Heaven-Defying Pill God

Dark storm clouds smothered the sky above Crouching Tiger City. Lightning tore open the heavens in jagged flashes, and distant thunder rolled like a warning. Shen Soar stood beneath that bruised sky, head tilted back, rain-scented wind tugging at his hair, and spoke under his breath as if making a vow to the storm itself: he couldn’t keep dragging this out. If he didn’t find a first-rate spirit herb, he would never get another chance to turn his life around. He was sixteen—broad-shouldered and sturdier than most boys his age, his physique hardened by years of punishment. His face still carried the clean lines of youth, handsome in a way that didn’t match the steadiness in his eyes. Those eyes were too calm, too deep, too unflinching for a teenager. They were the eyes of someone who had already met death and decided not to blink. In theory, he should have been envied. He was the clan leader’s grandson, born into the Shen clan’s power and status. In truth, that bloodline meant little, because he lacked spirit meridians—no innate channels for cultivation, no smooth path into the martial world. In a realm where a person’s worth was measured by how fast they advanced, Shen Soar’s body was an insult and his effort an inconvenience. He could train until his hands bled and his bones ached, and still the door everyone else walked through would remain shut. So he had done the only thing he could do: he had refused to accept the rules. Since childhood he had trained with ruthless discipline, sneaking away for secret drills and pushing his body until it shook. He ran until his lungs burned, practiced strikes until his knuckles split, and hardened his flesh through methods that made grown men blanch. There were stories—half-whispered, half-laughed—that he had wrestled tiger beasts with his bare hands. Whether those stories were true didn’t matter. What mattered was that he carried scars like proof, and he kept walking forward. An old steward spotted him near the compound gates and ambled over, squinting up at the roiling sky. “Isn’t that Shen Soar? A storm like this, and you’re still going out to train?” His tone held admiration, but his eyes carried regret that weighed heavier than respect. He had watched the boy practice day after day for six years, only to remain stuck at the third level of the Mortal Martial Realm. Others his age had already stepped into the fourth; the gifted were reaching the fifth. Shen Soar’s ceiling wasn’t willpower. It was the absence inside him that no amount of grit could fill. Shen Soar flashed a grin and fell in beside the old man. “Old Horse, I’m not going to train,” he said lightly, then tugged mischievously at the tassel tied to the steward’s shiny bald head. The old man sighed as if he’d been tugged at far more than his tassel. “It’s useless,” he muttered, shaking his head. “Without spirit meridians, all the effort in the world won’t change a thing.” Shen Soar had heard those words countless times—from servants, from distant relatives, from elders whose smiles never reached their eyes. Each time, he swallowed them like bitter medicine and kept moving. Giving up would have been easier. That was exactly why he refused. A middle-aged man approached, expression tight with concern as he glanced at the storm. “Boy, with weather like this, don’t go.” Shen Soar’s grin softened into something more familiar. “Dad,” he said, and the word carried more warmth than the sky did. “Rainy days are the best time to gather herbs. At least I won’t have to fight others till we’re bleeding over them.” The man was Shen Sky-Tiger—his father, a powerful martial cultivator whose name carried weight, and the leading candidate to become the next clan leader. Even though Shen Soar lacked meridians, his father never treated him like a shameful secret. He encouraged him, protected him as much as a man could, and sometimes slipped him precious pills when he managed to wrestle them away from the elders’ iron grip. Shen Sky-Tiger hesitated, then gave a helpless smile and tossed him a small box. Shen Soar caught it without looking. Pills again—always pills, always too few. He chuckled and said, “Thanks, Dad. Now I won’t have to sneak over and steal those chickens the old man raises to ‘nourish’ myself.” The steward’s face tightened, caught between irritation and resignation at becoming the butt of the joke. Shen Sky-Tiger watched his son’s back disappear into the gray rain and could only sigh. His standing in the clan was high, but rare resources—especially cultivation pills—were controlled by elders who guarded them like treasure. A father could bargain, scrape, and fight for crumbs, but crumbs were still crumbs. And what father didn’t want his son to become a dragon? Shen Soar moved fast through the wet streets and beyond the city’s outskirts, letting the storm swallow the sound of his footsteps. His destination was not a gentle mountain path or a well-known herb field where disciples gathered in groups. He was heading for Immortal-Demon