The Legend of the Princess' Counterattack

As Yun Yao's fingertips touched the bronze knocker of the Heavenly Dao Treasury, the entire palace, suspended above the sea of clouds, suddenly buzzed. The three thousand Heavenly Dao emblems engraved on the door illuminated simultaneously, moving across the gilded surface like living creatures, eventually converging into a pair of giant eyes, gazing down at her from above. Chu Mochen's sword lay across his chest, twelve pairs of wings unfurling behind him. The golden light melted like ice and snow the moment it touched the door—a barrier reserved exclusively for the Heavenly Dao bloodline; only direct descendants of the Hongmeng Heavenly Dao could enter.

"Yao'er, you are finally here."

A deep voice echoed from within the door, its raspy, age-worn sound. Yun Yao froze. This voice had echoed through her nightmares countless times, each time transforming into thunder and hurling her into the turbulent flow of time and space just as she was about to touch Chu Mochen's soul. Now, it sounded like a barely perceptible tremor. The bronze door swung open, and what greeted her was not the stern, murderous aura she had imagined, but a mingled scent of sandalwood and blood.

The treasury was utterly dark, save for nine bronze lamps suspended in the center, their wicks ablaze with pale golden flames—the celestial fire condensed from the primordial purple energy. In the center of the sea of lamps, a figure stood with his hands behind his back. His dark robe was embroidered with dense star tracks, each corresponding to a celestial hub in the Three Thousand Divine Realms. When he turned, Yun Yao saw that the left side of his chest was soaked with blood. The wound wasn't just blood, but tiny fragments of the law, like a shattered starry sky drifting beneath his skin.

"Father God..." Yun Yao's voice trembled, her fingertips unconsciously clenching Chu Mochen's sleeve. The Lord of Heaven before her was even older than she had seen in her revived memories. Silver hair fell to his waist, and fine lines dotted the corners of his eyes. Only his eyes remained as starry as the dawn of time, deep enough to swallow up all secrets.

Chu Mochen's sword suddenly hummed softly, its tip uncontrollably pointing towards the Lord of Heaven. Confusion flashed in his eyes. His instinct as a Rule God of War warned him that the existence before him was fraught with danger, but a vague image in his memory tore at him—ten thousand years ago, it was this man who had personally pushed him into the cycle of reincarnation and used the essence of the God of War to forge the final line of defense for Yun Yao.

"Don't be nervous, Chu Mochen." The Lord of Heaven raised his hand, and Chu Mochen's sword suddenly hovered still. "The 'rule container' within you was forged by me personally. The restrictions of this treasure house were meant for you to break." He looked at Yun Yao, his eyes rippled. "Three hundred years ago in the Falling Star Sea, I deliberately let the Inspector reveal a flaw. Otherwise, with your realm at that time, how could you have snatched that half of the Fate Disk?"

Yun Yao felt her temples throbbing. The Father's words were like a hammer, shattering all her understanding of "Heaven's annihilation." So, every time Chu Mochen deliberately injured herself, every time she experienced those heart-wrenching near-death experiences, was it actually a conspiracy orchestrated by the Father and Chu Mochen? She suddenly recalled the countless reincarnations she witnessed in the Hongmeng Secret Realm. In each timeline, "her" had died saving Chu Mochen, yet she had never considered that this death itself was part of the laws of Heaven.

"Why?" Her voice was filled with anger and sobs. "You knew I would fall in love with him every time I reincarnated. You knew watching him die before my eyes would be more painful than having my heart ripped out. Why did you make me go through this thousands of times?!"

The Lord of Heaven turned, his sleeves brushing against a bronze lamp. The wick suddenly ignited, casting a series of images across the void: Yun Yao's trembling as she killed her first enemy in the cultivation world, Chu Mochen's smile as he shielded her from the thunder tribulation in the Sea of No Return, and the countless reincarnations in which she cradled Chu Mochen's gradually cooling body as she collapsed. Each image was filtered through a blood-red filter, yet a subtle golden light flickered in the corners—it was the primordial purple energy secretly repairing her shattered soul.

