"My children are suffering; hate is festering in their souls. They look the same, struggle through the same worldly matters throughout their lives, and yet they kill each other over borders, over religions, over as little as a few coins.
I see that wars have become unforgiving. War prisoners are only more mouths to feed, and armies wipe out entire villages from the face of the earth.
Women, children, and the elderly are all brutally murdered, and sometimes that’s not the only fate they have to face before death.
The soldiers, who have been away from their families for years on end, have raped and killed many women, while the commanders look with pride at the carnage their armies had wrought.
Entire bloodlines are cut short and face their end in these wars.
Rulers are stealing from their subjects. They’re filling their bellies with the hard work of their people, living extravagantly, while the poor barely eat bread to stave off hunger, weighed down by taxes that make them slaves to their fates.
Parents give their children away to whoever can feed them, or leave them on the steps of temples, for the monks to take them in.
That doesn’t always happen, even their charity is conditional, and they only give it when they’re short on servants for the temple.
Servants who will take care of their livestock or their farms that feed them to obesity, while the masses starve.
Need a prayer? Pay.
Need a blessing? Pay.
Need medicine? Pay…
Other children are working from a very young age. Their families push them out into the world, to feed themselves with what little their labor will get them. Abused, in a work environment unfit for frail little kids.
The horrors that exist in the world are many.
The Immortals ignore the public and focus only on their reach for immortality and their desire to defy the heavens.
If not for accidents that occur every few years, people would think they were myths.
Many already believe they’re a myth, until their fights with each other finally spill into the mundane world, and their vast power shocks people.
Locked away in their sects atop mountains, not deigning to lower themselves to the level of mortals, even forgetting their own families.
Many human lives are lost before they’ve enjoyed a full life.
It breaks my heart. How did it all come to this? How can I stop what I now see as inevitable?"
Thus spoke the goddess Karma. In a place unreachable for humans, not even by most of the ascending cultivators as rare as they are, there she floats, overlooking our world; she has been there at the start, she will be there at the end of it all, and she bears witness to how it all went horribly wrong.
*****
image [https://imgur.com/XfBSXXC.jpg]
It was a chilly night. A young man was walking, dressed in two robes above his work clothes, trying to block the cold from nestling further into his bones, but it's unfortunately no help at all.
He was climbing the slope of the mountain next to his small village.
The villagers claimed that the mountain was protecting their village, but the young man couldn’t think similarly, since the cold was trying to kill him.
Covered was the Earth all around him with snow, stripped were all the trees as far as the eye could see -which wasn’t much because of the falling snow all around- of all their leaves, and he was desperately clutching the robes to his body, trying hard not to let the shivering control him, so that it wouldn’t feel even worse.
A while ago, a doctor had been at his house to look over his sick mother, who'd said her condition had worsened.
She needed Vitality Grass, which grew halfway up the mountain.
The doctor had run out, and it's the only way to save her.
They couldn’t wait till morning, and even then, they weren't sure if a peddler or a merchant’s caravan would pass by the village.
The young man had no other choice. His mother had carried him all her life.
His father had left them when he was young, and she’d taken care of him ever since, washing clothes for the rich to pay for their needs.
When he became able, she took care of all the house chores while he struggled to work as a water carrier, and tried to study at night to become a scholar.
He couldn’t bear losing her. He’d have no one else in his life.
His name was Seph.
He was 18 years of age, 5 feet 8 inches tall, his skin was the color of sand, and he kept his black hair short because of his occupation; unlike all aspiring scholars, his eyes were black, it's easy to tell he was very intelligent by looking at them.
After all, no one wanted to drink water that had dangling hair in it. He had a powerful upper body from carrying water all day.
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Some would call it a good foundation for a martial artist, but that was never what he had aspired to be, so far, he had done everything he had set out to do in life, even though what he had done wasn’t much, but it all hung in the balance now.
His task was dangerous, but he was determined to give it his all.
*****
image [https://imgur.com/XfBSXXC.jpg]
Seph’s thoughts raced as he struggled upward. He knew he had to find the herb and get back to his mother, Mother... I am coming for you... I swear... I’ll save you...
Somehow he reached halfway up the mountain, but the snow was falling even more intensely. He couldn’t see the herb anywhere around him. His body was almost freezing to death already.
Seph couldn’t press on further, so he started looking for a shelter. He strained his eyes to look around, only to find this dark tree.
A majestic tree, bigger than any he had seen coming up this mountain, wasn't covered with snow at all.
It also had a big cavity in its center, enough to shelter a grown man. Its wood looked very sturdy.
It had a faint, dark glow surrounding it.
By this point, Seph’s brain froze, and he couldn’t do much thinking. He completely disregarded the mysterious glow coming off the tree.
He had to take cover in the man-shaped cavity and try to get warmer. The blizzard would pass, and the visibility would become better, so he could continue his search for the herb and then make his way down.
Seph stood inside the cavity with his back to the tree, both his arms hugging his body while he rubbed himself to get warmer.
He became conscious of his hunger when he saw a black fruit of some kind dangling from the tree.
He kept eyeing the fruit, trying to figure out its name, but it didn’t look like any fruit he had seen before. He kept bouncing the idea around in his head while waiting to get warmer. Should he eat that fruit or not?
