—In which a peak cultivator tries to ascend and is smacked back down to earth—
Heavenly thunder tore across the sky. A thousand spiritual treasures formed a vortex centered on one man. A wealth that would bankrupt kingdoms crumbled to dust as their essence was stripped and funneled toward his spirit.
On the ground below, elders of the Heavenly Path sect watched from their places in the ritual, Rain ran down their faces and soaked their robes as they channeled Qi towards their sect master.
Floating in the center of the formation, Daniel allowed himself a smile. He had done it. He had climbed to the pinnacle of cultivation. ‘417 years since I landed in this crazy world.’ 417 years of work had culminated in this moment.
Ascension. It was to fully transcend the biological functions of one’s body, to become purely spiritual, to embody a universal truth and permanently imprint one’s self into the aether, to imbue one’s soul with power so dense that this mortal plane could no longer contain it and then ‘pop’ your existence into a higher plane.
He looked out across the sect below him. The sect he had built. The friends he had made. Master Pao, Master Tang, and Master Weixi, who despite their differences had come to share a vision for the sect.
He thought of the hundreds of disciples who bowed to him as sect master, and looked to him with respect… and he thought of those who were no longer here.
He thought of one man in particular, the mortal farmer he had come to call ‘Friend’ over the course of their business dealings. His mind replayed a memory with new found clarity:
"I'll never understand you cultivators," the man before him said as they sat in the private tea room.
"You sacrifice today's happiness for advancement, so that one day when you have advanced enough, you will be happy..." he shook his head in bemusement, and pushed back the gift Daniel had offered him.
He had offered this man a treasure that many cultivators would kill for. A thousand-year spirit fruit that, carefully consumed, would push even a mortal’s cultivation to the profound realm within a few years.
“Your tea is getting cold.”
Daniel looked down at the mortal-grade tea in front of him and the faintest flicker of derision crossed his face.
“See?" The man laughed, "This is what I’m talking about!" He took a sip of his own tea, his eyes closed in a moment of appreciation. “Happiness is a skill. If you aren’t happy at this moment, with this tea, you won’t be happy even if you become an immortal with a palace full of treasures!”
The man was wrong, of course. He'd died a mere half-century later. Damned fool. But, he had died happy... apparently. Daniel had been in a closed-door cultivation at the time, but he heard later that his friend had died with a smile, surrounded by grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Foolish. He banished such thoughts from his mind, returning his attention to the sect, and the ongoing ritual.
This was the final push. They had all sacrificed to bring him here, and he now carried their hopes and dreams for the future. Once he ascended, he would repay his debt 100 -no, 1000 fold- and soon, they too would join him in the heavens.
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It had not been an easy road. He had lived, loved, lost, betrayed, and suffered betrayal. He was The Red King, Founder of the Golden Path, Hero of Solaria and-
“Scourge.” in his moment of ascension, an ethereal force enclosed Daniel’s soul. “You think I, your father, would let you ascend?” the disembodied voice boomed in his mind. “To think Trash like you would cause my descendants so much trouble” Visions of destruction burned across Daniel’s mind. It was the downfall of another sect. A downfall he had orchestrated. A crime he had thought forgotten over a hundred years ago.
The ethereal force squeezed tighter. He squirmed, but his ethereal body was newborn, barely freed from the shackles of his mortal body. He was an infant in the hands of a giant. His expanding mind examined and discarded a hundred ideas in less time than it took a mortal to draw breath… His Dao of the Heavenly Path reached out with golden strands, seeking any possible path forward… but there was no fighting this power.
“I am sorry… if I have offended this Honoured Elder…It was not my… intent. If I had known-”
“Enough.” And like that, it was over. There was no bargaining, no chance to plead for mercy. The ethereal force that had only squeezed him became tendrils of burning acid, dissolving his spirit as he reached for ascension.
He tried to burrow his consciousness deeper to escape, to hold on but a little longer so he might finish ascending, but the power around him slipped from his control.
The tendrils followed deep into the heart of his soul, burning through the essence of his being, eating away his mind and spirit, and in moments they left him as little more than an ethereal imprint of what once was, barely anything more than raw power, and then, they tossed him away.
The remnants of Daniel’s ascending soul burned across the sky in a streak of gold, leaving ripples in the aether that spawned a hundred prophecies, spurred a thousand breakthroughs, and altered the fates of millions.
Experts across the continent who witnessed the sight received new insights into their cultivation, sect elders closed their doors and entered deep meditation, and mortal children born under its glow revealed talent never before seen in their families.
The Golden streak traveled north east, across black desert sands, over verdant farmlands, jagged mountains, and snow-covered tundra, It traveled out of the empire, past the final frontiers of civilization.
As it burned across the sky, it shed layer upon layer of power, shrinking and slowing, until finally almost all of it had been expended, and the core of what had once been a peak expert’s soul came to rest deep in a snow-covered forest.
There it settled, sat, and finally, was absorbed into the soil.
////
In the Spiny Mountains, a long-forgotten evil stirred. Something had woken it. A ripple in the aether.
Glowing golden chains jangled, and ancient formations flashed with light as an indistinct mass of darkness strained at its prison, Illuminating the ruins of a civilization that had fallen long ago.
‘Soon’ it whispered, as the miasma of its influence swept out across the mountain range, seeking fresh sentient minds to corrupt.
////
In the heart of the empire, in a city of stone towers, the Monarch of Conquest turned his gaze north, following a streak of golden light.
////
And in a small town, a farmer placed his hand on his wife’s pregnant belly. The baby inside was only 3 months old, but its role in events to come would perhaps be the most profound of all.