"Because only in extreme pain can your Dao Heart truly awaken." The voice of the Lord of Heaven was low. "Three thousand years ago, the Void Heavenly Dao took advantage of my retreat to invade the Hongmeng Universe. He used the power of chaos to pollute the entire Heavenly Dao Law, even severing the Hongmeng origin of your mother goddess. If we want to completely destroy him, we must allow you to comprehend the balance of 'emotion and Dao' in reincarnation. You are the seed of the Dao Heart of the Hongmeng Heavenly Dao. Only you can simultaneously control Hongmeng and nothingness, creating new laws that transcend both."

Chu Mochen frowned suddenly. He felt the half of his life disk vibrate violently, and a sealed memory flooded back like a tide: Ten thousand years ago, the Lord of Heaven had carved a restriction into his soul. Whenever Yun Yao's feelings began to shake the laws of Heaven, the restriction would trigger, forcing him to deliberately cause serious injury or even death, forcing Yun Yao to break the rules. The excruciating pain he felt each time he "died" was actually the restriction stripping away the chaotic contamination within him. It turned out that he was not only a container of rules, but also a chess piece that the Void Heavenly Dao had infiltrated into the Primordial Realm.

"You've known for a long time that he has the Origin of Chaos within him!" Yun Yao suddenly realized something. "That's why you made him my calamity, so that I could constantly purify his soul in the process of saving him! But do you know that every time he died in my arms, I felt—" She pointed at her heart, and the primordial purple energy condensed at her fingertips suddenly turned blood-red. "It feels like being pierced by thousands of swords. The pain is a thousand times more painful than being burned by the laws of heaven!"

The Lord of Heaven fell silent. He raised a hand and pressed it against the wound on his chest. A fragment of the Law suddenly transformed into a golden butterfly, fluttering and fluttering towards Yun Yao. As the butterfly landed in her palm, she heard the unspoken words of the Father God: In their first reincarnation, when he saw his daughter kneeling beside Chu Mochen's corpse, carving "Chu Mochen, I will take you home" into the stone wall with her fingernails, a crack had appeared in the dome of the Heavenly Dao Treasury. That was the first time he, as a father, wavered. But the shadow of the Void Heavenly Dao sneered from behind the crack, forcing him to grit his teeth and continue pushing forward with this gamble.

"Yao'er, look." The Lord of Heaven pointed to the deepest part of the treasury, where a cracked bronze mirror hovered, reflecting the chaotic and surging void. "This is the source of the Void Heavenly Dao. Ten thousand years ago, I used all my strength to seal it within the mirror, but in doing so, the chaos eroded its essence. Now, my Heavenly Dao is about to collapse, and the cultivators of the Three Thousand God Realms are being devoured by the power of nothingness. Only you can—"

"Only I can kill him, right?" Yun Yao interrupted, her voice piercing with chill. "Just like when you killed half of the Mother Goddess's soul and used her Primordial Origin to reinforce the seal? Just like how you always use the common people of the world as an excuse to force me to follow the path you arranged?"

Chu Mochen suddenly reached out and pressed his hand against her shoulder. He could feel the primordial purple energy within Yun Yao's body surging uncontrollably. The memories of her past reincarnations, once suppressed, erupted like a volcano. In her soul, countless "her"s held blood-stained swords, pointing at the phantom of the Lord of Heaven—the Yun Yao in each reincarnation, driven mad after losing him.

"Yun Yao, do you still remember the first light cocoon you saw in the Hongmeng Secret Realm?" Chu Mochen asked softly, "Ten thousand years ago, you said I was a container of rules. But do you know what's inside the container?" He stared at the Lord of Heaven, his eyes gleaming with golden light. "You used a wisp of your own essence, mixed with the power of Hongmeng and nothingness, to forge the 'Dao Heart Anchor' for her. Every time she collapsed for me, it was actually the anchor absorbing the chaotic impurities in her body, just like..." He paused, "Just like you endured the backlash of the Heavenly Dao for the Mother Goddess back then."

The Lord of Heaven's eyelashes trembled violently. He had never shared this secret with anyone, not even Yun Yao. When Hongmeng's Holy Mother was severely injured by the Void Heavenly Dao while protecting the newborn Yun Yao, he used his own essence to build a final line of defense for his wife and daughter, but this also left hidden dangers. When he discovered that the Chaos Seed had been planted in Yun Yao's soul, he was forced to transform Chu Mochen into a vessel, allowing his daughter to purify herself through repeated rescues.

