What is an Eternal? This is a question with many possible answers. Some see them as glorious protectors, others as powerful and mysterious gods. How to become an Eternal? This is maybe the most mysterious thing in the universe. No one truly knows how to become one, even the Eternals themselves, for each individual has their path, no two individuals can walk on the same road, and no one has the same destiny.

Every being could become an Eternal, from a lowly insect to the most intelligent species. Some say you had to persevere against all odds, other theorized that you had to be lucky, but truly, no one knew.

Hong Xie was one of these Eternals, he lived in the Jade Empire and was the leader of the Red Hand Sect. His scales were as red as blood, and his eyes as orange as amber.

Before him was a body, a human. Neither dead nor alive, plunged into an eternal slumber.

“What a pity, what should I do ?” Hong Xie wondered.

He was seating alone in his pagoda, he wanted to reflect on the situation at hand without having his subordinates bothering him. Not that they could help anyway, as his concerns were not simple mortal concerns.

Hong Xie summoned one of his Spectral Red Hands, which took the body of the human, as he started to walk toward the exit of his pagoda. Once out, he summoned another hand, on which he climbed, and both hands started to fly in the sky, towards the south.

Hong Xie planned to go to the Blackthorn Forest, where he would hide the human in a secret location of his creation. He knew that he wasn’t safe as long as he was in the Red Hand Sect and that the Pantheon could find him easily if he remained there. He also didn’t know what were the plans of the Jade Emperor and he feared he would give him back to the Pantheon. The Human was indeed no ordinary mortal, he was also an Eternal, the first human to become one since Humanity’s arrival on Novomundis.

Thinking about the Pantheon, Hong Xie couldn’t stop but be angry, he knew what they did, he knew the full extent of the crimes of some of them and he wanted revenge. Maybe his fixation on revenge was what led to the current situation. Maybe if he had not rushed, everything would have ended in his victory, it was his weakness. He knew Eternals shouldn’t act based on emotions, but that’s how he was.

After a few days spent flying, Hong Xie finally saw the edges of the Blackthorn Forest, one of the great forests of Seylenthea, which was north of the Silver Swords mountain range. When he was younger, Hong Xie trained here for several years, he knew the forest better than anyone else.

As he approached, he felt something strange, his senses were on full alert. On the horizon, he saw a portal open in the sky and two humans exiting it. Both of them flew directly toward his position.

“Shit, how did they find us so quickly ?!” he cursed in his head.

He started to retreat west to get closer to the Jade Empire’s territory but his pursuers were determined not to let him go and they started to speed up to catch him.

This situation lasted for a few hours before the two humans finally caught up to him. Hong Xie decided to face them, as for the time being, he had nowhere else to flee to.

“What do you want, you pieces of shit !” he said angrily to both of them.

The two parties were separated by some distance, around five hundred meters. One of the two humans came forward, a man. He had long orange hair, a great beard, eyes as orange as flames, he had no clothes to hide his muscular torso and he held a great hammer erupting with flames in his right hand. His body was covered with scars from past battles.

“Here you are, did you think we wouldn’t dare come for you even if you are near your pathetic Empire ?” the man said in a menacing tone.

“Agrevis !” Hong Xie yelled with hate. “You can’t imagine how much I want to erase your pitiful existence! If you try to kill me, you can be certain that I will bring you with me to the grave! I won’t let you take him back !” he said speaking of the human body he held in one of his Spectral Hands.

“To think I wanted to be reasonable and offer you a deal in exchange for him. Well, I should have known It's impossible to reason with a beast …” Agrevis said mockingly.

The gaze of Hong Xie was filled with hate for Agrevis, so much he could barely contain himself. The tension in the air was so powerful that any mortal present would be paralyzed by fear of the confrontation between the three Eternals.

“Let’s kill him, Typhelia” Agrevis said as he started spinning his hammer, as gusts of flames sprang up from it.

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

The woman next to Agrevis, Typhelia, also started to activate her powers. She probably was one if not the most beautiful human alive. She wore a long and majestic grey robe and she had long and magnificent indigo hairs down to her knees. She had heterochromia, one of her eyes was blue and the other purple. Magic circles started to appear around her arms as she was seemingly preparing to cast a spell.

Hong Xie didn’t lose time, and suddenly, ten giant Spectral Hands started to appear around him, making a total of twelve with the one he was standing on and the one holding the human body. He started to fly toward the female Eternal while trying to distance himself from Agrevis.

“You wish !” Agrevis understood what Hong Xie was trying to do, and as such, he was prepared to launch a powerful attack. Suddenly, his right arm was set ablaze, and the flames coming from his hammer were amplified tenfold. At the next moment, his hammer started to shine bright like the sun, and a wide, long, and continuous flame beam erupted from it, directly toward Hong Xie. “Flame Lord’s Sun Burst !”

