establishment—Second Realm.

  Adam gave a small, impressed nod, a rare smile tugging at his lips.

  “Well,” he said, clapping his hands once. “Look at you three. Twenty-five years ago, you were still at Qi Condensation, what, seventh and eighth realms? And now here you are—Foundation Establishment.”

  He gave Xiaoyan a pointed look. “Second realm, no less. Overachiever.”

  Xiaoyan just gave a small, humble nod. Xiaomei grinned shyly. Aria crossed her arms, cool as ever, but a subtle satisfaction shimmered in her gaze.

  “Not bad,” Adam continued, pacing in front of them slowly. “You didn’t just brute-force it, either. Took your time. Made your breakthroughs properly. No spirit fire disasters, no accidental Qi-implosions, no exploding like overstuffed dumplings.”

  He gave a mock-shudder and grinned. “Truly, you’ve grown.”

  They had. And not just in cultivation.

  They stood straighter now. They moved with purpose. Their eyes carried weight. Each of them had experienced pain, confusion, small victories, and quiet losses. And yet they’d persisted, climbed, and learned to breathe the ever-thinner air of higher cultivation.

  And Adam, watching them now, felt the tiniest flicker of pride—a warmth unfamiliar after decades of solitude. His knuckles whitened where he gripped the railing, as if steadying him

  self against the feeling. Just as someone who had seen them as kids and now stood beside them as near-equals. Red nosed his hand. Adam scratched the fox’s ears, the only witness to every silent year that led here.