It is the hundred and thirty-first year of Emperor Motian's reign and all is as it should be. The savage tribes of the north have been pacified. The barbarian kingdoms to the south have been reduced to their rightful place as vassal states. The seven great sects bow before the might of the imperial family.
In the ninth province of the empire, things are how they've been for the last thousand years. The cultivation culture still hasn't recovered, leaving mere martial artists as the petty kings of the land.
They tell stories of the old days. Of a sect of immortals that once ruled the province. Of how Grain could once be found in abundance and how everyone once had a chance to leap over the dragon's gate.
But those days are long since past. The Evil Star fell and that sect was destroyed overnight, as though it was nothing more than a beautiful dream.
Over time, the people of the Barren Province began to think the stories of the Dragon’s Gate were nothing more than fairy tales. Stories to tell children when they thought the real world was too dull.
But that couldn't be further from the truth. Something that would soon be proven by the man climbing the Highest Mountain.
-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-
The Stardust Mountain Range was enormous, forming a natural barrier that protected the southwestern border of the Azure Empire.
In particular, nine mountains rose past the sky, their peaks hidden by the clouds. According to myth and legend, it was upon those nine mountains that the Dragon's Gate Sect once stood.
On the tallest and greatest of those nine vast mountains, a man by the name of Jaspen Veraglaas sat panting on a rock. He looked down at the city in the valley below, surrounded on all sides by the nine mountains. That city had been the most disappointing part of his journey so far.
There’d been so many rumors about it. “The City of False Gods” it had once been called. The place where the elders of the ancient Dragon’s Gate kept their mortal descendants. According to the tales, even some Jade Step elders of the sect had once lived there instead of on one of the mountains.
It had been horribly disappointing to arrive and discover that the city didn’t have even a single divine aspirant. Just martial artists. Barely better than mortals themselves. The worthless wretches didn’t even know what a divine aspirant was.
Jaspen spat to one side, trying to get rid of the bitter taste in his mouth. His encounters with the city had left him with a sense of impending disaster sitting in his gut, spreading poisonous tendrils into his mind.
If that mythical city was so far from the rumors, what about the Dragon’s Gate Sect?
He ignored the little voice in the back of his mind. It was hardly the first time he’d had a setback or reason to doubt. But every time, he persevered. And every time, he’d been right to do so.
This was no different. Just another small hurdle. So what if the city wasn’t what he’d expected or hoped? That was a good thing! It meant they hadn’t obtained the riches of the Dragon’s Gate Sect - otherwise, how could their cultivation culture still be so thin and rotten?
That had to be the case. It had to be.
Suddenly anxious, Jaspen felt his exhaustion melt away, replaced by a flow of nervous energy. He stood up, dusting himself off and turning to continue walking up the mountain. As he did, he absentmindedly regulated his breathing according to his breathing art.
It was nothing special. Not by his standards, at least. The martial artists down in the city would likely fight to the death over it. But Jaspen knew his place in the world, as well as that of his branch of the Veraglaas clan.
It was why he’d taken such a desperate gamble. He wasn’t satisfied. He wanted more. He wanted riches, fame, glory, divinity- everything the world had to offer. And with the wealth and knowledge of the Dragon’s Gate Sect, once one of the greatest of the empire’s sects, that would be more than just a dream.
In, out. In, out.
Jaspen’s aura pulsed gently with his breathing as he walked. It was a pity that he couldn’t gather and refine Grain while he was at it, but this was the Barren Province. The Grain of Heaven and Earth was quite thin and disparate here.
Which was why he had a grudging respect for those martial artists down in the city. Inferior beings they may be, but cultivating to anything beyond the Copper Step would take an enormous amount of effort and dedication.
While he was getting his dinner, he’d even heard that the elders and patriarchs of the major clans had reached the Iron Step. The same Step Jaspen himself was in. It was why he’d decided against attempting to take over the local clans and have them assist him in his search.
