The next day Long Huan woke up and started planning on what to do next. He first decided to get a hold of a cultivation technique and learn the principles behind cultivation since he was incredibly interested as how the life-forms of this universe absorbed energy. His next goal would be to solve his money problem. Then at last, he’ll join the Adventurer’s Guild and take some missions. He had heard that some difficult missions could take you to some extremely dangerous places around the continent and that kind of adventure was what Long Huan desired.
He disappeared from his room and reappeared above the Rising Sun Sect. It was located in the western side of the capital city and from the hubbub there, Long Huan could tell that the Recruitment Test had already begun. He was interested in how these sects tested the participants so before stealing some cultivation techniques, he decided to observe this so called Test. Nobody could notice his existence even though he was floating a few metres above the seat of the Grand Elder of Rising Sun Sect.
From the discussions happening below, Long Huan got to know that the first round of the test was going on and all the participants were sitting upon a huge platform in front of a gigantic mirror. This mirror was a Heaven-rank spirit artefact of Rising Sun Set and could produce powerful illusions. The aim of the test was to test the martial heart of these participants and whoever managed to shatter the illusion passed the test.
“Quite a straightforward method. But, what is a martial heart?” Long Huan thought as he observed the disciples struggling to break the illusion. After a few hours, only 200 participants could shatter the illusion out of 1000 participants and passed the first round.
The next round was a test of comprehension. They were given a set of martial techniques and told to pick one and gain as much insights as they can in 3 hours. It was quite difficult for the participants but thankfully the techniques given were mortal-rank & were not very complicated to understand. After 3 hours only 100 participants could gain satisfactory insights into the martial techniques and passed the second round. It was announced that these 100 participants were all qualified to be a part of the 3 great sects but needed to go through a combat round to decide final ranking of the test. The weaker cultivators among the participants sighed in relief thinking even if they lose in the next round, atleast they could still join a sect.
The combat round started and participants started fighting in 1vs 1 duels. Though death was not allowed, certain arrogant cultivators did cripple their opponents but since they were talented seeds, the sect members conducting the test only verbally berated them and did nothing. The last match was between a beautiful girl with silver hair just like Long Huan, albeit a bit darker and an arrogant looking red-haired youth in golden robes.
“Xiao Wei, I suggest you give up your futile resistance and accept your fate as my concubine. I have already killed that childhood friend of yours and even your parents have agreed to our marriage. Why are you so stubborn?” the red-haired youth asked the silver-haired girl with a lustful gaze. She gritted her teeth and tears were visible on her eyes. With a shaking voice, she replied “You despicable dog, how could you kill Chen’er? You knew he was like a bother to me and we weren’t like that yet you still murdered him? And you think threatening my parents and forcing them to agree to your proposal will make me accept you? Hmph, over my dead body. I’ll prefer marrying a beggar than marrying a dog like you.” She spat, clearly angry towards the end of her sentence.
The red haired youth was clearly angry from her reply. “Since you have already chosen the path of death, I’ll happily send you on your way. I’ll kill you now and then slaughter your family. You can regret your decisions in the afterlife. Now die!” With that he produced a red spear in his hands and dashed towards the girl named Xiao Wei with a clear intention to kill. The sect members nearby did nothing to stop him and by the looks of fear in their faces, they were probably afraid of the red- haired youth’s background.
That red-haired guy was in 4th stage of Spirit Condensation Realm, while Xiao Wei was in 2nd stage of Spirit Condensation Realm. Plus the red-haired guy was clearly from a rich background and he had strong skills backing him up. The result was not a surprise and after a few moves, his spear penetrated the girl’s chest and she dropped dead. The red haired youth kicked her face a few times and walked off stage. A disciple came and carried the dead girl’s body off the stage.
“What a cruel world” Long Huan thought as he watched the entire fight and listened to their conversation. Those with power could do anything here and morals went down the drain in front of might. Long Huan was just about to depart from this place when he stopped and a surprised expression appeared on his face. There were a very few things which could genuinely surprise an existence like Long Huan.
