After My Rebirth, I Ended Up Happily Ever After with the Saintess - Chapter 1

In the midst of the primal chaos and void, only raging energy, like a boiling ocean, frantically tore at everything. This was the depths of the “Myriad Desolation Icefield” in the Spirit Realm’s far north, a desolate place normally untouched by human presence, yet it had become the epicenter of a cataclysmic breakthrough.

Ye Li, the awe-inspiring “Venerable Li” of the Spirit Realm, hovered at the core of the storm’s eye. Her body was enveloped by dazzling, starlight-like Law Runes. Vast and boundless Spiritual Essence was surging wildly into her body, assaulting the Supreme Barrier that had confounded countless peak powerhouses for ten thousand years. Her aura was soaring, having already touched the threshold of that mysterious and supreme realm. She was only one final step away from transcending mortality, achieving the Venerable position, living as long as the heavens and earth, and wielding the fundamental Laws.

However, precisely at this most critical moment—a moment that tolerated not the slightest disturbance—

“Now!”

A bone-chilling, yet agonizingly familiar, shout suddenly tore through the roaring energy storm.

The next instant, three attacks imbued with destructive power exploded without warning from the three directions she trusted most and was most unguarded against, striking with precise accuracy at the critical juncture of her breakthrough!

One fiery sword-aura, as brilliant as the midday sun, pure and righteous, yet carrying absolute killing intent, came from her closest friend, someone who was both her mentor and comrade for thousands of years—”Holy Monarch Xu Yang,” Ling Hao!

One sinister and icy dark finger-wind, like a venomous snake spitting its poison, carrying a vicious power to corrode the soul, came from her disciple, whom she had personally raised and treated like a younger brother—”Phantom Shadow,” Mo Shang!

The final attack was a pitch-black, sky-covering giant net. Its runes flickered, radiating terrifying spatial confinement and spirit-essence-devouring power. It came from her most steadfast ally, the Vice-Hall Master of the “Nine Heavens Sacred Hall”—Xuan Cong!

Betrayal! Absolute, complete betrayal, without a single warning, from the people she trusted the most!

“Why?!”

Ye Li’s pupils contracted to the extreme. The terrifying backlash from forcefully interrupting the breakthrough instantly caused her to spit out a mouthful of pale-golden Supreme blood. The Law Runes surrounding her body violently shook, nearly collapsing. She looked with utter disbelief at the three faces, now hideously twisted and menacing. The emotion surging within her was not fear, but a tearing agony and overwhelming fury.

Ling Hao’s eyes flickered with complexity for an instant, then were covered by absolute coldness: “Venerable Li, your very existence is a mistake. The new order does not need two Supremes.”

Mo Shang’s face was filled with twisted pleasure and jealousy: “Senior Sister, you are too dazzling—so dazzling that everyone appears as dust before you! By what right? By what right can you touch the Supreme Realm while I must forever live in your shadow? Hand over your Foundation of the Dao to me!”

Xuan Cong was expressionless, his eyes merely flickering with an extreme greed for power: “The Sacred Hall only needs one voice. Blame only yourself for blocking the path.”

The three joined forces, having planned this for a long time. Their attacks were vicious and cunning, aimed directly at the most vulnerable point during her breakthrough!

“Boom—!”

A terrifying explosion of energy instantly swallowed Ye Li. Even with her unparalleled fighting prowess in the Spirit Realm, she was instantly plunged into a desperate situation, having her breakthrough forcefully interrupted and suffering a sneak attack from three powerhouses of the same rank. Her protective divine light shattered inch by inch, her meridians were ripped apart by the rampant energy, and her bones emitted groans of unbearable stress.

“You want to kill me? You are not strong enough!”

A flicker of savage defiance, the pride and resolve of the Venerable Li, flashed in Ye Li’s eyes. Disregarding her completely collapsing Foundation of the Dao, she forcefully burned her primordial soul and Supreme blood, igniting the wisp of Supreme Law she had touched but not yet fully grasped!

“Cosmic… Annihilation!”

An indescribably gray light instantly spread out from her center. Wherever it passed, space, time, and energy seemed to be forcibly reduced to stillness. This was a forbidden technique bordering on self-destruction!

Ling Hao and the two others’ faces changed drastically. They retreated frantically, each summoning their strongest defensive magical artifacts, yet they were still swept by the Annihilation Light. They all vomited blood, gravely injured, their eyes filled with shock and lingering fear.

However, the cost was immense. Ye Li’s body began to disintegrate from the inside. Her soul, like a candle in the wind, rapidly dimmed. Her vision blurred. The last things she saw were the relieved, ugly smiles on the three faces after their initial shock, and a fragment of a dark, incomplete ancient mirror that subtly appeared in Xuan Cong’s hand—the aura of that fragment was actually the same as the mysterious fragment she had accidentally obtained years ago but could never comprehend!

“Reincarnation… Mirror…” A blurred thought flashed through her mind, then was swallowed by infinite darkness.

The last sensation of her consciousness before complete annihilation was overwhelming resentment and extreme unwillingness! A thousand years of companionship, treated as siblings, yet it couldn’t compare to power and greed! She hated! Hated her lack of foresight! Hated the injustice of the heavens! She still had so much undone, vengeance not wrought, the Grand Dao not yet achieved! How could she fall like this?!