Being a genuine divine aspirant meant he was above any mere martial artist of his Step… but a dozen at once could be a bit dangerous. Not that he thought he would lose, but why take that risk?
He grabbed the gourd dangling at his waist, popping the cork and taking a long, hard drink. The blessed wine burned as it went down, the essence within seeping into his throat without his conscious harvesting of it.
Blessed wine could be dangerous. Even the greatest forms of it were both a medicine and a poison. Drink more than you could handle and your death was almost certain. There were few cures for over-indulgence, and most came with a brutal cost.
But this was the cheap stuff. Something he’d bought down in the city to put some extra vigor in his limbs as he climbed this gods-forsaken mountain. At his level of cultivation, Jaspen could drink a barrel of it and barely get tipsy.
The only reason he even felt the burn was because of the wretched black and gray dust that had begun to fill the air the higher he climbed. The foul stuff was likely the reason the martial artists down in the city were so unwilling to climb the mountains.
The wine reached his stomach, settling nicely and sending pleasant pulses of warmth through his body. Jaspen sighed, taking another small sip before popping the cork back in. The wine wasn’t actually a medicine, but it did have medicinal properties. It was enough to soothe his throat.
"Onwards and upwards," he muttered, voice hoarse from the dust and wine. "Far too late to turn back now."
And wasn't that the truth.
Jaspen didn't regret his actions. Ascension was the ultimate goal of all divine aspirants. If you didn't chase it with all your heart, then you weren't worthy to call yourself an aspirant.
But he did regret that those actions were necessary. He regretted that he couldn't share the benefits he'd reap with his family. And he regretted that they'd certainly been punished for crimes that were his and his alone.
The weight of the token hanging around his neck seemed to double at the thought. He grabbed it, holding it up to the light of the full moon.
It was a rather small thing, given how important it was, fitting neatly in the palm of his hand. Rather than being circular, it had seven sides. Jaspen assumed the number stood for the seven steps of mortal cultivation, but it could also have some other meaning.
The token's material was something he'd never seen before, like a mix between wood, bronze, and glass, but clearly none of them. Within the token, there was a five-clawed golden dragon.
Jaspen let the token fall from his hand. It bounced against his chest as it settled back to where it had been. This token was the reason his family would be punished. It was something he'd stolen from the clan's ancestor, after all.
Unbidden, memories of his old ancestor rose up in his mind.
Jaspen had been one of the old madman’s servants. Day after day, he’d bring the man wine and listen to him tell stories of the days when he was young and brave.
For a while, Jaspen hadn’t thought anything of it. Every old man liked exaggerating the stories of his youth. Embellish the good parts, cut out the bad, and let every story grow in the retelling.
But some of what the old ancestor said had caught Jaspen’s interest. Mainly, the stories of how the Dragon’s Gate Sect had seemed to vanish. There’d been no battle. At no point had anyone been called back to defend the sect. There’d been no warnings at all.
It had been there one day. The next, it was gone.
So, did that mean all the riches of it were still there? Just waiting for the fated person to find them?
Once the idea occurred to Jaspen, it was like it sprouted and took root. He couldn’t get it out of his head. So he began to do some research. What he’d found had given him hope. Everything he found agreed that the sect’s ruins had never been found.
He’d started listening more intently to the old ancestor’s stories. He’d even dared to ask a few questions. Finally, he’d put together his plan.
Jaspen had poisoned the ancestor. Not with anything lethal; he wasn’t so vicious. The old man wasn’t in his right mind, but he’d never done anything bad to Jaspen or his family. Besides, the Veraglaas clan would have dedicated everything it had to hunting him down if he’d murdered the ancestor.
The poison had just been to knock the man out. Jaspen had stolen the token, which his ancestor had once confided to him as being a key to entering the sect. Then he’d made his desperate escape.
