The world was born in brutality and upheaval, young ones.
Never let it be said that chaos can never dominate, for in that era chaos reigned supreme.
Demons roamed the lands as they pleased, hunting their prey.
Us. Humanity.
In those desperate days, before the rise of the Empire, before the first cultivator emerged to save us all, no one was safe from the demon's grasp.
The elderly and feeble, the innocent and vile, men and women and children alike fell victim to their savage desires - either slaughtered like animals or enslaved as pets.
With their overwhelming power, even the land itself rebelled against us and the skies seemed to follow their every command.
Those were truly dark times, when fear and suffering ruled. Only the bravest dared stand against the demon hordes, though they often paid with their lives. Still, their sacrifice was not in vain, for in time, the first emperor rose.
The first emperor, a cultivator of unrivaled power, brought hope to the people. He united the scattered tribes and built the foundations of the Empire. With his heavenly strength, he confronted the demon lords who had terrorized humanity for so long.
Epic battles shook the land as the emperor dueled with the demon kings. His sword and the Ten Steps Technique, cut through the darkness cast by his foes. Though the demons unleashed terrible magics and monstrous beasts, the emperor prevailed through his indomitable will and mastery of cultivation.
With the first awakened cultivators at his side, the emperor led the counterattack. Ancient formations were unearthed, powerful treasures discovered, and legendary techniques created. One by one, the demon strongholds fell. Their numbers dwindled as humanity's strength grew.
It was on the Plains of Desolation that the tide finally turned. Though outnumbered three to one, the emperor's forces clashed with the remaining demon kings and their minions. The battle raged for seven days and seven nights, distorting the heavens and splitting the earth.
One by one, he vanquished the demons' strongest warriors in magical combat. Their dark fortresses he toppled with powerful spells. He cleansed the land of their taint, sealing their portals and banishing them back to the void. The people rejoiced, for the shadow over the world had been lifted.
In the end, humanity prevailed, but at great cost.
The land itself still bears deep scars from the titanic battles with the demons.
Yet humanity endured. Under the emperor's rule, the scattered tribes united into a great nation. Sects and schools proliferated as more awakened to the power of cultivation. Knowledge lost during the dark days was recovered, allowing humanity's strength to grow. The Ten Immortal Sects were established to pass on the emperor's teachings and techniques.
That golden age has long passed but our foundation, the mandate of heaven has remained. We stand firm against those dark times, our cultivation techniques and formations a testament to the emperor's sacrifice. Generations of cultivators have followed in his footsteps, upholding his oath to never again let the demons return to plague the mortal realms.
We are their legacy, young ones, inheritors of their unwavering spirit.
- Zeng Gengxin, Wayseer.
Archivist of The Silver Conviction Sect, speaking to the outer disciples.
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Reality coughed. Like a man moving something in the attic aside only to find a calvary charge of dust in his face, the very corporeal world spluttered and tried to fan its face clear. Startled by this unexpected disturbance, Reality recoiled and sent reverberations through the fabric of existence and sneezed. Not metaphorically.
It literally sneezed and like a germ, something... someone was allowed to slip through.
Eyes watering, the heavens regained its composure. It straightened its back, adjusting the threads of existence that had momentarily unraveled. With a gentle shake, the dust settled, and the world steadied itself once more. As it fiddled and tweaked and tightened things back into place, a flaming comet was missed.
The blazing streak plunged to the world, leaving sparks and swears so foul it would strip 500-year lacquer off a temple wall in its wake.
With a loud thud, the object crashed into the earth, kicking up a cloud of sand. It bounced and rolled wildly before finally coming to rest into the base of a sandy mound. As the smothered flames dissipated, a figure emerged from the steaming wreckage, clawing his way out from beneath the sandy debris.
“Well, that hadn’t worked. Must've tasted bad or something.” Spoony the cat remarked, his words muffled by a mouthful of sand. "Pit-ooey! Ech!" Unfortunately, he noticed too late he was spitting into the wind and flinched as the chilly grains were flung back in his face. Brushing away the backwash as best he could, he took a moment to rub his sand-coated arms and grumbled to himself, the empty air serving as his unwilling audience.
"Why did we have to activate it today? Because your boss is an absolute imbecile. That's why." His retort was met with an eerie silence, broken only by the occasional low groan of the wind rustling his clothes and the hissing sound of shifting sand as he freed his feet.
His boss was a moron and now there was sand everywhere and in everything. He kicked his left leg, then his right, watching as even more grit poured out from the fabric.
"This is just perfect," Spoony muttered, rolling his eyes. He knew it was pointless to get worked up over something as trivial as sand, especially considering the circumstances he currently found himself in. But it was hard not to feel frustrated when every movement seemed to dislodge more grains from hidden pockets within his clothes.