Long Huan had sensed a powerful distortion of Dao of Life & Death in this area just now. This distortion was so huge that anyone cultivating those two Daos would have felt it in a few hundred kilometre radius. But sadly Dao of Life & Death were two of the Grand Daos and nobody in this backwater country was talented enough to study them. Long Huan was pretty sure that producing a distortion of this level was not possible for any cultivator or treasure in the mortal-plane of this Universe. He focused on the origin of this distortion and surprisingly found it coming from the body of that dead silver-haired girl who was being carried away by a disciple to burn it. Long Huan teleported in front of the disciple making him jump in fright and dropping the dead body of the girl. Before he could scream, Long Huan tapped his forehead and the disciple fainted having any of his memory about this incident erased from his mind. Long Huan then lifted the girl’s body and disappeared. They were a certain distance away from other people and no one noticed Long Huan’s action. A few minutes later, the unconscious disciple woke up and was confused. “What am I doing here? Shouldn’t I be helping Elder Yuan deal with any problems arising during the recruitment test? I should hurry up or I’ll dead” thought the young disciple and hurried back to where he came from. When he went back, everyone assumed he had disposed of the girl’s body and nobody asked him anything.
Long Huan appeared inside his room in ‘Dragon’s Egg’ and laid the dead body of the silver-haired girl on his bed. The fluctuations of Dao of Life & Death were getting stronger and Long Huan could even sense a faint fluctuation of Dao of Fate. Long Huan was confused but chose to observe this interesting turn of events and simply sat down in a nearby chair.
A few hours later, Long Huan sensed a strong Life-force suddenly emerging from the girl’s body and all her injuries were healing at rapid pace. After a few minutes, her heart started beating again and the girl slowly opened her eyes. Long Huan had noticed that the girl had blue eyes and now there were golden in colour which gave a majestic and domineering edge to her looks. She tried lifting her upper body but suddenly held her head with an anguished expression as if in great pain. Long Huan quickly put his hand on her head and her expression eased a bit. She stared at Long Huan with a confused face and asked “Who are you?”
Long Huan smirked and asked back “Do you know who you are?”
“Why, I am the Drag……..”before she could answer, her face paled as if she remembered something important and then morphed into an extremely angry expression. Her body stated emitting killing intent so thick that even Long Huan was surprised by this sudden change in her behaviour. He had sensed that the girl in front of him was not Xiao Wei but someone else. As for who she was, he had no idea.
“Hey calm down, if you emit such thick killing intent, somebody will notice it and it will attract unwanted attention to us.” Long Huan said in a soothing tone trying to calm her down. The girl calmed down after listening to Long Huan but he could hear her mutter “Damn that despicable back-stabbing dog, how could they betray brother? How could Freya betray me? Brother……” towards the end of her sentence she started crying and Long Huan stood there awkwardly not knowing what to do. Seeing as how her crying was getting more intense, he guessed she must have gone through something terrible situation and it was best for her to let her emotions out of her heart. He sat beside her and caressed her hair “Hey, everything is ohk. I don’t know what happened to you, but you are still alive and that’s all that matters.” Though his words were not very encouraging, he couldn’t find anything else to say. But his words had some effect and the girl started calming down. After a few minutes she was back to normal but her expression was anything but normal. It was constantly switching from anger, grief, guilt & disbelief.
Long Huan became truly curious about this lady and using Dao of Fate, he glanced into the past of the soul residing in the silver-haired girl’s body. What he found really shocked him. The true body of this soul had already died and its soul was supposed to dissipate into the River of Fate according to the laws of this Universe but something or someone has interfered with this process and forced the soul to find a new host in the endless cosmos. It was a matter of huge co-incidence that the soul ended up choosing the silver-haired girl’s body after her death. This girl had piqued his interest and he was pretty sure he wouldn’t find anything more interesting than this girl’s story anytime soon. He peeked further into her past and got to know that her real name in her past life was Tian Wei and she was also known as the Dragon Empress. Apparently she lived in the Immortal Plane of this Universe and was someone who had reached a very high level of power and status in that plane. Her own younger brother was the Ruler of the whole Plane and she loved him dearly. Everything was going fine, but then disaster struck.