It had been touch and go for a while. The Veraglaas clan hadn’t sent anyone truly powerful after him, but they’d still put more than a bit of effort into it. Jaspen nearly died several times, but had escaped in the end. Mainly thanks to his breakthrough to the Iron Step- something he attributed to the pressure he’d been put under by the clan’s enforcers.
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
He glanced down at the token again, starting to let out a sigh. Then his breath caught in his throat. The token was releasing a soft glow.
Quickly, carefully, he cupped it in his palm, hiding it from the moonlight. The glow was still there. A wild grin split Jaspen’s face. This meant he was close, right?
A wild burst of aura sent him hurtling deeper into the forest. The light of the token sharply increased, reaching a crescendo as he approached… nothing.
Jaspen stopped, looking around. The token was glowing like a lantern, illuminating the forest. Yet still, he saw nothing. It was just trees and shrubbery and that disgusting dust. A careful examination with his divine sense said the same thing.
He frowned down at the token, then at the ground. Was there some sort of shrouded teleportation formation? Was the Dragon’s Gate hidden in a secret realm?
That didn’t seem right. None of the texts he’d read had suggested anything of the sort. On the contrary; all of them agreed that the Dragon’s Gate Sect was located on the mountains themselves, with the heart of the sect being on the Highest Mountain, where the great waterfalls were.
But then again, there had to be a reason nobody had ever found the ruins. It hadn’t been difficult for him to make it this far and he was only of the Iron Step. A mere Noble Being. A Heroic Being of the Silver, Gold, or Jade Steps would have had even less difficulty.
Yet nobody had ever found the Dragon’s Gate Sect.
Jaspen frowned, the true magnitude of that problem hitting him for the first time. There was no doubt in his mind that the great sects and clans of the empire had attempted to find and plunder the Dragon’s Gate Sect. Perhaps even the imperial family had attempted it.
Yet nobody had ever found the Dragon’s Gate Sect.
The blood drained from his face. His legs felt as though they’d turned to jelly all at once. Jaspen collapsed like a puppet with his strings cut.
None of those Heroes had done it. So how could he?
In that moment, Jaspen couldn’t help but admit that, in his heart of hearts, he thought it would “just work out.” As though he was some character in a story. That heaven would bless him and he would succeed where all others failed. That he’d be the one to pull off a miracle.
But that wasn’t how life worked, was it?
Jaspen clutched the token, a desolate sense of inadequacy and self-mockery washing through him like a cruel tide. All he’d done, all he’d suffered, and he hadn’t even stopped to consider such a basic, important detail?
He was a fool. Blind, stupid, ignora- what was the token doing?
Still stunned from the self-loathing he’d been experiencing, Jaspen watched absentmindedly as the token began to pulse, the yellow dragon inside seeming to writhe and roar. He opened his hand, letting the token rise into the air. It floated towards an empty patch of air, seeming to lock into place.
A ripple passed through the air. Then, without further warning, rainbow light burst forth. Jaspen yelped, vainly trying to shield his eyes from the blinding brilliance. It filled the forest, shining like a newly-born sun. Even with his hands covering his eyes, Jaspen could still feel tears welling up from the sheer brightness of it.
Then, as suddenly as it had arrived, the rainbow light faded away. Jaspen stood there for several minutes, stunned, desperately trying to blink the spots from his eyes. But when his sight did finally clear, he struggled to believe what he saw.
Beyond a simmer in the air, like a film of shifting and swaying water, there was a scene like a child’s nightmare come to life. Hundreds, maybe even thousands of people and animals frozen in place, their dried out husks withered and blackened into horrific, ghoulish parodies of their former selves.
All of them were facing his direction, down the mountain. Most had their arms and legs poised as though they were running with all their might. Some looked like they’d fallen from the sky, with craters and trails carved into the ground behind them.
Black mist billowed and swirled around them, flooding in and through them. Jaspen took a shaky step back as a wave of it seemed to surge towards him before crashing harmlessly against the shimmering barrier.