Suspicion flickered in his mind as what seemed like the last of it sprinkled away but the discomfort remained. That couldn't be all of it. The itchiness urged him to investigate further. With a sigh, he reached down and pulled open his pants, revealing the sandy evidence within.
Of course, he thought bitterly. Sand did what sand does and infiltrated every inch of his clothing in his all-expenses paid flight through the air. With a snap, he let his pants fall back into place and turned his attention to the spot where he had dug himself out.
Carving tunnels into it with his bare hands, he searched for his stuff.
After what felt like an eternity but was probably closer to ten minutes, he finally unearthed what he had been seeking. Triumphantly, he returned to the surface, clutching his glasses in one hand and his briefcase in the other.
Just as he was about to revel in his small victory, itching started in a new place. He froze, feline ear twitching and he tried and failed to scratch at the irritation with a pinky. Unable to dig far enough, he reluctantly set his suitcase down, leaned to the side and smacked his head. With a pop of released pressure and tingling relief which only came from finally popping his ears on an airplane, a Sandcastle’s worth of sand poured out his right ear. Literally. It landed on the ground in the perfect shape of a medieval castle and even included a drawbridge. Not a second after the last grain fell out, Spoony watched as a small blue scorpion unearthed itself from its hiding spot, crawled its way into the castle and shut the drawbridge with a bang. The toon considered knocking on the door and demanding some rent, but he knew he’d just get stung for his trouble. A few hundred sand dollars weren't going to fetch him much in the U.S. foreign exchange anyway. Moving on, he rubbed his chin, sticking his tongue out in concentration as he took in the landscape. “I’m certainly not in Anytoon and I’ve heard Albuquerque is much greener this time a year.” He knew full well he hadn’t made a left turn anywhere to end up here.
And much brighter, too. It was the middle of the night and last he checked... He glanced at his wristwatch; it glanced back at him with a broken face and hands frozen in time.
"Great, just great." Spoony sighed, his frustration growing. How was he supposed to navigate this unfamiliar place without a functioning watch?
He glanced around, trying to get his bearings in the dark wilderness. The moon hung low in the sky, casting patches of eerie white beams over the landscape wherever the clouds broke through. He knew full well he hadn’t made a left turn anywhere to end up here. Just suddenly blown off his feet in a flash and waking up covered in sand in the middle of nowhere with only his suitcase…
Maybe the malfunctioning thingamajig sent into the Sahara?
He heaved in a breath. If that was the case, he was in for a long walk back home. Certainly not back in time to pick up his brother from daycare. All because the dean felt like showing off for some visitor. “We’re activating it today.” Dean Dudd had said through a thick cloud of smoke. He puffed on the cigar chomped between his teeth as he smiled down at him from behind his huge desk, all fangs and green scales. "Got to impress the visitors..." It’s unfortunate rule that people don’t appreciate good work when they don’t have to do it. It was a lesson Spoony the cat learned along ago. The hammerspace creating thingamajig or THCT for short, hadn’t been ready and he’d told them so. If there was one toon Spoony could say he really didn’t like, it was the dean.
However, God had a sense of humor.
A quantifiably good one, actually.
Yazzlewham’s Principle was rooted in the profound belief that the universe has a rather mischievous sense of humor, and it occasionally plays pranks on the very laws of physics.
It was proven by Flibbierflop in -70 AD, a year before his death in 790 thus showing evidence that seven did in eat nine. That being said, the biggest joke of the moment wasn’t that Spoony was teleported many miles from home. He removed a brush from his pocket to clean his hair and paused at his hands. His non-gloved, five fingered, shockingly human hands. He squinted at them, palms and knuckles hooking his interest for the sixth time that night.
“No matter.” he said to the air dismissively, which he could tell would’ve snorted at his bold face lie if it could.
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He was a toon of science and as he flexed his ten, ten, fingers to observe how the moonlight played off the smooth skin, he couldn’t help but feel uneasy.
Had the TCHT done this?
He had based it off of Yazzlewham-Flibberflop Transmogrifying principle so maybe it had when things exploded. The biggest problem was he couldn’t get his original shape back. Save a few, most toons like him could just change back.
He tried, pulling out a changing divider and stepping behind it.
To his surprise, he came out exactly the same.
Not this time, apparently.
Still, it was weird not feeling fur in the proper places. The only thing that he could say was still where it belonged was his ears and tail. Jeez, even his whiskers were gone. He was wondering what he was going to do when he finally heard something.
Fighting.
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The bitterly cold desert night was alive with demonic roars and terrified screams. The chill seemed to settle into Zi Nuan's very bones as she stepped forward, shining blade held before her.
In one hand she gripped the hilt of her sword Bronze Echo’s Embrace with the easy tightness which came from familiarity, while her other hand moved with practiced ease up along it’s length to its curved tip. She tapped her finger three times on each large bronze ring linked and bound into the weapon’s spine and Qi pulsed through the two-handed curved Qing Dao, the whole blade illuminating the sand dunes around her in gold.
