During one of his many adventures, before he began to cultivate, Xū Líng sewed enmity with a powerful local Family. According to some sources, the reason such dispute took place was due to him refusing to taking the family's young mistress' hand in marriage.

At that time, he had been but a youth in his late teens, however his accomplishments in the arts were countless: calligraphy, painting, philosophy, debate, poetry... he was an unrivalled genius in all those fields which required either slick movements of his hands or sharp jabs of his tongue.

What's more, his appearance was one unrivalled amongst the mortals, such that many times he had been referred to as a beloved son of the gods, blessed by the heavens.

With such a resume, obviously it would catch the eyes of many, if not all, girls whose gazes landed on him. The young mistress of a no-name family apparently was no exception.

However he had a clear goal in his mind, and had already planned a route to achieve it. And marrying into a family whose name wouldn't even be recorded in history did not belong in either.

His refusal however did not appeal to the family's master, who sent out a trained group of powerful warriors to apprehend him and bring him back alive.

Needless to say, Xū Líng's skill with a blade was on par with the best of swordsmen's, and he was unparallelled amongst the mortals.

Thus, after countless failures, this little master decided to take things into his own hands.

Due to him having, at the time, no cultivation at all, he had no choice but to escape.

His opponent was just a lowly Basic stage cultivator, which was like a blade of grass in a praire expanding beyond the horizon if compared to the might of the four Kings.

However the difference between the capabilities of a mortal and a cultivator, especially with one with a stabilized cultivation base in the second of fifteen stages, was like the difference between the Heavens and the Earth!

That was why Xū Líng had no choice but to run; run for his life! Through countless tricks and stratagems he succesfully evaded this master's eyes for a whole month... until, one day, by pure chance, his old, enraged pursuer finally caught up!

Was it fate that Xū Líng took the wrong route? That he took the wrong path at that forked road and entered that canion?

Nobody knows the answer to this question.

However, what everyone who would follow the adventures of the Evil Saint in the future should surely know is that, because of that little mistake, Xū Líng bumped into a certain someone; a being who would change his life forever!

This person would allow him to switch roles! Not the one being hunted anymore, but the hunter himself! Thanks to him, he would finally achieve the required level of power to challenge the heavens!

Xū Líng's Right-Hand man, Friend, Master, and the one that had always been with him from the very start, supporting him from behind and paving his path at the front...

Primordial Beast, the Golden Scaled Calamity.

Heaven Devouring Dragon.

Dragon King.

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This 'person' went by many names, and took many roles in some of the mortals' myths, but his might as either a divine snake or a hellish fiend wearing the skin of a dragon instilled great terror in all of his incarnations.

Indeed, it was here that the two golden calamities had their first encounter! In a gorge, deep within the Sealed Mountains, Xū Líng met him!

Beasts and humans alike had always held some kind of sixth sense. Whether this sixth sense of theirs was stronger or weaker when compared with others', it still was one of all living beings' greatest weapons!

This sixth sense was what made people feel their scalp grow numb whenever they approached these mountains. Scared witless, they would immediately turn back on their footsteps, not daring to enter the gorge... it gave people an ethereal feeling, as if it had been enchanted by some mysterious being to let no one pass!

However, Xū Líng only found out about his mistake when he was already halfway into the gorge.

How could Xū Líng turn back when it meant certain death? Still, his instincts were most probably also screaming at him not to go any further down that path, where the canyon opened up into a gigantic valley.

Forced to make such a decision, regretting not having enough power to fight back, Xū Líng would have ignored the huge threat the gorge had instilled itself to be in his mind and simply kept going.

At the time, the concept of the winner was King, the loser the Thief had been imprinted deep in his mind: in a world where such disparity between people's abilities or resources was present, the only way to survive was to leave everyone else in the dust.

However, that was in the future, and to get there he would have to survive the present first.

As of then, with his measly power, he could only grab the bull by the horns and hope to somehow escape the situation of alive!

Backed into a corner, he ignored the fact that every single particle in his body was screaming in fear, and ran straight into the depths of the gorge, emerging into the valley.

Here, he somehow felt as if the air had grown heavier... as if he were in the presence of some monstrous power, a being powerful enough to eclipse whole continents, yet unable to be seen by the world!

When Xū Líng entered the valley, nothing had happened to him, however when the old man with the Basic stage cultivation did...

He was grinning at the young boy without cultivation as he was already seeing himself bathing in the youth's blood, and slowly approached him, unaware of the danger he was currently in...

Just as he made his first step into the gorge, a loud roar echoed out, silencing any and all other sounds!

Then, an heaven-shaking, invisible paw crashed into the old man's body, smashing him into meat paste!

Soon after that, the valley that had been empty and mysterious up until ago suddenly rippled and space itself distorted, as if an illusion had been torn apart!

One of the most mysterious abilities of the Heavenly Beasts is their innate ability that allowed no other kind of living creature, except for those who are connected to them by Karma or those able to see the true nature of the world, to register their existence!

Now that this beast, a golden dragon that was so big that its body occupied a whole mountain range (all that while sealing its own real body and cultivation, fearful of breaking apart the plane), had killed Xū Líng's opponent... he had unconsciously sown Karma with the young boy, thus enabling the youth to suddenly see the majestic dragon!

On one side was him, a mortal wearing dirty and torn rags, his long, black hair fluttering due to the powerful shockwaves of the previous blow, his piercing, blue eyes shining brightly with confidence and dignity despite the conditions of his body.

On the other side, meeting the gaze of that pair of blue eyes was the massive beast: golden scales extended throughout its whole body, like some kind of majestic armor; golden horns grew from the back of its head and a cascade of red hair fell down its long, sinuous body. Five small paws, one dirtied with blood, extended from its middle body, its golden eyes like orbs made out of pure gold…

A pair of the most stunning, blue eyes and the most dazzling golden eyes exchanged a gaze, and the world trembled, Karma connected and unraveled, the invisible hands of fate at work as a new page turned and filled with words!

This was how the Evil Saint, Xū Líng, and the Heaven Devouring Dragon, Blindlight, the two who would in the close future become the Duo most hated and feared by the Heavens, met!

[…]

Excerpt from the work: Records of the Nine Heavens

Author: unknown