Just as the last trace of her consciousness was about to be assimilated by the darkness, deep within her soul, the incomplete mirror fragment—which had been silent since she got it from an ancient ruin—suddenly trembled almost imperceptibly.

A weak yet incredibly tenacious, cool stream of air flowed out. Like the gentlest cocoon, it instantly wrapped around her fragmenting residual soul, resisting the tearing of the external spatial turbulence and the final backlash of the Annihilation power.

The next moment, her residual soul, dragged by the mirror fragment, plummeted into a bizarre, chaotic spacetime tunnel and completely lost consciousness…

Cold, bone-chilling cold.

Pain, omnipresent pain.

Weakness, the kind of weakness that felt as if her soul had been drained.

This was the first sensation Ye Li had upon the recovery of her consciousness.

She struggled to open her eyes, but her eyelids felt heavy as a thousand pounds. A buzzing noise filled her ears, and fragments of chaotic memories rushed like a bursting flood into her splitting headache.

“Ye Li… Ye Family collateral branch… orphaned… waste talent… blocked meridians… Qi Sea like gravel…”

“Cousin Ye Lang… beatings… stealing monthly allowance… severe injury… about to die…”

“Trash… garbage… why don’t you just die… bringing shame to the Ye family…”

“Humiliation… despair… nobody cared… coldness…”

Those were the memories of another “Ye Li,” the short and tragic life of a humble, pathetic girl who suffered endless bullying. The despair and pain in those memories were so real they nearly drowned the conscious pride of “Venerable Li.”

Her soul was fiercely rejecting this strange, broken body. Every inch of skin and every meridian was wailing, as if about to be torn apart by two completely different existences. The Supreme Mark from her soul’s origin was incompatible with this ordinary, wasted physique, causing suffocating pain.

“Heh…” She almost scoffed, but the action only tugged at her chest injury, causing a violent cough and bringing up a thick taste of blood in her throat.

To think she, Ye Li, had traversed the Spirit Realm for thousands of years, standing at the pinnacle of all beings, had ever suffered such humiliation? Had ever experienced such ant-like powerlessness?

Overwhelming hatred, like magma, boiled and surged in her heart. Ling Hao! Mo Shang! Xuan Cong! And the one behind the scenes! She remembered them! As long as a single wisp of Ye Li’s residual soul remained, this debt would be paid!

But in the next instant, the absolute calm of a Supreme forcefully suppressed the surging emotions. Anger was useless; resentment could only destroy logic. She must survive. Only by surviving was anything possible.

She began to examine this new body with her powerful Spiritual Consciousness, albeit with great difficulty.

The situation was worse than expected. Most of the meridians were blocked and twisted, as thin as silk, and full of impurities; the Qi Sea was pitifully small, almost incapable of storing spiritual energy, and dry and cracked; her five vital organs were damaged to varying degrees, and one or two ribs in her chest seemed to be broken… This was a body essentially condemned to a “death sentence” for cultivation.

However, just as she was assessing this despairing situation, the incomplete mirror fragment that had saved her life once again stirred deep within her soul. A cooler current, even weaker than before, flowed out, quickly soothing the most violent rejection between her soul and the flesh. Her severely aching brain cleared slightly, and the chaotic memories gradually sorted themselves out.

Although the body remained frail and broken, at least her consciousness was fully awake and stabilized.

“Reincarnation Mirror Fragment…” Ye Li murmured in her heart, burying this debt of gratitude and this mystery deep within. This object was the key to her rebirth and must contain an enormous secret.

Just then—

“Bang! Bang! Bang!”

The simple wooden door was knocked roughly, nearly falling apart. A sharp, mean-spirited woman’s voice sounded outside, full of impatience and contempt:

“You dead trash inside! Not dead yet? Humph, stop playing dead! Young Master Lang said for you to be sensible and hand over that piece of scrap metal you picked up last time! Otherwise, next time it won’t be just a broken rib or two!”

Another lewd man’s voice chimed in: “Exactly! What right does a piece of trash have to keep anything? Hand it over quickly and you’ll suffer less! Don’t waste my time!”

The servant’s shouts and sneers were like cold needles piercing her ears.

Ye Li slowly opened her eyes.

What kind of eyes were they? They were no longer the fear, despair, or dullness that originally belonged to this girl. They were deep, bottomless cold pools—icy, sharp, containing the sediment of ten thousand years of trials and a faint, yet still residual, terrifying majesty of a Supreme.

Although her body was extremely weak, and pain was everywhere, her gaze was frighteningly calm.

The original owner’s memory told her that the people outside the door were the vile servants who had constantly bullied the original owner, acting on the orders of the so-called cousin, Ye Lang. That piece of “scrap metal” seemed to be the only relic left by the original owner’s parents, which the girl had secretly hidden, but Ye Lang had found out about it.

The intense resentment and unwillingness were left by the original owner, but now, this emotion served as fuel, silently burning at the bottom of her icy heart.

She took a slow breath, pulling at the wound in her chest, which brought a sharp pang of pain. But she paid it no mind, focusing only on attempting, very slowly and with all her might, to mobilize the last shred of strength in this body. Her fingers curled with great difficulty, touching a slightly loose wood splinter on the hard plank bed beneath her.

Outside, the shouting continued, as if she were merely an ant that could be trampled at will.

The corner of Ye Li’s lips curved into an extremely faint, yet bone-chilling, arc.

An ant?

Soon, they would find out who the true ant was.