"So you know everything." Yun Yao suddenly smiled, but there was no warmth in her smile. "You knew Chu Mochen would die a thousand times for me, and that I would go crazy for him a thousand times, so you treated us as your pawns, right? Now that your laws are about to collapse, you want me to kill Xuwu Tiandao and inherit your position, and continue to be the aloof and emotionless ruler of the Heavenly Dao?"

She raised her hand, and the primordial purple energy condensed into a sword in her palm, the tip of which trembled. This sword had slain the Heavenly Dao Inspector and the Void Messenger, but now it hesitated to strike the man before her, both Father God and chess player. She watched Chu Mochen quietly sheath his sword, his eyes telling her: Back then, amid the turbulence of time and space, it was a wisp of the Heavenly Dao's spirit that secretly protected her, allowing her to touch the Origin Fate Star; each "rebirth" after the end of reincarnation was the Father God using his own essence to repair her soul.

"No, I never wanted you to be another me." The Lord of Heaven suddenly knelt down. This was the first time in three thousand years that he had performed such a formal ceremony for his daughter. "I wanted you to be the first Yun Yao—the princess who would raise her chin when she stood up for a servant in the cultivation world, the young cultivator whose eyes lit up when she found the jade slip I deliberately left behind in the Wuhui Sea, the fool who, even though she knew the situation ahead was hopeless, still held Chu Mochen's hand and said, 'Let's break it together.'"

He looked up, tears glistening in his eyes. "The Void Heavenly Dao is about to awaken. If he breaks the seal, the entire Hongmeng Universe will be swallowed by chaos. But I know that you will not choose to sacrifice yourself like I did back then. You will take Chu Mochen and all the lives you have saved and find a third way - just like you did in the Yunlan Realm."

Yun Yao's sword tip clanged to the ground. She suddenly remembered how, at the time of creation, the Father God's projection had called her "silly child" from the temple. That sigh wasn't filled with disappointment, but pride. It turned out that all the oppression, all the reincarnations, all the "Heavenly Way erasures" were actually the Father God paving the way for her, allowing her to grow her own wings in the mire, rather than becoming a puppet enshrined in the Heavenly Way Temple.

Chu Mochen bent down to pick up her sword, and suddenly looked at the Lord of Heaven: "You said that the Void Mirror is the price of sealing him, then the other half of the price..."

The Lord of Heaven smiled bitterly and said, "It's my fate. Back then, I used half of my origin as a mirror and the other half as a lock. Now the lock is about to break, and he in the mirror has noticed it." He stood up and walked towards the Void Mirror, his robes rustling in the wind. "Go, Yao'er. Use the heaven-defying principles you learned in reincarnation and the power of rules within Chu Mochen's body to shatter this mirror. Remember, don't kill the Void Heavenly Dao, but..."

"Instead, you want him to merge with the Hongmeng Heavenly Dao, right?" Yun Yao suddenly spoke, "Just like how I merged the power of Hongmeng and the Void in the Yunlan Realm to create new laws. Father God, you already knew that Chaos and Hongmeng are twins. Only by balancing them can we completely eliminate the encroachment of the Void."

The Lord of Heaven was stunned. He hadn't expected his daughter to figure out the key points in her anger. That's right, the seal he'd placed on the Heavenly Dao, seemingly destined to perish alongside the Void Heavenly Dao, was actually waiting for a being who could reconcile the two—Yun Yao, the Dao Heart Seed conceived from the origins of primordial chaos and tainted by the cycle of reincarnation.

"So you understand everything." The Lord of Heaven smiled, his smile full of relief. "Go, Chu Mochen. The restriction I carved into your soul back then is in the mirror. Break it, and you will be able to regain the full power of the God of War."

Chu Mochen nodded, suddenly handing the sword to Yun Yao, and grasping the edge of the Void Mirror with his bare hands. Chaos power immediately spread along his arm, creating black lines beneath his skin, each of which was burned by the primordial purple energy within him. Yun Yao saw blood oozing from his forehead, but he blinked at her stubbornly, "Remember the first time you took a knife for me in the cultivation world? This time, it's my turn."