Filling in where the bonfires left shadows, a constant beacon which didn’t waver as it’s source moved.
The blade was almost rectangular at the end, a heavy blend between a cleaver and saber she wielded with the deftness a seamstress would a needle. Its bronzed edge glowed a deeper yellow as she swung, metal humming, and a pair of demon’s heads flew from their necks in a spray of foul-smelling blood. The two hadn’t come at her alone. Damn these things, but the third was intelligent enough to recognize she was a threat and drag its malformed body to a stop.
And only lost its jaw for its effort.
It reeled back, in a ululating howl of agony which quickly turned into a gurgling growl. Animalistic in its rage, it lunged at Nuan, the savage purpose of ripping her insides out her body glowing in its crimson eyes. She wasn’t deterred nor did she hesitate. Calmly she spun around the brute’s grasp, her twirl sending her armored yellow and gray dress chiming as bronze rings clinked against one another and only single claw attached to a hand which could’ve easily grasped and crushed her hand like she could a plum, skittered off her pauldron in a spray of sparks.
Her sword hummed again as it split the monster in half.
No sooner had its upper half hit the ground, she jabbed the blade down, splitting the skull like an axe to a log.
As the oily ichor splashed across her fine boots, she wondered if the heavens were having a joke at her expense.
She dove for another demon which slipped past the hastily thrown up defenses, snatching up a screaming, flailing man. It’s wedged shaped head, too close to a horse yet so much like an ant, stretched open a twisted maw and was about to bite down when her boot rose to close it.
Her heel smashed it up and back over the wall, it’s neck making a sickening crunching noise as it tumbled through the sand.
She caught the man before he fell, setting him down on his feet.
His face was pale as milk and his knees folded as soon as she let him go but she recognized him: the caravan leader’s son. When his father all begged for her help, this man had kowtowed right alongside him. She expected him to hide in the tents like so many others, having thought him soft like so many merchants.
The bow in his white-knuckled grip and the empty quiver on his back spoke where he heaved. ‘But I still keep getting surprised.’
Though she would gleefully admit, this was much more pleasant than the one this morning. Having the caravan leader scramble into the tent breaking her meditation, kowtowing before her as if she wasn’t disguised as the farthest thing from a cultivator.
She made the extra attempt by allowing her clothes to get dirty, wore gloves to cover her soft hands, and even wrapped her face in thick bandages to hide the beauty so common to female cultivators like herself the day she’d escaped the sect, so long before she’d joined the caravan. Under the pretense of safety since it was obvious a woman traveling alone and ill-equipped through the Ever-Reaching Steppe would either be mad or a cultivator no matter how they were dressed.
He begged forgiveness for his intrusion, admitting he wouldn’t have come if the situation wasn’t dire. Oh, was it dire. Having to see the distant black dots in the early evening sky of creatures too large to be birds and coming their direction all but confirmed her worst fears.
How what had forced her to flee wasn’t isolated. But this was her life now and it seemed the heavens were just being cruel at this point.
Her peasant garb seen through by a simple navigator was just one more indignity she had to swallow in the bitter feast of her escape.
As she looked around the carnage she had wrought, Nuan couldn’t help the feeling of unease that crept up on her. It wasn’t just the fact that these demons were becoming more and more frequent in their attacks, it was the way they were becoming more intelligent, more calculated in their efforts. In the early days, they’d fought little better than wild spirit creatures. Day or night they’d swarm with numbers, but these ones had waited until the sun went down and had shown signs of tactical thinking. It was unsettling. Fleeing home only to cross paths with the very creatures which had... She frowned. ‘Now was not the time.’
Centering her mind on her Dao and pushed down what she recognized for the first time was exhaustion and moved.
The mortal guards manning the defenses were doing better than she expected but when her expectations had been wholesale slaughter, she didn’t hold that as the highest praise.
They were blessed enough to have hours to prepare, and she had more experience than most with the spawn of the underworld.
Anywhere the mortals were fighting, she was there. Jabbing at sighted and hidden demons, sweeping the legs out from underneath the big ones. Her blade flashed, and flashed again, never failing in its purpose of sending demons back to the abyss. There were only a handful which managed to dodge her attacks and slip through the defenses, where they were met with unyielding armor. The problem was... there was so many and as fast as she was, she couldn’t be everywhere.
‘Not like I used to,’ The thought rose like a tide under a full moon swamping her thoughts before she could stop it. As if waiting for the traitorous reminder, a clink like a single crack in fine glass pulsed from her abdomen that she felt from tongue to tailbone. Qi leaked from her and though it was a small amount, the pain was enough to make her stumble. The crack wasn’t large nor was it fresh, but she had just worried it just a little bit larger through her exertions. Bronze Echo’s Embrace vibrated in her palm followed by the humming of its edge cut off by an ominous creak.
