Huaxia.

Dozens of li outside Linchuan City, deep in a stretch of rolling mountains, the sky had been clear a moment ago, washed blue, the sun hanging high and hard.

Then a thunderclap ripped across the heavens without warning.

Right after that, a strange light burst out, as if some giant hand had torn open the sky. It spread in silence, gorgeous beyond words, like a band of silk laid straight across the firmament.

Then the clouds blazed.

All at once, the whole sky was dyed in drifting radiance, bright and unreal, like some immortal realm dropped into the mortal world.

And within that sea of radiance, a figure appeared.

He wore a sky-blue long robe. His hair was bound and pinned. His frame was tall and lean. His skin was pale and smooth, almost like an infant’s. His face was fine and warm as jade, the sort of face that looked as if it had stepped out of an old painting—a young nobleman, elegant to the bone.

But the instant he appeared, his body seemed to take a crushing blow from nowhere. He dropped straight down.

Then, just as fast, he steadied himself.

And stopped in midair.

If anyone had seen it, their jaw would have hit the ground.

A man standing in empty air?

Who wouldn’t shout, Is that a man—or an immortal?

Yet the man himself had no mind for awe. His brows were locked tight as he stared around him, suspicion filling his eyes.

“What is this? Don’t tell me... this isn’t the Immortal Realm?”

“But that makes no sense. When I ascended, I clearly saw the immortal gate open wide. So why, after ascension, did I not receive the immortal qi infusion spoken of in the ancient records? Why was my body and primordial spirit not cleansed and tempered? Why was no immortal body and immortal soul forged?”

“Instead, I felt some nameless shackle come down on me. It suppressed both my primordial spirit and spiritual power. My primordial spirit can no longer leave my body at all. Even my divine sense has been completely crushed down. I can’t release it in the slightest.”

“And all the spiritual power I can use... only amounts to the peak of the Golden Core stage.”

Dorian Fairfax stood there thinking hard, turning it over again and again, but nothing came clear.

He sensed the world around him once more, more carefully this time.

The spiritual qi in this land was so thin it was almost nothing.

His frown deepened.

The doubt in his heart grew heavier by the breath. Was this place truly the legendary Immortal Realm?

“Forget it. First I need to look around and find out what kind of place this is.”

“With my divine sense sealed, I can only rely on my eyes.”

“And my cultivation is bound for no reason. I can only call on power equal to peak Golden Core. I’ll have to move carefully.”

With that, Dorian Fairfax formed a spell seal at once.

His figure blurred and vanished from sight, hidden away. At the same time, the technique would shield him from the divine-sense probing of other cultivators.

Then he lifted a hand.

A flying sword rich with immortal grace appeared beneath his feet.

This was his natal magic treasure, the top-grade spirit weapon, Wangshu Sword.

He had forged it with his own hands. When he named it, he simply used his own name.

He could fly through the air without a sword if he wished, but speed was another matter. Sword flight was faster. Much faster.

The moment his feet settled on the blade, Dorian Fairfax turned into a streak of light and shot toward the horizon.

...

Not long after, a vast city came into view ahead.

The instant Dorian Fairfax saw it—saw the towering buildings packed together inside it—his whole body shook. His pupils widened sharply, disbelief flooding his face.

“Th-this is... Earth??”

“No. Wait. That building... that’s Jinjiang Tower!”

His breath caught.

“That’s right. That is Jinjiang Tower in Linchuan City!”

In that instant, Dorian Fairfax became wildly excited.

His eyes locked hard onto the tallest building in the city ahead. Even from this distance, he stared at the faint characters on it as if afraid they would vanish the next second.

Jinjiang Tower.

Though his divine sense could not spread outward, his eyesight was still far beyond any ordinary person’s. Even from so far away, he could still see the words clearly.

But very soon, that excitement twisted into shock.

And then into utter disbelief.

“How is this possible...?”

“I... I came back to Earth?”

“I didn’t ascend to the legendary Immortal Realm. I came back to Earth, back to my hometown, Linchuan City???”

His voice came out rough and strained. His breathing sped up without him noticing. His mind was packed with questions, one piled atop another, until it felt ready to split.

Inside him, waves crashed sky-high.

He could not understand it.

Could not make sense of it.

Could not explain it.

It was just like back then, when he had suddenly crossed over into Cangyuan Realm with no warning and no reason.

That was right.

Dorian Fairfax had always been a man of Earth.

His hometown was the city ahead of him—Linchuan.

But because of an accident no one could explain, he had crossed into a world of cultivation called Cangyuan Realm.

And he had remained there for nearly ten thousand years.

There had been a time—many times—when he had longed like a madman to return to Earth. He had tried everything he could think of.

Because this place held the people tied to his heart.

His family.

But nearly ten thousand years had passed. He had started as a mortal with nothing, clawed his way upward through endless hardship, and cultivated all the way to the Mahayana stage. In the whole of Cangyuan Realm, he had become the unquestioned number one figure of the immortal path.

Even so, he had never managed to return.

Over those long, bitter years, he had long since put down that obsession. He had turned his whole heart to the Dao alone, hoping only to ascend and become an immortal.

And in the end, he had done it.

He became the only ascender in the last several million years of Cangyuan Realm.

Yet even in his wildest thoughts, he had never imagined this.

He had not ascended to the fabled Immortal Realm.

He had come back to Earth.

At this moment, Dorian Fairfax’s feelings were a knot no blade could cut clean.

He stared long and deep at that city ahead—the city buried in the deepest part of his memory, once so familiar, now suddenly strange beyond words.

For a while, he truly did not know what he was feeling.

Joy?

Shock?

Fear?

Longing?

All of it tangled together, churning in his chest.

Then all at once, something struck him.

His expression froze.

“No. That’s not right.”

“I spent more than nine thousand years cultivating in Cangyuan Realm. So why does this place look almost no different from before I crossed over?”

“Even Jinjiang Tower is still standing there. Forget ten thousand years—even the outside of that building doesn’t look old. If anything, it doesn’t seem like even ten years have passed!”

“Otherwise, if nearly ten thousand years had truly gone by, then not just Jinjiang Tower—even Linchuan City itself would long since have vanished, or changed beyond recognition.”

“But that shouldn’t be possible. So what exactly is going on?”

His brows pressed together harder.

Then a thought flashed across his mind like lightning.

“Unless...”

His eyes sharpened.

“Unless time flows differently on Earth and in Cangyuan Realm.”

“I may have spent more than nine thousand years in Cangyuan Realm, but on Earth... perhaps not much time has passed at all.”

And once that thought rose, it hit him like a hammer to the chest.

“If that’s true... then Mother and Isabelle could still be alive?”

The moment he thought of that, Dorian Fairfax trembled outright.

Back in Cangyuan Realm, one of the main reasons he had let go of returning to Earth was simple and cruel: he had believed his mother and younger sister must already have passed away.

If he ever returned, what would be left?

He would not see them.

There would be no point.

But now—

Everything seemed to twist at the edge of a dead road, and suddenly there was another path.

So what if he had not ascended to the Immortal Realm?

So what if he had failed to become a true immortal?

So what if his cultivation was now bound by some unseen force, leaving him able to wield only power equal to the peak of Golden Core?

None of it mattered.

Not anymore.

Not compared to the chance—just the chance—to see his mother and younger sister again.

“Home.”

His throat tightened.

“I’m going home. Right now.”

At this moment, only one thought remained in Dorian Fairfax’s mind.

Home.

He did not want to wait another breath, not even for a single heartbeat.

At once, he drove the flying sword under his feet with all his strength and shot toward Linchuan City at top speed, like a bolt tearing through the sky.