Cliff, a place spoken of with lowered voices. It was desolate, steep, and wrong in a way that made even hardened hunters feel cold. Rain hammered down in sheets by the time he reached it. The cliff rose like a scar in the land, its face black and jagged, its depths hidden behind a veil of constant miasma. Beneath it lay a bottomless abyss. Worse, black fog seeped upward all year round, carrying a chill that felt like the breath of death. People had gone down before—many of them. Not one had ever returned. The stories said they fell and vanished. The truth was simpler: the cliff did not forgive mistakes. And yet Shen Soar, shirtless and drenched, clung to the cliff face and began to descend. From above, anyone who saw him would have called him a madman with a death wish. Everyone “knew” a place like this couldn’t grow a decent spirit herb. The rock was barren. The air was poisonous. Life didn’t belong here. Shen Soar didn’t come because he was foolish. He came because he was sharp—and because he believed that common sense was a cage built for ordinary people. Immortal-Demon Cliff had existed for countless years. That miasma below had been gathering for longer than anyone could remember, thick with the residue of death. If there was anywhere an extreme might reverse itself, it was here. He was searching for the Nether Reishi. The name itself sounded like a curse, but legends said it possessed miraculous power—pulling the dying back from the brink, knitting flesh and bone together, restoring what should not be restored. Such herbs didn’t grow in warm gardens. They grew where death lingered: ancient battlefields, mass graves, places where the world remembered suffering. A true wonder-d**g. Shen Soar didn’t even need it for himself. Not directly. If he could obtain the Nether Reishi, he could trade it for countless precious pills—enough to force open a path that nature had denied him. Enough to break free of his current predicament and finally gain real strength. The rain helped him. Heavy water pressed the miasma downward, thinning it for moments at a time and letting him see deeper. But it also made the rock slick beneath his hands. Each grip was a gamble. Each shift of his weight could be the one that sent him into the void. Raindrops stung his skin. His fingers cramped as he dug them into cracks and edges. His arms burned. His shoulders screamed. He forced himself to breathe evenly, to stay calm, to become methodical. Fear was a luxury. Panic was death. Two hours passed. The storm continued to pour as if the sky had opened a wound. Shen Soar descended dozens of zhang, inch by inch, until he found a narrow ledge barely wide enough for his feet. He flattened himself against the stone and let his chest rise and fall, then leaned out and peered down into the abyss. And suddenly he saw it. His heartbeat slammed against his ribs so hard it felt like it might break them. Ten zhang below, pressed tightly to the cliff wall, was something pale and round—like a ghostly disk clinging to stone. Most of the year the black miasma would have hidden it, and its color would have blended into the cliff. But the rain had shifted the fog just enough. “Nether Reishi!” he shouted, unable to stop the words from ripping out of him. The sound died quickly in the abyss. But the shock of sight remained. Shen Soar forced himself to calm down. Excitement made hands slip. He rested only long enough to steady his breathing, then began climbing down again, slower than before, each movement deliberate. He could feel the distance between him and the herb like a string pulled taut. At last he reached it. Up close, the Nether Reishi was even more unreal—large as a washbasin, a ghostly white disk pressed to the rock as if it had grown from the cliff’s bones. Even without touching it, he could sense vigorous life force rolling off it in waves. It was like standing beside a beating heart. He swallowed hard. With only one hand free to work, he began harvesting it. The reishi clung stubbornly, as if reluctant to be taken from the abyss that had nurtured it. He worked patiently, fingers aching, nails scraping, searching for the right angle. Minutes stretched. The cliff face soaked him. His forearm trembled with strain. By its size and vitality, it had to be a thousand years old. If he took it to auction, the price would be unimaginable. Finally—after what felt like an eternity—he pried it free. The moment it came loose, he nearly lost his balance from the sudden shift. He sucked in a breath, clamped down with his other hand, then shoved the herb into a precious storage pouch. Relief flooded him so fast it made him dizzy. He bared his teeth in a grin that looked more like a snarl. “Hah! My time to turn things around has finally come!” He didn’t linger. Greed killed people, especially here. His stamina was limited, and climbing back up would be grueling—and dangerous. The rain gradually eased as he began his ascent. Each upward movement was a negotiation with gravity, with fatigue, with the slick stone. But