Dragon Empress’s POV
Tian Wei, also known as the Dragon Empress was staring to the starry sky with tears in her eyes. Her brother had ventured into the Abyss Realm 3 years ago and hadn’t returned till date. She was incredibly worried about his safety. Her brother was the Celestial Emperor, the most powerful man in the entire universe. Someone who ruled over everything and stood at the pinnacle of power. She was incredibly proud of him and often reminisced of the time when they struggled in the path of cultivation in their younger days. Never in her wildest dream had she ever imagined that the same frail looking younger brother of hers would one day become of the Ruler of all. The sudden rise of his power had always been a mystery to the people of Immortal Realm, but as his elder sister how could Tian Wei not know?
They were humans of humble origins in the mortal realm and had an above average talent. After many bloody wars and sacrifices, they had successfully made it to the pinnacle of power in mortal realm and successfully ascended. But it was just the beginning of their hardships. After arriving in the divine realm, her brother had fallen in love with the rumoured most beautiful woman of the divine plane. She was the daughter of Li Clan’s Patriarch, one of the strongest clan of the plane. Coincidently that girl also fell deeply in love with Tian Wu, Tian Wei’s brother. But that didn’t go well with her fiancé, the young master of Heavenly Devil Sect, a force as strong as the Li Clan. He put a huge bounty on Tian Wu and Tian Wei’s head and personally vowed to kill Tian Wu. Tian Wu’s lover Li Mei was put under house-arrest by her father and she could do nothing but cry and pray for Tian Wu’s safety.
The duo of brother and sister suffered for many years because of that bounty and were forced to lay low until they were strong enough to confront their enemies head-on. During their journey, Tian Wu discovered a rusty looking sword in a secluded cave and as soon as he touched the sword he disappeared along with the sword. Tian Wei who was standing behind him was startled and thinking that her brother died due to some death trap she cried day and night but never left the cave hoping her bother will return one day. And he really did, after six whole months. When Tian Wei’s eyes landed on her brother, she was startled. Even though she and her brother had reached their current level of power through many hard battles, Tian Wei was well aware that Tian Wu did not have a domineering nature, instead if he could solve a problem without fight, he would always choose to do so. But the young man standing in front of him was emitting the aura of a king, domineering to the extreme. His eyes were cold and he looked much more mature. As soon as Tian Wu saw Tian Wei and her state, the cold look in his eyes vanished and he gently hugged her as she started crying. He told her that the rusty looking sword was actually the number one Heavenly Treasure The Heaven-Sealing Sword. The moment he touched the sword, the sword had identified him worthy of wielding it. But in order to truly become the master of the sword, he had to undergo a trial, and thus he had been transported to another dimension where he spend 10 years and finally managed to complete the trial. The time flow in the outside world was many times slower than the time flow in trial dimension and thus only 6 months passed here. After completing the trial, Tian Wu became the true master of Heaven-Sealing Sword and obtained unimaginable benefits. He obtained many ancient skills and many heaven-defying cultivation technique.
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Tian Wei was shocked speechless after listening to her brother. Heavenly Treasures are the treasures born at the beginning of the Universe and stand at the pinnacle of all treasures. There were only 10 Heavenly Treasures in the Universe and among them The Heaven-Sealing Sword was ranked first. It was the most powerful weapon in the Universe and it was said that whoever wielded it was invincible and was destined to rule the Universe. This sword was only sighted twice from the beginning of the Universe, the first time in the hands of the First Celestial Emperor during the Chaotic Era and then in the hands of Azure Emperor, the 15th Celestial Emperor who was rumoured to be the strongest amongst all the Celestial Emperors till date.
The fact that her brother was the next wielder of that legendary sword was very hard for Tian Wei to digest. Tian Wu realizing his sister’s doubt smiled and transferred all his obtained techniques to Tian Wei except the core techniques he got from the sword which couldn’t be shared. The Heaven-Sealing Sword had a cultivation technique and skills which could only be practiced by its master and was very difficult to master. It had 9 layers and according to the information Tian Wu obtained, even the Azure Emperor had only reached the 8th layer of this cultivation technique. The best part about this technique was that the cultivator need not start from the scratch to switch to this cultivation technique. They could retain their cultivation base. This was a heaven-defying property and if word got out then there will definitely a bloody war to obtain this technique.