He swallowed hard, looking past the corpses. In the distance, he could just barely see a gate. One made of… stone?
Jaspen shook his head at himself. Of course it wasn’t stone. The gate for a sect like the Dragon’s Gate would have used valuable, powerful materials for their gate. Even if it was more for show than anything else, since their protective formation would be what they truly relied upon for their defense.
That was how the Veraglaas clan and all the sects around them had done things, anyways. They kept their fancy walls and decorated gates and had people guarding them at all times, but they didn’t actually treat them as a true defense.
Hesitantly, Jaspen reached out with his divine sense. It hit the haze in the air like it was an impenetrable wall. Which was as expected; even the formations of the Veraglaas clan and the surrounding sects could do the same.
Still, this felt like confirmation that it was a protective barrier. None that would just stop entry, rather than doing something horrible to those who attempted to get through. Jaspen had seen one of those before. A woman had tried to push her way through it. Her corpse had collapsed as a bloody mess on the other side.
Jaspen hadn’t expected anything of the sort from this barrier. It was the outer defensive measure of what had once been a powerful righteous sect. There was no way they’d have something like that as their first line of defense. But he’d survived this long through an abundance of caution. There was no way he’d let himself die at the finish line due to a momentary lapse of judgment.
Slowly, carefully, Jaspen pushed his hand towards the shimmer in the air, ready to jerk it away at a moment’s notice. But there was no need. His hand moved through the rippling air like it was nothing more than a strange wind.
A broad, nearly manic grin spread across Jaspen’s face. He could nearly taste the glory and power held by the gods. Eagerly, he began to move his entire body through the barrier, instinctively making a motion as though to push it aside like the curtain it resembled.
As his head passed through, the barrier trembled violently. Up above him, the light of the token shuddered and pulsed. Jaspen gave it a sharp look, quickly jerking the rest of his body inside the barrier.
The action seemed to further destabilize it. Jaspen winced as the barrier shook wildly, looking more like the surface of a stormy sea than the gentle shimmer it had previously been. Hesitantly, he reached out and grabbed the token.
He immediately regretted it.
The sensation was like fire and ice. It poured through his hand, down his arm, and into his body. It slammed into his lungs and viscera, forcing a grunt of pain from his lips. Still, he tried to pull the token free as gently as he could, but it was like it was locked in space.
Panicking, the brutal forces of the unstable formation slowly tearing him apart from the inside, Jaspen pulled with every scrap of strength his body held. His aura exploded forth, fueling a physical enhancement art as he twisted and heaved.
With a sound like cracking stone, the token abruptly came loose. Jaspen stumbled back, gasping and coughing. Flecks of blood flew from his mouth, covering the blackened, mummy-like corpses around him. As if drawn in by his pain, the thick blanket of black smoke billowed and rose around him.
A quick burst of his aura forced it back. Dust was still dust, after all. Even if it was some creepy dust that may or may not have come from the sea of corpses around him. Before it could gather back around him, Jaspen quickly grabbed at his gourd.
In a single smooth motion, he popped the cork, drained the last of the wine, and tossed the empty container aside. As the wine settled in his stomach, slowly sending pulses of revitalizing power through him, he tore off his sleeve and wrapped it tightly around his mouth and nose. It probably wouldn’t do much, but it was better than nothing.
Basic needs taken care of, Jaspen forced himself to stand up straight and look around, grimacing from the rush of pain and lightheadedness. His grimace grew deeper by the second as he got a better look at the blackened, seemingly mummified corpses of what he assumed to be the former disciples of the Dragon’s Gate Sect.
It truly was a horrible sight to behold. Men, women, children, beasts of all sorts. All clearly having died while desperately fleeing whatever disaster had enveloped and destroyed the sect. It was a foul parade of corpses that wouldn’t have looked out of place in one of the hundred realms of hell.
