The stone was smooth, worn by centuries of rain and water. There was a time when rivers used to run through these lands, but cultivators and nature itself reshaped the land. Mountains where there was once none, and valleys where once stood mountains.

Third step of the Seventh realm came easily, as he retraced the steps he once took in his first life. Power came so much more naturally now. Intimate.

He no longer had to fight nature, and it almost felt as if nature itself knew that they've already lost against him once.

"Some fresh air, for a change?" Tundra said as he felt Celestia's presence down the hill. She hopped up the steps, and was soon next to him.

"Yes." Celestia sat on the stone next to him. "Elly's happy. I know because she stopped bothering everyone and focused on her array of pills and herbs. Her family sent her some extra too."

"That is good. Her family must be doing better lately." Tundra smiled, and noticed Celestia's features displayed some mild features of her new bloodline. "Bloodlines have certain tendencies. Preferences."

His wife sighed. "I know. I can feel this need to go for a walk. I like being up here, high above. I feel calm and I feel like I can sense, hear myself."

A feature of the Stormswept Eagle's bloodline. Spirit beasts with innate flight tendencies often find high places familiar and comfortable. That translated into their disposition.

"Do you dislike it?" Tundra asked.

"No. Not really. It's strangely natural, as if it's something I should've done a long time ago." Celestia sighed and sat. She reached into her robe and took out a small pouch filled with dried meat.

"And I suppose a penchant for meat, as well?"

Celestia ignored it and took a bite. "I can't believe it's almost six years since you've-"

"Changed?"

His wife nodded. Her cultivation felt stable, and in the past she's gained a minor step to be in the 2nd step of the fifth realm. There are many more steps to take. "Yeah. I guess."

Tundra smiled wistfully, all the mention of his past life only served as contrast to his current life. Somewhere around now, he was likely in an alchemical workshop making pills to fund his war effort and expansion.

"Things are better, I suppose?" Celestia wondered. "Or will things get worse?"

"It's a slow process, and I am not even certain if we've made a dent. The rot spreads slowly, worms its way into each and every part of the empire. Soon we are fighting each other, at each other's throats while the rot continues to fester. Eventually, the building that held everything together falls apart, its foundations rotten." Tundra sighed as he recalled how even the Imperial family fell.

He didn't doubt the Golden Dragon's strength, but the Zuja's cult worked in every part of the Empire. He may have helped prevent their spread a little bit here and there, but across the ten great sects and the many princes and princesses, there are plenty more rotten, corrupted Zuja within them.

Celestia looked up at the sky. It was slowly turning a shade of orange as the sun began to set.

"Ten thousand years. What progress we made today could be undone fairly easily. That is perhaps the real challenge. Our hearts waver easily, despite all the meditation and cultivation of our spirit. Our friends, brittle. Our alliances, frail."

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"Would it be easier if you were as strong as you once were?"

"Yes. Of course." Tundra said. "But one strong man does not turn away the tide. It takes a wall. It takes the might and heft of an Empire focused on fixing the rot within."

"You make it sound like cleaning." Celestia chuckled. Both of them had memories of doing cleaning duties as young outer disciples, even if Tundra's raw talent ensured that he only did the bare minimum, and his master managed to get him out of most of the menial tasks.

"It certainly is." Tundra found the comparison apt. "Our families, friendships and alliances are quite like a clean house. It accumulates dirt, and eventually rots, when we neglect their upkeep. Few structures last centuries, what more 10,000 years."

Celestia chewed on her strip of dried meat. "Can we just torch every single swamp and be done with them?"

"If we have the strength for it, yes. But swamps are not the only place they like to hide." Tundra said. "Nor are they the only enemies. The demonic cultivators were a big part of the chaos as well."

Then there were the wars between the Great Sects. The war between the Flaming Phoenix and the Slicing Heavens, and later the fight between the Ancient Titans and the Bright Depths, and the Silent Mountain, The Flaming Phoenix, the Sacred Fire and the Burning Tree Cult, in an incident later known as War of the Great Fire Sects.

"I didn't think it's possible to have peace amongst cultivators." Celestia said.

Tundra found that statement hurt, and indeed, cultivators were often people with frail egos and incredible power. Any peace would be short lived, and like a tinderbox, all that needed for the cultivators to claw at each other was just a spark.

"Peace is hard, but a managed, contained conflict in some areas, while working together on bigger matters is certainly possible." Tundra countered, as he remembered the last days when the great sects united for that final fight. "It just takes a big crisis, though, usually it's already too late." Tundra sighed and looked up, the memories of that brief unity made him feel wistful.

If only there was unity even in better times.

He felt Celestia's soft, somewhat cold hands on his, and their shoulders touched as she shifted closer. "How can I help? Beyond just family. What would you ask me to do, if... If I were a friend? An ally?"

"You already are a friend, and an ally." Tundra answered, but then he realized that wasn't always an immediately obvious thing. Marriage did not mean friendship, nor alliance.

His mind thought of Marin and Elly.

"I think, of the three of you, I've always found you to be a friend. That was why I wanted to keep you around."

Celestia smiled, as she briefly remembered how they both somehow got into an unusual sync during a tournament and somehow it ended with him asking her to be his wife. "I know you feel that way, but you often don't treat us that way. Now that you've helped us get stronger, give us avenues to help. Tell me, if I were a friend, if I want to help, what should I do?"

The regressor remembered the monstrous version of his wife, corrupted by Zuja's power. He still didn't quite understand how the monster turned her into a tenth realm creature. That level of power wasn't something easily achieved, even with the immense corruption of an otherworldly bug god.

"Did I tell you that the bugs turned you into a tenth realm monster?"

"You told me you punched me really hard and killed me." Celestia said with a grin.

"Yes. You were there in that final battle with the Zuja, and a deep part of me believes that Zuja's corruption cannot create something that wasn't there before. Something corrupt like that can empower something strong into something even more, but there must be a path for you to attain the tenth, or at least, the ninth realm on your own."

"Tenth realm." Celestia absolutely struggled to wrap her head around being the kind of old monsters that could flatten entire sects. "Really?"

"Yes. If anything, it must be possible for you, because I've seen a version. I fought that corrupted version of you multiple times too, though each time you escaped."

She had never aspired or thought of that level of power.

"I wish, at least, in this life, we fight together, instead of against each other." Tundra said, though he knew it was still a few thousand years away. Plenty could change in that time. Maybe, some aspects of that outcome is inevitable, the machinations of fate compelled the same outcome to happen.

His wife tapped his hand. She looked a little embarrassed, there was a slight reddish tint to her face. Maybe it was just the setting sun, and the darkening golden glow as it crests over the faraway mountains. "I will be by your side, husband. I promise."

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