After obtaining all those skills and techniques, Tian Wei finally believed her brother. She realized that her brother had actually advanced two whole realms during this 6 months and with a cultivation base like that, he could be considered standing at the pinnacle of Divine Plane. Tian Wu was not the same man anymore and as soon as he was sure Tian Wei was fine, he rushed towards the Heavenly Devil Sect to massacre them all and gain the qualification to ask for Li Mei’s hand with his own strength. Tian Wei didn’t accompany him and chose to cultivate inside the cave to catch upto her brother. With Heaven-Sealing Sword in hand, Tian Wu was invincible in this plane so she was not worried about him and decided to put the skills and technique her brother gave her to good use. She found an extraordinary cultivation technique called the Ancestral Dragon Skill which when mastered to its last stage could transform the user’s body to that of Ancestral Dragon, the father of all Dragons. It was a technique developed by Ancestral Dragon himself before he split his body to give birth to the race known as Dragons today. This technique was not inferior to the core technique of Heaven-Sealing Sword but sadly one had to start from the scratch to practice this technique and it was impossible for Tian Wei to start over her cultivation from scratch again.
She selected a few skills from her memories which could speed up her cultivation and started cultivating with a fervour. She would often hunt strong monsters in the nearby forest range to hone up her combat skills. After 5 long years, she finally reached the same realm as her brother, which was an incredible feat and ventured out to find her brother. By that time her brother had already annihilated the Heavenly Devil Sect and married Li Mei. After watching Tian Wu slaughtering his way to the Heavenly Devil Sect and massacring them all, Li Mei’s father was convinced of Tian Wu’s capabilities and fully supported their marriage. Tian Wu was waiting for his sister and Li Mei to reach the pinnacle of this plane so they could all ascend to the next plane together. Now that Tian Wu had the Heaven-Sealing Sword, if he didn’t become the next Celestial Emperor, it would stain the sword’s reputation. A year after Tian Wei reunited with her brother, Li Mei also made a breakthrough and became eligible to ascend to the next plane. Together, the three of them ascended to the Immortal Plane.
They were dazzled by the beauty and majesty of this plane but soon found out that the Celestial Emperor was actually from the Beastmen race and tortured all other species other than the beast race. He was a tyrant but due to his might, no one could oppose his rule and he could do as he pleased. The Tian siblings didn’t like how things were and decided to help their fellow humans and other species. They ventured throughout the plane helping other races and massacring the arrogant beast-race along the way. The trio realized that not all beastmen were bad and Infact a majority of them didn’t like how the Celestial Emperor treated other species. The Tian siblings befriended a number of experts throughout their journey who decided to fight together with them and by the end of 10 years, they had amassed quite a huge army. By this time, the Celestial Emperor’s forces had already gotten word that someone was instigating a revolt and started hunting down the Tian sibling’s forces. They fought a bloody battle many times and the Tian-siblings were often in near death situations, but they always survived only to strike back with greater force.
Thanks to his powerful technique, Tian Wu quickly outgrew Tian Wei and others and became a force to be reckoned with all by himself. By the time the Celestial Emperor got word of Tian Wu and wanted to take him out himself before he became a threat to his rule, a calamity descended onto the Immortal Plane. The Abyss Realm started its invasion with full force and the Abyss King made his move against the Celestial Emperor himself. The Abyss Realm was an independent world where the evil devils were sealed along with their leader, the Abyss King by the Azure Emperor millions of years back. The devils are cruel and bloodthirsty creatures born from negative energy and wished to kill all living beings. The Abyss King was so strong that not even the Azure Emperor, the strongest Celestial Emperor, could kill him and had to seal him in his own world to stop his rampage.
