The sudden appearance of the red-dressed youth threw the periphery of the plaza into a fresh, highly volatile state of speculative frenzy.

Thousands of pairs of eyes locked onto the trio that had just brazenly breached the inner circle of the Immortal Clans.

"Who in the world is that girl?" a young master from a prominent southern region asked, his brow furrowing as he tried to assess the terrifyingly dense, volatile heat radiating from her figure.

"I don’t know for certain... wait a single second! Look closely at the features. Long crimson hair, a blood-red dress that practically radiates embers, and that massive, unique weapon strapped to her back... is she actually the legendary Huo Yue?! The supreme successor of the newly emerged Flame Moon Pavilion?!"

"She is directly followed by a black-haired cat girl wearing a black bodysuit... yeah, you’re absolutely, and undoubtedly right. That’s her right hand woman, Zhu Ziyan. There’s no other duo like them in the central region right now."

"But since when under the heavens did a backwater cultivator like her and a high-born lady like Miss Gu Xunyi become closely acquainted with each other?"

"Indeed. Although the Flame Moon Pavilion is indeed undeniably powerful because of that Earthly Saint guarding their halls, at the end of the day, it is still just considered a newly established, second-rate power on the registry of the Capital! How could they possibly mingle with the core lineage of the Nine Immortal Clans?"

Huo Yue completely ignored the frantic, whispered gossip of the surrounding nobility, her beautiful face lighting up with a brilliant, genuinely ecstatic smile as she locked eyes with the purple-haired girl.

"Sister Xunyi! It truly has been a few years since we last saw each other! I honestly can’t believe it... So you really are a high-born lady from an unimaginably powerful, legendary clan right here in the Imperial Capital! Back then, you told me your family just did a bit of simple trade and real estate!"

Gu Xunyi let out a soft chuckle, her red eyes sparkling with an affectionate, relaxed warmth as she looked at her old traveling companion.

"Sister Yue, it seems you have improved far, far too much since the last time I met you in the wild. Your qi is now incredibly solid and bursting with power." She turned towards the other girl standing behind Huo Yue, "And you as well, Sister Ziyan. I am truly impressed."

Zhu Ziyan, standing quietly and politely right behind Huo Yue’s shoulder, her feline ears twitching in a gentle, rhythmic pattern, offered a soft, deeply respectful bow.

"Thank you very much for the high praise, Sister Xunyi. It is an honor to meet you again."

Qian Yunxi and Xu Xiansu, who had quietly followed closely behind their footsteps, remained completely, awkwardly silent all the way in the back of the group.

After all, despite their own exceptional talents, they didn’t know a single entity within this elite VIP circle, and the sheer density of qi rolling off the heirs of the Immortal Clans was enough to make anyone without sufficient power and cultivation feel incredibly small.

Xu Xiansu, however, did not relax her stance for a single second.

Her distinct orange eyes narrowed into a sharp, clinical line as she stared at the back of Gu Xunyi’s head with an intense, calculated wariness.

Within the dark, chaotic memories of her other life, Gu Xunyi was a name that was universally whispered with an absolute, primitive terror.

She was known across the infinite domains as the Bringer of the Apocalypse, a thoroughly insane, hyper intelligent lunatic of a woman who had systematically located, unsealed, and released dozens of ancient, forgotten demons, primeval plagues, and cosmic disasters that had ultimately plunged the entire Tian Yuan Empire into an absolute abyss of blood and chaos.

And the most terrifying part of her was that she hadn’t done any of it out of political malice or demonic corruption; she had done it simply because her obsessive, scholarly mind couldn’t resist the absolute psychological urge to dig out, study, and experiment with forbidden, ancient ruins.

To her, a world-ending catastrophe was just a fascinating academic thesis.

Xu Xiansu haven’t officially met her in that other life, however, whenever her unearthing some catastrophe that would destroy parts of the empire, she would always cheer.

After all, she hated the empire with every fiber of her being.

Shen Haoran raised a single, sharp golden eyebrow, his gaze sweeping slowly over the Qian Yunxi and Xu Xiansu, before looking back at the purple-haired heiress. "You three actually know each other from before today?"

The moment his deep, smooth voice addressed her, Huo Yue’s entire demeanor instantly transformed from a proud, imposing sect successor into a completely joyful, love-struck girl.

Her eyes brightened up with a blinding radiance, and without a single shred of hesitation or decorum, she immediately skip-hopped forward across the stone bricks, bypassed the frozen disciples, and threw her entire body firmly into his chest, wrapping her arms tightly around his neck.

"Haoran!" she cheered happily, completely melting into his embrace as she buried her flushed face deeply into the gold silks of his chest, greedily inhaling his familiar, intoxicating masculine scent that she had missed for so long.

This sudden, public display of absolute intimacy did not merely shock the eccentric Gu Xunyi; it sent a massive, psychological shockwave through every single youth, noble scion, and elite elder currently standing within the grand plaza.

