When Yueyang came to, he found himself lying on the ground.

A dull ache ran through every bone in his body — the kind that came from breaking through too fast for the body to fully keep up, only considerably worse than usual.

How long have I been out? The thought had barely formed before he moved to sit up — and froze.

Supreme was lying on top of him.

An indescribable, pure and delicate fragrance filled his lungs. Her soft, supple body was pressed warmly against his, her face turned to the side in what appeared to be deep, untroubled sleep. He had grown accustomed to seeing Supreme stern, had seen her smile, had even seen her angry — but he had never been this close to her before. Had never once seen her like this, asleep and completely at peace. She was entirely different from how she usually appeared.

For a moment, Yueyang forgot who she was entirely.

A sudden impulse rose in him — to reach out and brush a hand lightly across her face.

He couldn’t say what had come over him. The urge came from somewhere deep inside, unbidden — perhaps, he thought, a pull of the soul.

He shifted slightly, and only then realized that his right hand was pinned beneath Supreme’s arm. He couldn’t budge it without waking her. Right, well — there was still the left hand. He tried to move it, and got another shock. Somehow, at some point, his left arm had ended up curled around Supreme’s slender waist.

Had he been sleeping with his arm around her this whole time?

That realization nearly stopped his heart.

If Supreme found out, a good beating would be getting off lightly.

Yueyang knew that winning Supreme over would be harder than defeating the Three Overlords of the Heavenly Realm — possibly harder than storming the Central Divine Temple itself. Making a clumsy move now would only earn her contempt and make the whole endeavor that much more difficult. He had made up his mind long ago that he was going to claim this most formidable of women — but this wasn’t the time. Without enough strength to earn her respect, he had absolutely no business trying anything with the current number one of the Sky-Reaching Tower.

She was asleep. She wouldn’t know.

If he just moved his hand a little lower…

A little devil in the back of his mind wouldn’t stop whispering: Just a little further. She’ll never know. This is the best chance you’re ever going to get.

He swallowed nervously, steeled himself, gave himself one final pep talk — if I die I die, even if she wakes up and breaks every finger I’ll take it — and began slowly, carefully moving his left hand downward.

He was trembling. Not just from nerves — there was something else, something harder to name, a rush of excitement he couldn’t suppress. His hand shook as it moved.

Almost there. Almost. Just a little more—

The moment his trembling fingers made contact with a certain wonderfully curved surface, Supreme’s eyes opened.

She fixed him with a glare that nearly launched his heart clean out of his chest.

“What exactly is going through your head right now?” The words didn’t come out of her mouth — her intent pierced directly into his mind, cold and precise.

“Nothing at all,” Yueyang scrambled to play innocent. Thank goodness his mind had been — mostly — blank in that moment, or she’d have caught him red-handed in the worst possible way. Wait — he noticed that neither of them had actually spoken aloud. So how had Supreme’s intent entered his mind? And it hadn’t felt like an intrusion, either — more like a natural resonance, as though the two of them had always been able to speak this way, as though it were the most natural thing in the world. What exactly had happened between them?

“Keep your mind clear. No wandering thoughts.” Supreme’s position — lying against Yueyang’s chest — remained unchanged. Perhaps only her consciousness had woken, and her body still needed a little more time before it was fully back under her control.

Yueyang felt a pang of regret. If only he hadn’t been so nervous earlier, if only he’d moved a little faster — he would have gotten a much more thorough handful. Instead, he’d wasted the opportunity of a lifetime.

Who knew when a chance like that would come again.

Those thoughts flashed through in an instant. Under Supreme’s watchful gaze, Yueyang hastily reined in his mind and settled back into a state of stillness.

He wasn’t sure whether she was making him do this as a way of getting up without letting him see her in a state of dishevelment, or whether it was some form of punishment. Either way — well, he’d only gotten a partial feel, but it had been worth it. Whatever punishment came, it was a fair trade.

A few more stray thoughts skated through, and then Yueyang sank fully into stillness, his mind going completely calm.

Supreme’s energy erupted.

It burst outward from the vast, galaxy-like energy field surrounding Yueyang’s body, and a column of light shot straight up into the sky, hundreds of meters tall. At its peak, it reversed instantaneously and came pouring back down, projecting onto the crown of the sacred image that resembled Supreme. The image blazed more brilliantly than before, a rainbow halo blooming behind its head. From its palms, countless golden streams of energy poured forth, taking shape as divine swords of every form and design — each one extraordinary — and began rotating within the halo, forming a new ring of revolving blades. Then the sacred image slowly opened its eyes.

In an instant, light flooded every corner of the world. The entire Sky Stairway blazed as though noon had descended all at once, every shadow banished — nothing anywhere left to hide. Even the women far up the Stairway in the middle of their own training stopped in astonished disbelief as the whole world around them turned into a realm of pure, blinding light.

Supreme took hold of Yueyang’s left hand and drew a fingernail lightly across his palm.