While the Celestial Emperor was battling the Abyss King, Tian Wu used the invasion of the Abyss Realm as an opportunity to unite all races and created a united force to fight the devils. After killing the four Devil Generals and making a breakthrough, he headed towards the place where the Celestial Emperor was fighting the Abyss king. By the time he got there, he saw the Abyss King making a big move and Celestial Emperor helpless to defend himself. If that blow landed, the Celestial Emperor will surely die. Tian Wu could have saved him, but why should he save an evil tyrant? If the Abyss King didn’t kill him, he would have. Thus, he watched the Celestial Emperor hacked into two parts and the Abyss King’s aura weakening after the attack. That’s when he decided to attack the Abyss King. The Heaven-Sealing Sword was a natural bane to anything made up of negative energy and the Abyss King was in a disadvantageous position. Realizing that he will lose if he kept on fighting, the Abyss King fled back to the Abyss Realm. Tian Wu knowing full well that Abyss King will be many times stronger in the Abyss Realm where the concentration of negative energy is high, still followed him. The united army created by Tian Wu, led by Tian Wei managed to massacre all the devils and the portal to the Abyss Realm closed.
When Tian Wei heard that Tian Wu had followed the Abyss King to the Abyss Realm, she almost fainted from shock. But his life talisman was still intact meaning he was alive. Soon, Tian Wu was declared the next Celestial Emperor and there were no objections regarding that. Tian Wu was the one who had united all the species and made a united army otherwise it would have been impossible to fight the devils. He was strong enough to fight the Abyss King equally and was the strongest person of the Immortal Plane after the death of the Celestial Emperor. A new Celestial army was created under the lead of Tian Wei and they all patiently waited for the day when Tian Wu would return and take his throne.
Unbeknownst to Tian Wei, there was a danger she had failed to notice lurking in the shadows. The man who was awarded with the title of Celestial General, the leader of the Celestial army, a man that the Tian sibling respected deeply, a man who always had a smile on his face was not the man they thought him to be.
While Tian Wei was gazing out of her window, suddenly a *crack* was heard and a spatial door opened right in front of Tian Wei’s window. From the door, a man wearing golden robes walked out. He was heavily injured but still stood upright and emitted a majestic aura.
With disbelief in her eyes, Tian Wei flew out of her window and stared at her brother. After realizing this was not an illusion, she leaped into his embrace and started crying. Tuan Wu just laughed “Sis, Did you really think that damn worm would be able to kill me?”
“Shut up you idiot! Who told you to jump into the Abyss Realm like some madman? Couldn’t you wait for us? Idiot! Stupid!” Tian Wei kept hitting his chest with anger clearly visible on her face but after realizing the state of her brother stopped and gasped “Oh my God, you are in a terrible condition. The wounds on your body don’t look like they could be naturally healed. Come on, let’s go to Li Mei. She is best in healing techniques. I am sure she’ll be incredibly happy to see her husband all alive and well.”
“Li Mei…” Tian Wu whispered with a melancholic look and nodded his head. He followed his sister to Li Mei’s room, which was surprisingly wide open. Feeling something suspicious, the Tian siblings entered the room only to be met with a horrible sight. Li Mei’s body lay dead on the floor and Qin Tai was standing near her body holding a blue crystal.
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
Tian Wu screamed and rushed towards Li Mei’s body only to be kicked back by Qin Tai. Tian Wu was heavily injured and in his current condition, even a normal Celestial soldier could kill him let alone Qin Tai who was the Celestial general.
“Hehehehe….Tian Wu, just look at your face. I am really enjoying this right now. Seeing that look of despair and agony on your face gives me unimaginable joy. Hahahahaha” Qin Tai said laughing in an extremely creepy manner.
“Qin Tai, what’s the meaning of this? We trusted you and even saved your life. Is this how you repay us?” Tian Wei said and tried to distract him in verbal conversation as she slowly started revolving her spirit energy to launch a sneak attack on him. She was planning to use her Dao Domain to catch him off guard.