When Chu Mochen's fingertips touched the shadowy image of the Void Heavenly Dao in the mirror, the entire treasure house shook violently. Yun Yao saw the Father God quietly retreat behind her, the fragments of the Law flowing from his sleeve silently repairing the damage to her soul from her recent rampage. She suddenly turned and hugged the tall yet frail figure. "Father God, when we return, I'll take you to the Yunlan Realm to see the cherry blossoms. I brought them from Earth, and they'll bloom as beautifully as clouds."

The Lord of Heaven was frozen. After three thousand years, he finally felt his daughter's warmth again. He patted Yun Yao's back gently, just as he had done when she had nightmares as a child. "Okay, Father God will wait for you. But now—" He pushed her away, a look of determination in his eyes. "Chu Mochen can't hold on any longer!"

Yun Yao turned and saw Chu Mochen's wings disintegrating, black lines now covering half his face. Without further ado, she grasped the Primordial Seal handed to her by the Lord of Heaven and poured all her power into the Void Mirror. The mirror suddenly cracked into spiderweb-like patterns, and from each crack, a dual-colored light of Chaos and Primordial Earth emanated. Above Chu Mochen's head, it coalesced into twelve chains of laws—the very same chains of Heaven that had sealed the God of War.

"Yao'er, look at me." Chu Mochen's voice was filled with pain, yet still gentle. "Remember, no matter what happens, my Dao Heart will always belong to you."

Yun Yao bit her tongue and sprayed the blood, tinged with primordial purple energy, onto the mirror. With a resounding "bang," the Void Mirror shattered, and Chu Mochen was sucked into the vortex of chaos. The Lord of Heaven was also thrown backwards at the same time, the wound on his chest completely split open, revealing the almost transparent essence within.

"Father God!" Yun Yao rushed over to catch him, and found that his eyes were fixed on the chaotic vortex, where a golden light was rising - Chu Mochen's twelve pairs of battle wings stretched out again, and this time each feather was flowing with a light intertwined with Hongmeng and nothingness. In his hand, he held a new sword condensed by chaos and laws.

"He succeeded..." The Lord of Heaven coughed up a mouthful of golden blood, but smiled. "The God of War of Rules has finally returned. Yao'er, take him with you and create your own Heavenly Dao. Remember, the true Heavenly Dao is not about control, it is..."

"It's protection." Yun Yao took his palm that was about to dissipate with tears in her eyes. "Just like you protected me for three thousand years, just like Chu Mochen protected me for ten thousand reincarnations. Father God, when we return, I will let the entire Hongmeng Universe know that the way of heaven can also have warmth."

In the chaotic vortex, Chu Mochen's voice came: "Yun Yao, catch it!"

A streak of golden light flew by, revealing the core of the Void Mirror's shattering hue—a two-toned egg encased in chaos and primordial chaos. As Yun Yao grasped it, the egg vibrated like a heartbeat, as if something great were about to be born. Behind her, the figure of the Lord of Heaven gradually faded, but before vanishing, he transformed his silver hair into thousands of points of light, merging with her soul.

"Go, my little princess." The last voice was like a gentle breeze. "Father God will always be proud of you."

Yun Yao clutched the egg tightly, turning to gaze toward the vortex of chaos. Chu Mochen approached in a golden glow, each pattern on his wings like a new law of the universe. He reached out and took her hand, the warmth of his palm reassuring her, just as he had led her through countless reincarnations, through the Falling Star Sea, through the turbulent currents of time and space, and through the Primordial Secret Realm.

"Are you ready?" Chu Mochen asked softly, "This time, we are facing an existence that is even more ancient than the Void Heavenly Dao."

Yun Yao looked up and saw her own reflection in his eyes. The once fragile yet stubborn princess had now grown into a master of the Heavenly Dao who stood shoulder to shoulder with him. She suddenly smiled, took the egg into her arms, and clasped his hand tightly with her other hand. "I've been ready for this for a long time. But before that—" She stood on tiptoe and kissed the corner of his lips. "Let me make this clear. If you dare to deliberately get hurt and lie to me again, I'll lock you up in the peach blossom forest of the Yunlan Realm and make you tell me three reincarnations of love every day."

Chu Mochen was stunned, then burst into laughter, his laughter filled with the joy of surviving a disaster.

He lowered his head and rested his forehead against her...