Hong Xie felt a sudden surge of power, and his spectral hands gathered around him to form some kind of shield, as he was abruptly hit by Agrevis flame beam. But it was part of his plan. He knew that with his powers, it would be hard to stop two Eternals even more if they were Agrevis and Typhelia, who were way older than him. He also had no way to fight efficiently against a sorcerer such as Typhelia with his powers. His only way was to stall for time and hope for a miracle!

Agrevis was looking in the direction of Typhelia to see if Hong Xie was somehow able to get to her but it seemed that he was stuck in his Sun Burst. It was not the first time he was fighting Hong Xie, he knew he could defend himself and had some powerful attacks, but all in all, he wasn’t very impressed with what he had seen.

He was hoping to weaken him long enough so that Typhelia could use her power, and he knew that a two-against-one was a near-impossible victory for him. He became so confident in himself that he looked at the damage he was doing to the environment and he seemed very satisfied seeing the forest burn.

Suddenly, ten spectral hands appeared around Agrevis and started to grab and restrain him without giving him time to react. Hong Xie suddenly flew out a few meters from him, from the Sun Burst which started to disappear, some parts of his body were brutally burned but he wasted no time as he said two words: “Red Prison”.

Runes started to appear on the Spectral Hands whose colors changed to a deep red similar to blood. Agrevis tried to activate his powers, flames started to cover his body but he felt as if It was being absorbed by the hands restraining him yet he also felt it could be destroyed.

As Agrevis struggled, Hong Xie quickly turned his gaze toward Typhelia as she seemed to be at the end of her spell casting. More than forty magic circles started to appear in the sky. He knew it was no good and he directly tried to inflict a fatal hit on Agrevis but he felt a strange sensation.

“Gravity Seal…” she whispered.

Before he could inflict the final hit, he crashed to the ground as if gravity had increased exponentially. The power was such that he couldn’t even lift a finger, and his Spectral Hands started to disappear progressively, allowing Agrevis to free himself from the Red Prison. The Spectral Hand holding the human body also disappeared as he fell onto the ground.

“Too bad for you, you were a bit late,” Typhelia said from above him, as she went toward Agrevis to check on his wounds.

Hong Xie felt his bones being shattered and the pain started to be near unbearable, he couldn’t even scream. At this moment, he had become nothing more than an insect crawling on the ground.

Agrevis and Typhelia descended toward the human Hong Xie had been protecting this whole time. He felt immense despair not because he would die, but because his disciple would be killed without accomplishing his dream.

“Ar … karon …” he weakly said as he tried to tend his hand toward him with no success.

As Agrevis was about to inflict the fatal blow on Arkaron, Hong Xie’s miracle finally happened.

“Stop here Human Eternals” a grand and majestic voice boomed from the sky, as a gigantic dragon appeared from above the clouds above. Their scales sported different shades of blue, and their bright blue eyes could even be seen from the ground. They were Xinli the Spirit Celestial Dragon, one of the seven Celestial Dragons of the Jade Empire.

“Too bad for you, it seems you were a little bit late” he mockingly said.

Agrevis tried to go for the final hit again, but he was stopped by Typhelia this time as she understood it would be even more of a mess if they were to offend a Celestial Dragon.

“Why are you meddling in the affairs of Humanity! Arkaron is a Human Eternal, it is up to the Pantheon to decide of his fate !” Agrevis said as he looked at Xinli.

“As for your subordinate,” he pointed his hand toward Hong Xie “He led an attack on our Island, he helped these pathetic heretics! What he did is going against the rules set by the Grand Celestial Council !”

“I couldn’t care less about the Council’s rules, you certainly won’t be the one to judge our Qiuren Eternals, human. As for this Arkaron, consider him a guest of our Empire, we won’t tolerate any harm done to him. Now, go away and return to your small island, humans.” Xinli said in an authoritative tone.

“Hmpf, I will retreat for today. Your empire might be powerful, but you would do well to not underestimate us humans !” Agrevis answered back furiously “And you, you better hope I don’t cross your road ever again ! I won’t be so kind next time,” he said pointing at Hong Xie.

Slowly after, he and Typhelia started to fly away until she opened a portal and both of them disappeared.

Both Arkaron and Hong Xie started to levitate and they ended up on top of Xinli’s head. Hong Xie could not move nor talk but he was still conscious even though he suffered quite a lot.

“You were lucky, Hong Xie. His Heavenly Majesty ordered me to take you to the capital to explain yourself.”

“Oh, by the way, I won’t heal you, it will give you some time to reflect on your weaknesses” he cackled.

“Th..an..ks” he feebly answered.

As the Celestial Dragon began to rise above the clouds, his roar could be heard from miles away and was seen as a blessing by mortals but for today, it was also a blessing for Hong Xie, an Eternal.

End of Chapter 4