he was light now, buoyed by purpose. The pouch at his side felt heavier than gold and more precious than any promise. He had been climbing for more than half an hour when the cliff suddenly trembled. Shen Soar’s heart dropped as if the abyss had reached up and grabbed it. Pebbles broke loose above him, rattling past his face and vanishing into the darkness below. The trembling grew worse—shaking harder, faster—until the cliff felt alive beneath his hands. “Damn it,” he cursed through clenched teeth. “I finally got the Nether Reishi—don’t tell me the heavens are about to joke with me now!” He tightened his grip, forcing his fingers into every c***k and bump of stone. If he lost his hold, the shaking would fling him into the abyss like a tossed stone. He pressed himself close, shoulders hunched, jaw locked, trying to ride out the tremors. But the quake did not pass. Larger chunks of rock crashed down from above, and the stone beneath his hands began to split. Fissures spidered through it, thin at first, then widening as the cliff groaned. Dust and grit peppered his eyes. He blinked hard, vision blurring with rain and panic. “Heaven above!” he shouted, voice raw. “I just got the Nether Reishi—are you really sending me straight to hell as a punchline?” At that moment, black miasma surged up from below, thicker than before, rolling like smoke from a furnace. It swallowed the space beneath him, swallowing light and sound. And the rock he clung to… shattered. “Ah—!” His body plunged. For a heartbeat he flailed, reaching for anything, but there was nothing to catch—only empty air and the rising black fog. The abyss devoured him. His unwilling scream echoed once, then dissolved into darkness. How much time passed, he couldn’t tell. When Shen Soar opened his eyes, he saw light. It made no sense. He was supposed to be dead. This was the bottom of Immortal-Demon Cliff—Hell, as people called it. Yet soft white radiance shimmered around him, and he realized he was submerged in water. He kicked instinctively, expecting his lungs to burn— But he could breathe. Startled, he swam upward and broke the surface. He was in a pool, and the pool radiated a pure, holy glow that turned the surrounding darkness into something unreal. The air here was different too—cleaner, quieter, heavy with an ancient stillness. Then he saw them. Not far from the water sat two women, cross-legged, facing each other. Their hair was loose, falling over their shoulders like dark silk. Their faces were breathtaking—so beautiful it struck like a physical blow. Shen Soar froze, mind blank for an instant. They were completely n***d. Two flawless bodies revealed without concealment, as if carved from the finest white jade. No blemish, no hint of impurity. Their skin seemed to catch the white light and return it brighter. The lines of them were perfect—full where they should be, slender where they should be, balanced in a way that made the world feel crude by comparison. Shen Soar’s face burned hot, ears ringing, heart and breath seeming to stall. They did not look at him. They sat as if nothing existed beyond their own presence, as if the abyss itself was merely a room they had chosen to occupy. As the shock loosened its grip, Shen Soar finally noticed the surroundings. The floor of the abyss was devastated—cracked open with fissures and pits, strewn with broken stone. Among the rubble lay shredded scraps of white silk, torn into ribbons as if clothing had been ripped apart in battle. He guessed the destruction came from them—that their fight had shattered everything nearby, and their garments had been casualties of power. He didn’t know why two peerless women would be battling down here, but he could tell one thing with brutal clarity: they were terrifyingly strong. Strong enough to shake mountains and split cliffs. Strong enough to make his years of effort feel like a child’s game. A bitter thought flashed through him. Beauty is a disaster. They shook me right off the cliff. Lucky for me I didn’t die. Fear should have driven him back into the pool, should have made him hide, should have made him stay silent and small. But curiosity tugged at him harder than fear. And another thing tugged too—the instinctive human awe at the extraordinary. He found his eyes drawn again and again to their flawless forms, then snapped them away, then drawn back despite himself. He stepped forward, light-footed and cautious, trying not to make noise on the broken stone. The white glow painted his wet skin. The air felt charged, like the pause before lightning. The abyss beside Immortal-Demon Cliff was called Hell. But standing here now, Shen Soar felt as if he had fallen into a hidden paradise—holy white water and two breathtaking figures under a light that should not exist. Only when he drew closer did the women finally sense him—those burning eyes watching them from nearby. Their bodies stiffened. Shame and fury flashed across their faces, sharp as blades, and the temperature of the air seemed to drop in an instant.