The golden man stood in front of the crouching boy. Having flashed in front of him.

Jian paused in a sprinters start looking in surprise at the golden man. He was dressed in armour, not like a knight, but like a traditional Chinese warlord. He wore golden boots tucked into golden leather pants. Several overlapping lamellar skirts. The skirts were embossed with diamond symbols. A thick golden belt at waist height also embossed with different animal patterns. A golden breastplate with black embossed dragons wrapped all around it, a dragon snarling from the centre of the armour. He had several pieces overlapping to form the shoulder guard, forearm guards, thigh covers and shin covers.

The man also wore a golden cloak. He had two swords in hand. One short and one long. Both attached to his left side. There was a giant broadsword in a sheath on his back.

The armour was beautiful and intricate but also scratched and heavily damaged. There was blood dripping from slashes all over the mans body and from his chest.

Jian still crouching looked from his feet to the golden mans face. He couldn’t see his face though.

The man was wearing a golden helmet with a face mask. The helmet was a simple bowl. The face mask though was with wrinkles, fangs and a moustache. It looked demonic.

The bits of skin he could see were gold. A shiny metallic gold. It looked like he had been formed from gold. His eyes both pupils and cornea were also golden.

The mans eyes were flat. They bored deeply into Jians’s own eyes.

Suddenly Jian froze. Unable to move. The golden man had frozen him.

He felt dissected under the mans gaze. After staring at his frozen state the golden man finally sighed.

“You’ll do.” Said the golden man. He dipped a hand into the golden blood from his chest and touched it onto the centre of Jians forehead.

The blood felt warm to the touch.

No.

It felt hot.

It burned.

It felt as if there was a fire burrowing into Jians forehead from the spot where the golden man had touched his forehead.

Jian screamed and passed out.

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While he was passed out on the top floor something strange was happening within his lower-dantian.

If you could see within the empty circular cavern within his navel it there formed a golden bead. The same shade of gold as the golden man.

Jian’s body also began to glow golden. Softly at first. Then be became encased in an oval of light.

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Jian squirmed then woke up with a groan. He tapped himself and felt his body. He felt a spasm of pain his entire body had been tensed tight and then suddenly loosened. He felt good.

He stretched his body. He felt really good. He was no longer tired. He felt fresh, as if he had slept for days. The hunger that was a constant companion to his days had disappeared. That emptiness that constantly gnawed at his stomach was no longer there. He had been asleep for indeterminate amount of time.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

He noticed several other things.

First he had been moved. Probably by the golden man. He was no longer out in the open, but had been tucked into a small cavern formed by two fallen concrete blocks. It was as if he was in a dark circular birds nest made of concrete.

Second. It was dark. Very dark. Not the normal darkness that he lived in. But a very deep darkness of the pure absence of light. But that was because he was in the cave. He looked towards the tiny silver of light and turned and crawled towards it.

After Jian had crawled to the entrance of the cavern and peeked out, he tensed at what he saw.

The place was crawling with enemies.

The crime scene hard been cordoned off. Not with ropes and barriers but a giant nano-shield covered the entire building. A huge totally opaque white barrier surrounding the building and the crash site.

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The scene was crawling with people. There are two groups. First was the the security-force. Not the normally business-security dressed in their unformed body armour and face masks. But the planetary security force. Their body armour was a bright red. Showing that there was no danger and that they were here in their policing capacity. Intermixed were several people

Ships flew back and forth over the building and around the building. Robots crawled all over the crime scene. From the standard issue circular security robots. They resembled a giant bowling bowl with metallic claws sticking out from random angles. To small crawling spider like robots. Parsing over every detail and recording. Several of the crawling robots came close to me but they seemed not to be able to see him. It was as if he was invisible.

He sat back at the entrance niche deep in thought. He was going to have to wait them out. There was nothing else he could do. Him being invisible made it the only viable option.

Rip.

There was a sudden tearing noise. It was incredibly loud. Jian sat startled. His thoughts interrupted by the noise.

In the centre sky a giant hole had been ripped through the fabric of space. Visible through that tear was a beautiful heavenly realm. There were rolling hills of green. Lush gardens. Giant mountains with sharp reflections in the crystal clear water beneath. People flying through the air adorned in silk and gold. Waterfalls of all forms creating little clouds of fog and rainbows breaking up the land. Floating islands dotting the sky-scape.

From that paradise flew out people. Hundreds of people of all varieties. A man or woman dressed in linen, a belt of gold, his body topaz colour, a body made of lightning. Hundreds of angelic like beings. Dressed in all white. An exquisite whiteness. A white beyond earthly comprehension. Their appearances so beautiful that they dimmed the surroundings. Both men and women. Some had wings, two, four, six. Some wings made of feathers, others silver or gold, others made from the elements themselves; the wind, the waves, the stars, the sky, flames. Another group dressed in red robes. Their eyes blood red. Their faces demonic in their beauty. Others appeared as if made of the elements. Men made of jade. Women of stone. Children made of flames, zipping about.

All of these people like mythical beings. They might as well have been. They looked like the immortals of legend.