She looked down to see a crack tracing alongside the back.
As soon as the split point touched the first of the bronze rings, it rattled and shattered.
The sight filled Zi Nuan with an icy terror. Her path was breaking before her eyes, and she knew if things continued her core would shatter completely. As much as the cultivator wanted to stop, she couldn’t flee now. Just like she told the mortals, she would simply die tired.
With a growl, she forced down the pain and wove through the defenses, noticing most of those mustered were starting to panic and fewer and fewer were fighting.
“Stand your ground!” She cried, cutting down another of the fiends as it slipped past the barricade, “Run and you will simply die tired!”
“She’s right, you damned fools!” She heard the caravan leader roar.
She glanced over, surprised to see him carrying a military saber in one hand, dressed in old armor and blood spurting from a smaller dog sized demon at his feet.
His grizzled face was worn by weather as much as time, yet the solidity of his manner brought to mind the soldiers she’d once commanded as a general. Hells, it wasn’t beyond the possibility he might’ve been. Mortals could grow old, have families, and pass away in the time it took Cultivators to blink.
Especially when one reached the Golden Blood stage in the Second realm.
He was limping, blood dripping down his leg but he was fighting. The sight gave heart to the others. She sliced at a pair of demons, separating their bodies into two for good measure.
Shielding herself with the metal barricade she’d made, she called out to the son, “Take the arrows and oil, gather more firewood and pitch. Keep your barricades up and get any empty hands make more of them. You-" she looked to the caravan leader as she drove another demon off it’s legs and stomped its head to mush, “we need more fire! You can’t fight with swords and spears alone. If we run out of that, use chairs or baskets, anything! The goods won’t matter if everyone is eaten alive.!”
“Yes, Princess!”
“Yes, Bronze Cleaver!”
She winced at her title, unsurprised. She wasn’t sure who said what because her attention was taken elsewhere.
Foul corrupt Qi fogged her senses, between the demon bodies and the ones still alive, getting focus on the wrongness was hard to place.
Her eyes widened at shifting of the sand under her feet, a sensation which screamed out as unnatural to all her senses even among the foulness. She jumped, not left or right but straight up into the air.
It was too late.
Something exploded out of the sand, clamped around her ankle and pulled her back down.
Her body’s momentum lurched violently as she was hoisted into the air and whipped around. Whatever had her was so strong, the sand felt like cobbled road when she hit its unforgiving surface before she was lifted again and thrown down again, and again.
With each impact, there was a loud popping sound that reverberated through her entire body, intensifying inside her hip socket until her vision blurred from the pain. She didn't even realize she'd been let go to crumple in the sand until she felt hot stinking breath on her face.
Eyes watering, she looked up, trying to pinpoint what had grabbed her. A giant black coiled thing looked down at her with three eyes, each an inch in size.
It’s the center head was a pale, fleshy nub while the lower ones were made of bone. It’s long body was covered in gleaming, black carapace. Sharp spines made of bone and chitin stuck out like quills.
Her right hand, reaching towards the hilt of her sword, which was in her reach yet at the same time getting further and further away. As she looked on through double vision, brushing her brown hair from her face, hand twitching violently. Fine motor control was the first thing to go.
Her stomach clenched at the thought.
The thought of her Cultivation being sundered, her Dao breaking, her soul disc being shattered and eaten by these creatures. She grabbed her sword, tried not to wail at the second ring missing from its place, and leaned in to get on her feet, stomping down the pain and refusing to look at her mangled leg, lest she lost her nerve. Bracing the best she could...
And Nuan froze. She wasn’t the only one.
The demon lowering its head to bite her hesitated. A cultivator was suddenly between them, because only a cultivator could move so fast. A robe of rich red fabric adorned his form, covering his back, a canvas of feline motifs and intricate patterns.
Paw prints intertwined with delicate lines in the fabric, hinting at whiskers. The elegant sway of his red-tinted hair like a flame dancing in the wind. The glowing campfires painted his hair with hues of amber and gold. His eyes, a mesmerizing shade of amber, held the intensity of a thousand suns, revealing a hidden reservoir of determination.
Cat-like, they darted, capturing every detail, every nuance of his surroundings.
Then this cultivator... or maybe this ascended spirit beast, a savior she wouldn’t have prayed for any other time, did the most absurd thing. He stuck out a finger and wagged it before the massive demon’s face like he was chiding a child.
She couldn’t understand a word coming out of his mouth but for some insane reason, she got the feeling he was saying “Naughty, naughty.” He reached into a pocket and- Where had that mallet come from? And why was it when she blinked, she was seeing both the cultivator and a cat wearing mittens and glasses?