The crowd held their collective breath, their jaws dropping open as they fully, half-expected the notoriously cold, ruthlessly arrogant heir of the Shen Clan to instantly unleash his infamous black imperial sword or just slap her dead onto the pavement for daring to touch his sacred clothes.

But much to their extreme, reality-shattering shock, Haoran didn’t even twitch.

Instead, with a practiced, natural fluid motion, he simply wrapped his strong hands firmly around her slender waist, pulling her closer against his frame.

"So?" Haoran asked, his voice a low, amused drone against her hair as he looked past her shoulder at the purple-haired girl. "How exactly did you manage to get yourself mixed up with this specific crazy woman?"

Huo Yue let out a low, slightly embarrassed chuckle, her wine-red eyes rolling upward as she smiled wryly at him.

"Well... it’s actually a bit of a funny story, Haoran. We first met back in the deepest, uncharted sectors of the southern region a few years ago." She chuckled, remembering the incident, "You see, while Medusa, Ziyan and I was exploring a forest, I sort of, accidentally unsealed a dormant, ancient spirit of a high-tier demon king."

So it was you!

Back then, there was indeed some news about how an ancient demon spirit was unsealed and wrecked havoc before getting defeated and sealed by local powers.

Back then, everyone thought it was Gu Xunyi’s doing, and she never really tried to clarify it despite some rumors saying it was some rogue cultivator who was with her.

It turns out the rumors were true!

"That demon was so strong we were forced to flee for our lives across dozens of kingdoms, and our primary storage rings got entirely lost within the spatial rifts during our retreat. We were left completely broke, stranded in the middle of a barren waste, and to avoid literally getting hungry and starving to death, I resorted to a desperate measure: I tried to rob the very first luxurious caravan that passed through a road, which just happened to belong to Sister Xunyi."

The surrounding crowd of nobles went completely, utterly stunned, several of them staring at Huo Yue as if she had just confessed to wrestling a primordial dragon with her bare hands.

Robbing the heavily guarded, array-fortified personal caravan of the sole heiress of the supreme Gu Clan?!

It was a literal, cosmological miracle that her physical body hadn’t been turned into fine white dust right then and there!

For her to be standing here today, laughing about the event, meant she must have saved the entire universe three times over in her past life just to accumulate that level of absurd, logic-defying good luck!

Haoran’s golden eyes narrowed slightly as he turned his gaze fully towards Gu Xunyi, his tone dry. "And what exactly were you doing traveling through the backwaters of the southern region in the first place?"

Gu Xunyi chuckled softly, her shoulders shaking with a manic amusement as she adjusted the golden laurel wreath on her brow. "Well, my family’s archives had a few fragmented maps indicating that a high-tier demonic spirit from the dark ages was sealed somewhere within those specific coordinates, so I naturally decided to take a little vacation and check it out for myself. Who could have possibly predicted that before my caravan arrived at the site, Sister Yue had already successfully, and beautifully I might add, released the anomaly on her own? When I first heard her frantic explanation and saw her trying to rob me, I immediately recognized her as a peerless, fellow chaos make—ahem, I mean, a highly talented, passionate amateur archeologist! So we shared a few barrels of spiritual wine, talked about ancient languages, and instantly became sworn sisters right there and then."

Haoran stared blankly at her for a long, clinical three seconds, thoroughly verifying the absolute lack of sanity within her purple head, before downcasting his gaze back to the red-haired girl currently resting against his ribs.

"From this day forward, do not associate yourself with that specific crazy woman anymore, got it? She will eventually lead you into a tomb that collapses on your head."

"Hey! That is incredibly, deeply rude of you, Shen Haoran," Gu Xunyi pouted her lips in a mock offense, though her eyes remained entirely bright, showing she didn’t take a single thread of his warning to heart.

Huo Yue just chuckled softly against his chest, her heart full of warmth as she squeezed his waist tighter, completely ignoring his words.

*CRACK... GROAN...*

At that exact, terminal second of their reunion, a thunderous, earth-shattering sound of grinding stone and ancient iron suddenly resounded from the absolute front of the plaza.

The playful, chaotic atmosphere instantly vanished, completely replaced by a heavy, solemn seriousness that locked onto every single cultivator’s expression.

Everyone turned their heads around simultaneously, their gazes fixed entirely on the monumental central gates of the Imperial Academy.

The massive, hundred-meter-tall obsidian doors, carved with the primordial images of the world’s first sages, were slowly, majestically grinding open, releasing a vast, billowing cloud of dense, white spiritual fog that had been sealed within the inner courtyard for a century.

The immense, ancient formation arrays lining the stone arches flared with a blinding, absolute golden light, signaling to the tens of thousands of gathered youths that the path to the era’s greatest crucible was finally clear.

"Finally," Haoran whispered, his golden eyes reflecting the brilliant light of the gates as his grip on Huo Yue’s waist stabilized. "It’s opening."