Steeling himself, Jaspen reached out with his divine sense towards the nearest corpse. A hound, by the look of it. Its teeth were bared in an eternal, panicked snarl, snout nearly pressing against the barrier.
His will poured through the corpse, searching for any lingering spirituality or life force. There was nothing. Which was what he’d expected, but it was still relieving to know for certain that this wasn’t a field of thousands of undead.
Just to be safe, he checked a handful of the other corpses. Beyond the strange lack of any rotting, there wasn’t the slightest thing unexpected about what he found. Satisfied, Jaspen began running towards that stone gate.
Behind him, a sharp crack rang out. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw something absurd. The corpses, ones he’d checked just moments ago, were moving. One had slammed a sword into the barrier.
Stunned, Jaspen just stood there and stared, momentarily heedless of whatever personal danger the corpses might pose.
How were they moving? They couldn’t be moving. There was nothing in them to move. No animating principle. No vital spark. They had no soul to guide them and no life to invigorate them.
Even the undead had spirituality and an animating force. But he’d felt nothing of the sort within these things. They were dead. Truly, absolutely dead. How could they possibly move in that condition?
The answer struck him like a bolt of lightning.
Puppets.
Jaspen spun wildly, looking for the culprit. All around him, the ancient corpses began to silently rise. Most moved towards the barrier, attacking it with fists, claws, and weapons. But a few moved towards him.
A fierce glint entered his eyes. Aura pulsed through him as he fell into a fighting stance. He wouldn’t give up. Not with his goal so close. He’d find whoever had turned these corpses into puppets and kill them. The riches of the Dragon’s Gate Sect would be his. His personal springboard to divinity.
He wou- a spear pierced his chest from behind.
Jaspen tried to scream, but choked on his own blood. A wild panic filled him as he turned with enough force to force the spear free of whatever had been holding it. For a moment, he stared wildly at the corpse puppet who’d stabbed him. Then his shock transformed into a mad fury.
With a roar (that came out as more of a gurgle), Jaspen exploded towards his assassin. A single punch was enough to destroy the head. A second pulverized the heart. As expected, the combination was enough to immediately render the corpse puppet inert as it collapsed to the ground.
As he stared down at it, Jaspen felt like he could see his own fate. The wound was a fatal one. There was no doubt about that. His lung and heart had both been slashed with that single thrust. He didn't have a method to heal that kind of damage.
The sound of shuffling behind him alerted him. Jaspen whirled, dodged the sword thrust, and decapitated the corpse. It staggered, not immediately falling like the first had.
Jaspen didn’t, however, bother to destroy the heart to immediately finish it off. There was no point in wasting effort like that. If he wanted to have even the slightest chance of survival, he needed to preserve his strength and make it into the sect. If heaven smiled on him, he might just find a pill or herb that could save his life.
Steeling himself, Jaspen began his grim fight towards the gate he’d seen further up the mountain. He didn’t look back as the corpse puppets finally shattered the barrier behind him.
-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-
When the people of Goldplume City saw the rainbow lights, they went into a frenzy. Martial artists of every rank and affiliation began to surge up the Highest Mountain. Even some commoners tried their luck.
Most of them died within hours, consumed by the black fog that had begun to billow down the mountain.
It had caused something of a panic in the city as people watched the fog descend, getting closer and closer to the valley. Fortunately, the fog didn’t even make it halfway down the mountain before thinning and fading away.
Hours later, those who’d survived the fog returned with tales of ghouls and zombies that now wandered the mountain. The uneasy peace that had settled over the city was instantly shattered again.
The city lord and heads of the great clans were forced to step in. They made sweeping promises to the people, vowing to protect them and defeat the evil that lay within those foul mists.
That wasn’t a lie. But it was far from the entire truth. In the background, the clans and city lord began plotting. All of them knew the legends of the Dragon’s Gate Sect.
More importantly, they knew that the stories were more than mere fairy tales.