“Heh, you better stop trying anything funny or else your sister in law will be dead in true body and soul” Qin Tai said and raised the blue crystal. Tian Wei stared at the crystal and realized that there was a figure trapped inside the crystal. It was Li Mei! It was her true soul trapped inside! Tian Wei then realized that the crystal in Qin Tai’s hand was one of the 10 Heavenly Treasures, The Crystal of Infinity. It had the power to trap a True Soul after the death of a cultivator and keep it sealed. Only the owner of the crystal could release the soul. Qin Tai now had Li Mei’s life completely in his hands, which indirectly meant Tian Wu was under his control because everybody knew that Tian Wu’s love for Li Mei knew no bounds. He would do anything if he could save Li Mei.
As soon as Tian Wu’s eyes lander on Li Mei’s figure inside the crystal, his body trembled and with a voice full of hate and killing intent he spoke “Qin Tai, let my wife go right now. Otherwise….”
“Otherwise what? WHAT? What can you do? If you move even a single finger, I’ll extinguish her soul right now. If you don’t want to watch your wife die, keep standing there like a good little dog and watch the fun.”
Qin Tai spat and turned his gaze towards Tian Wei with a lustful look “Now, now Princess Wei, I believe everyone’s fate is in your hand. As I am a very generous man, I’ll give you a way to save your brother as well as you sister-in-law. What you need to do is……just sign a slave contract with me” Qin Tai said with an evil smile.
“You dare……” Tian Wu growled but stopped seeing the tiny figure inside the blue crystal twitching and shaking her body as if in great pain.
“I suggest you to keep your mouth shut Dog or your wife will suffer the consequences. I can torture her soul in any way by keeping her in illusions. Even rape…”
“Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh…….FINE!!! I’ll do as you say so don’t you dare do anything to Li Mei”
Tian Wu’s body was constantly shaking with her anger and even blood was flowing from his mouth.
“Brother…..you…” Tian Wei cried out.
“Hehe….so Princess Wei, what’s your decision?” Qin Tai asked again.
“Go Fuck yourself you traitorous bastard. I’ll prefer dying a million deaths than being your slave” Tian Wei said and spat in his direction.”
“What a pity…….”
Suddenly Tian Wei sensed an aura approaching her from behind and she had a delighted expression.
“Freya, this traitorous bastard has gone crazy, help me deal wi……..” before she could say anything else, a sword penetrated her heart from behind.
With disbelief in her eyes, Tian Wei dropped her weapon and turned around only to see a cold smile on the face of her best friend, a woman known as the goddess of beauty, a beastwoman she had befriended after arriving at the Immortal Plane. They had fought many bloody battles together and had become best of friends after so many years. She couldn’t believe that the same Freya could betray her.
“Why…..you…….?” That was the last thing Tian Wei could say before strength left her body and she fell down.
“SISTER!!!!!!” Tian Wu cried out and rushed towards her but mid-way her got surrounded by a dome of red energy which he couldn’t break no matter how many times he tried. He was in no condition to fight, let alone use his sword which was not visible on his body. Even Tian Wei had noticed that Tian Wu was not carrying his sword but she never got the chance to ask him.
Tian Wei was lying on the floor bleeding profusely while her soul was almost on the verge of dissipating. Cultivators of her level could not be killed even if their heart got punctured or their head was sliced off, but the attack dealt by Freya also carried a powerful soul attack which caught Tian Wei off guard and she couldn’t protect herself in time. Freya was the best cultivator when it comes to soul attacks in the whole Immortal Plane and if caught off guard, even the best of cultivators will suffer miserably under her attack. Ofcourse, a simple soul barrier can easily dispel her attack but since Tian Wei trusted Freya with her life, she never bothered to put a defensive barrier around her soul when she sensed her aura. And that was what took her life……
With the last remaining strength Tian Wei could muster, she uttered “Who……are….you?” She was looking at Qin Tai.
Qin Tao smirked seeing her miserable appearance. “Tch….what a pity. If only you had agreed to be my slave, I would have played with you all day. Well, now that you are on your death’s bed I suppose it is fair to reveal my identity. Hmm…..I’ll give you a clue. My grandson was the young master of Heavenly Devil Sect.”
The moment the Tian siblings heard that, they understood. Tian Wu had massacred the entire Heavenly Devil Sect. If Qin Tai was telling the truth, then the enmity between them was deep as abyss.
With a final glance at her crying brother, Tian Wei took her last breath.