His hand split open.

Blood welled up and scattered outward.

Supreme’s slender wrist turned with a half-rotation, delicate as a crescent moon, and guided the blood with a subtle motion.

The droplets traced a perfect, intricate six-pointed star in the air — and seared themselves onto Supreme’s brow like a brand.

The moment the Blood Hexagram sealed itself between her brows, Supreme leaned forward, her cheek resting against his, their foreheads pressed together.

Yueyang held his mind perfectly still. In an instant, Supreme’s supreme-grade will drew his consciousness along, and he slipped into a mysterious, indescribable spiritual space. There, their two souls merged into one, completing the soul contract that Queen Vivienne had once formed with Yueyang. In the Heavenly Realm, of course, a soul contract went by another name: the Divine Covenant.

In the process of completing the soul contract, Yueyang caught glimpses of Supreme’s realm — and many of her secrets that he had never known.

Equally, Supreme now shared many of Yueyang’s own.

All except for the secrets even Queen Vivienne hadn’t been able to access — the Sword Spirit’s true nature, and the truth of his transmigration. Everything else: his habits, his private quirks, the things he had never told a soul — all of it now lay open to her. Because there was no need to hold back in consideration of his cultivation level, and because Supreme gave of herself completely and without reservation, both of them gained far more from this soul contract than Yueyang and Queen Vivienne had shared in theirs. Supreme even received a portion of the knowledge inheritance Fourth Elder Sister had passed to Yueyang — though that inheritance was so vast, and some of its highest mysteries so deeply imprinted into Yueyang’s mind alone, that Supreme’s actual share was perhaps a third at most.

What Yueyang gained from Supreme’s side was even richer — her doubts and breakthroughs throughout decades of cultivation, her battle instincts, even the small, quiet details of how she lived her days.

And then there was something that left him genuinely shaken: Supreme’s comprehension of Divine Authority, Divine Power, and Divine Aspect — three pillars of the divine realm. Supreme did not yet possess the strength of a true Sacred Sovereign, but through her role in helping Yueyang push past the limits of the Infinite Realm, she had somehow already touched the divine state of mind that belonged to the Sacred Sovereign realm.

Given time, she would become something no one else could ever be: the Radiant Goddess.

In all three aspects — her nascent Divine Aspect, the Divine Authority she carried, and the transcendent Divine Power that awaited her — the answer was the same: Light. Absolute, supreme, unchallenged Light.

But why?

Yueyang genuinely couldn’t understand.

Why had Supreme done this? She had already touched the divine aspect — her ascension to godhood was all but written. Why would she bind herself to him through a soul contract? She stood to gain almost nothing from it. What she had received from him was a fraction of what she had freely given: all the insights from her years of cultivation, the full awakening of her Sacred Sovereign consciousness — shared without hesitation. And if he died in battle, she would die with him. She was destined to become the Radiant Goddess, to exist as an eternal, ageless being alongside heaven and earth itself — so why would she willingly tether her fate to his, to the constant risk of death?

Even after his soul returned and he fully came back to himself, Yueyang had no answer.

“Withdraw.”

Supreme rose into the sky.

The enormous sacred image dissolved instantly back into her body.

In that moment, a hundred million rays of light poured down over the earth, flooding the entire Sky Stairway into brilliant daylight, every shadow obliterated, nothing left unseen.

The Blood Hexagram on her brow gradually faded from view — but from now on, Supreme’s mind could reach Yueyang at any moment, at any distance. Bound by the soul contract, the two of them no longer needed words. Their hearts spoke as one. Supreme bit her fingertip lightly and let a drop of blood fall onto the crown of the Six-Winged Blood Angel. Then with a flick of her finger, she drew one final drop from the wound on Yueyang’s palm — which was already beginning to close — and let it fall on the Blood Angel’s head as well.

A Blood Hexagram appeared on the Six-Winged Blood Angel’s smooth brow — not a soul contract, but a different kind of profound enhancement formation entirely.

Struck by the divine blood of both, the Six-Winged Blood Angel let out a sharp cry. Her body surged back to full form, all six wings unfurling at once — and then her power exploded outward. When it reached its new peak, a fourth pair of wings began to grow from her back, more beautiful than any of the others — deep crimson blood-wings, spreading wide and glorious.

Supreme raised one hand.

The Eight-Winged Blood Angel transformed at once into the Sword of Life, rising into the air as Supreme lifted it aloft.

A single, light stroke.

The sky split.

A clean, impossible rift opened above them — and refused to close.

Yueyang stared up from the ground with his jaw hanging open. This was true spatial severance. No matter how powerful an enemy, if they took a blow like that — surviving it would be the miracle.