He hasn't eaten many fruits in his life, which made his stomach growl more. It didn’t help that he hadn’t had dinner tonight, either.
After a while, Seph felt warmer and walked closer to the fruit. Upon closer inspection, it looked like it was a black peach hanging from the tree.
Drool began dripping down the side of his mouth.
He tried to think logically and not eat that weird peach. He had never seen or heard of a black peach before. What if it was dangerous? What if it was poisonous?
Long story short, his stomach won the conversation.
He reached out for the black peach and plucked it from the tree, bringing it closer to his mouth. When he heard a shouting voice, “It’s one of them," and another followed, “Get him fast." At that moment a stone the size of a watermelon shot towards Seph and hit him square in the chest.
He flew back with force, hitting the cavity inside the tree and slumped to the ground while thinking, "Mother, no; I was so close; I wanted to save you." His body went limp, with the black peach on his chest, where he was checking the damage caused by the stone, which had caved his chest in.
*****
image [https://imgur.com/XfBSXXC.jpg]
Seph woke up a little while later, gasping for air, his eyes wide open in horror, still feeling pain from his caved-in chest, but nothing was the same anymore.
He woke up to loud shouting, sounds of explosions, and strange, colorful lights flying all around.
He rubbed his eyes, trying to concentrate, but it wasn’t helping. He couldn’t see that well.
The young man looked at his hands after rubbing his eyes. His hands were blue! He thought, "Why are my hands blue? Am I that cold?"
He touched his face to check his temperature, only to realize he was cold! He was so cold!
He was still sprawled on the ground, his back supported by the cavity of the tree; the rock that had caved in his chest was beside him on the clearing, and the black peach was inside the cavity of his caved-in chest.
Seph stopped focusing on himself and watched what was happening on the slope in front of and above him, yes, above him, as there were people floating in the air.
Stray fireballs and iceballs flew from the left side, also what looked like windblades, big round rocks hurled at extreme speeds!
He thought, no way, no freaking way. Immortals are fighting in front of my eyes. Why did I have to get caught up in this? If one of them hits me, I'm done for – how am I even alive after the one that hit me!
He looked to his right to see who was the target of these attacks and saw people. It’s very generous to call them people, as they all looked like they just crawled right out of a grave after spending a good chunk of time down there! And their looks varied.
They mostly wore uniform robes, there were three types of uniforms: long, flowing robes with different colors.
Some of them looked siphoned of all skin colors, and they had pale blue skin, some pale white, and some even had grey skin.
Seph thought, "Wait a minute! No, please no!"
He looked back at his hands, which were still blue, and he lifted his sleeves; his arm was blue, he took a peek at his horrendously damaged chest; it was also blue, with a dark shade of red, which was a welcome diversity at that point.
He started panicking internally, as he didn’t want to grab the attention of the warring beasts in front of him. Did I become like them? No, it couldn’t be. I must be extremely cold, that’s all!
The Immortals' battle raged on in front of him, the blue people were attacking with black fires, green lumps of something that sizzled the ground wherever it fell, some had protruding bones covering different parts of their bodies, some slashed flying waves in the air with different swords.
Balls of light flew from the side of the immortals, and balls of shadow flew from the opposite direction!
It was madness! But the battle was waning. The Immortals were retreating even though he couldn’t see any real casualties among their numbers, and only the pale blue people remained.
*****
image [https://imgur.com/XfBSXXC.jpg]
One of the pale men, tall with white hair slicked back and cold blue, piercing eyes that looked much smaller than normal eyes. He was tall at about 5 feet 11 inches tall, he had a slim but strong body; and looked to be around 40 years old, came floating over to Seph after the battle had ended.
Before today, he never saw a person float in the air like that, and even though he had seen too many do it in this battle, they were far away enough that he could feign it was an illusion, but now he could see it clear as day, also this one’s skin turned out not to be pale blue, it was more like grayish black.
He wore a long black coat with a high collar and had his arms crossed over his chest.
“Another poor soul with a purpose who died before his time. I'm afraid we were late to save you.” The man said with pity.
Seph looked around at first to make sure he was the target of the talking man. He gulped and answered, “What do you mean by dying? I am still alive! And what do you mean you were late to save me?!” Seph was staring at him wide-eyed in complete horror.
“Yes, my child, you died; it seems the immortals were out here looking for us when they saw you and thought you were a yin disciple, and they resolved to cut your unholy life short, that’s the danger we face whenever we venture outside our caves after all.” The man said, feeling sorry for the situation his kin have to face every time they come face to face with cultivators.
Seph said frantically, “You must be mistaking me for someone else, good sir; I am not a yin disciple, I don’t even know what that means, I swear, plus I am still alive, I am just pale from the cold!” Seph was half relieved, thinking they just got the wrong guy and would leave him alone.
The man said with finality, “Son, you're a Yin disciple now, no doubt about it. You must have had a strong desire when you died. That brought you back as one of us.”
"But I..." Seph never finished his sentence as his eyes scanned over the Yin Disciples in front of him, who looked like walking corpses; it suddenly occurred to him that the blow to his chest must have been severe enough to halt his heart, his injury hadn’t even healed yet.