Supreme’s display of her awakened divine state was far from over. Drawing on the Eternal Wheel that Yueyang had comprehended, she reshaped her original Shattering Void Hexagram into an Eternal Hexagram — one that could both exist permanently and continuously fracture space. Fortunately, without the ancient rune augmentation of Yueyang’s Eternal Wheel, her version lacked both the Wheel’s growth potential and its ancient might. In her current state — not yet a true divine being, not yet in possession of true divine power — the Eternal Hexagram could not yet unleash its full potential.

“Black Hole.”

The name she had always used for the condensed void energy she released after shattering space had been different before. But after their soul contract, she had adopted his term for it.

She now called it a Black Hole.

She extended her hand — and manifested six of them simultaneously, three times the maximum of two she had previously managed.

Yueyang could sense she hadn’t hit her limit yet; this was a careful, conservative first attempt, still probing for control. Even so, these Black Holes were more destructive than anything he had seen from her before. Just looking at them made his scalp prickle. As far as raw destructive power went, perhaps only the evolved Wheel of Apocalypse could edge ahead of them.

The thought crossed his mind — and the Wheel of Apocalypse manifested in response.

Supreme’s six Black Holes and Yueyang’s Wheel of Apocalypse faced each other across the air, two forces of annihilation reflecting each other’s light, between them the combined weight of something that felt like it could unmake the world entire.

Night Empress, arriving from a distance, caught sight of this and felt her heart seize — terrified they were about to reflexively go at each other.

She needn’t have worried. Yueyang and Supreme had no such intention. They each quietly withdrew their ultimate techniques and simply stood in the resonance of the new power levels their breakthroughs had unlocked — sensing, comparing, understanding. With the soul contract between them, each could comprehend independently while simultaneously sharing what the other discovered, filling in each other’s gaps, each made greater by the other’s insight. Together they understood in minutes what would have taken either of them years alone.

“Destruction — Triple Movement!”

Supreme was on the verge of unleashing her Destructive Light with full, unrestrained satisfaction when she caught sight of Night Empress in the distance, sending a comet her way — a silent word of warning.

Supreme caught it immediately. This was not an appropriate testing ground. Yue Yu, Yue Bing, and the others had all heard the commotion and were making their way over — if the energy shockwave from Destructive Light caught any of them by accident, they would simply cease to exist. In an instant, Supreme released the technique she’d been winding up, and drifted down from the sky, landing before Yueyang.

She looked at him for a long moment without speaking.

Yueyang felt increasingly uneasy under that gaze. Please don’t tell me she’s here to settle the score from earlier.

Why did he have to reach for that? he thought. Now, looking at her from up close, the difficulty of winning her over had clearly climbed several notches. He rubbed the back of his neck with a quiet headache.

“I won’t waste words.” Supreme stepped close to Yueyang — eyes locked on eyes, nose almost touching nose, their faces so near that a single breath shared the same air between them. One small movement and their lips would meet, but Yueyang didn’t dare. He had no way of knowing whether the next second would bring her fury or her forgiveness — either outcome was genuinely possible. Supreme held his gaze for a long, unblinking moment. Then, at last, she parted her lips — and exhaled a single breath of warm air, soft and quiet, carrying words that Yueyang could barely believe he was hearing:

“I’ll give you one chance. I’ll be waiting at the one-million-step mark. All you have to do is reach it.”

“…What?” Yueyang was floored by happiness. A joy so overwhelming it filled him to the brim and overflowed.

“Don’t keep me waiting too long.” Supreme turned and walked away without looking back.

She and Night Empress passed each other without a word exchanged between them — and yet Night Empress seemed to understand exactly what had just transpired. A soft laugh escaped her lips, and the graceful silhouette bathed in her Starry Sky Domain gave a small, elegant bow, sending Supreme on her way.

The lingering fragrance of Night Empress had already reached him before Yueyang managed to pull himself back to earth.

Night Empress took one look at the dazed expression on his face and laughed. “Well? She’s set you quite a goal to chase — feeling like you finally have something to look forward to?”

Yueyang shook himself out of his stupor and scratched the back of his head. “The one-million-step mark isn’t exactly something you just stroll up to. I know that. This promise — it’s her way of pushing me forward.”

Night Empress’s melodious laughter rang out. “It’s more than just encouragement. She genuinely wants you to surpass her. I understand her well, you know. How about this — do you want a little encouragement from me too? I won’t set the bar nearly as high as a million steps. Five hundred thousand will do just fine.”

Yueyang broke into a cold sweat.

He knew full well she was teasing him — but that didn’t stop the sweat.

“Unfortunately I can’t do what she just did — not yet.” Night Empress’s laughter settled, and her expression grew quietly serious. “As for why she chose to form a soul contract with you — the truth is, she wants to share the threat of death with you. To let you feel the full weight of the responsibility on your shoulders, and at the same time, to give you the greatest support she can. Every soul contract that places you at its center makes your growth faster and takes you higher. There’s no need for me to spell out what everyone here hopes for you. So no matter what happens, no matter what obstacles stand in your way — never forget: you are never alone. You will always have all of us behind you.”