A thousand miles away from the library in the neighboring country of Xen, there was a large army marching across its territory towards Naaths home country, “Beginning” Due to the fact that it was where humans had first settled on this continent it was called the valley of beginning. It was also seen as a place where nature should be left as intact as possible. Many people on the continent wanted to preserve the land as much as they possibly could. Even the current leaders of the country only took what they absolutely needed from the land in an effort to preserve it. This caused the country to slowly but surely grow in value as it was incredibly resource rich.

To the country of Xen that pushed all its resources to the talented and the strong it was a goldmine. Especially due to the fact that they had recently started to feel a squeeze for resources. They had over-mined their land and not grown crops in a good manner. The land became poor and even the most basic wheat is hard to grow there now, they had overtaxed the nature of their country and it was starting to die. Due to this they decided it was high time they took the resources from Beginning for themselves. After all, their army was larger and they were stronger. They were a country that firmly followed the ideology of might making right.

As they marched towards Beginning more and more willing citizens joined the massive army. They all wanted to take advantage of the chaos and reap as much resources as they could. A thousand miles was normally a short distance to cultivators, even an army of them. But the Country of Xen wanted to make a statement, they wanted to recruit as many people on the way as possible and raise morale. Meanwhile, way ahead of them scouts were keeping an eye on Beginning from the inside out. Spies stationed as normal citizens that were planted months in advance to the invasion to gather information. All of the scouts and spies however were now in a daze kneeling in a particular direction along with 95% of the population of Beginning.

It took some minutes to break from this daze, it took others an hour and some would remain like this for even a full day. The first of the spies to snap out of it felt their hair stand on end and an overwhelming sense of danger. She had woken after only 3 minutes and looked around to see everyone in the country kneeling in a daze. This raised every alarming instinct she had ever developed. She ran into her house a few streets over, threw open a secret hatch leading to a basement and immediately picked up a sound transmission jade. These jades were valuable and hard to find the resources for, let alone refine.

This one was part of a set, 13 others had a jade that was part of this set and all of them shared messages with one another. She sent out a message saying “Do not invade! Anomalous event, unknown cause. High level master may be present!” After that was a brief description of the events that had happened. Once she sent this she made her way outside after concealing the basement again. She followed the direction everyone seemed to be kneeling in until eventually she found herself at a library already crowded with others all around it. She tried to approach but was stopped at the door by a librarian who was holding a token. When she saw this token she gave up trying to push as it would only blow her cover. It was the token of the royal family of Beginning.

Clearly whatever had happened went well beyond her station to investigate, one of the higher ranked spies would have to look into it. Back at the country of Xen one of the information officers that was in charge of managing the information sent by the spies read the female spies message. He jumped in shock and immediately ran to the palace where the military officers commanding the army were stationed. As soon as they received the report they sent out the command to the army to halt its march until further notice. This event was simply too peculiar and it seemed that something strange was happening in the country of Beginning. Spies had recently been reporting that the emperor himself had been leaving the royal palace much more frequently.

The army would be halted until they found the root cause of all of this, for now they set up a quick base camp and hunkered down. Of course the emperor of Beginning had a few spies of his own in this army and quickly received word of the army pausing its march. However he waved this off as something far more pressing had occurred just now. He was currently in the country's largest library guarding a specific section with 10 of his most trusted people. Inside of this room was Naath with his eyes gently shut and in comfortable meditation. The emperor was one of the people who was in a daze for half an hour. As soon as he woke he followed the kneeling people and found Naath at the center.

As soon as he saw that he woke the librarian from the daze and gave him a royal command token telling him nobody that the emperor did not approve of was allowed in! The emperor had a sparkle in his eyes as he looked at the young Naath sitting comfortably in meditation. It seemed like this young man was always at the center of some amazing feat that simply seemed impossible. And then it happened.

*SNAP!!!!!*

*RRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIP!!!!!*

*SHHHHHIIIIII*

From Naaths body consecutive snapping sounds rang out that caused a visible ripple in the air from the sheer volume of it. The top floor of the library collapsed in an instant and the emperor and his attendants staggered from the force trying to blow them backwards. After the snapping noises came tearing sounds that made the faces of everyone who heard them go completely pale! It sounded like someone was having every fiber of muscle in their body torn apart one by one in rapid succession. After that came a VIOLENT suction force from Naaths body as all the martial energy in the surrounding 500 miles was drained in an instant. This created a global disturbance that alerted many secluded masters. If one looked at the world from space they would see all of the martial energy rushing to fill in the gap made by Naath sucking in all this energy at once.

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It didn't stop there though, as fast as the energy rushed in and recovered it was drained by Naath immediately. His body gave off a faint light and then it blasted out in white, black, and gray static colors. It formed a cycle around Naath and the lights pulsed and rotated around him rapidly. Soon his whole body was rotating between colors, the emperor and his attendants were astounded beyond belief. This was insane! All of this happened in a moment. It was complete chaos no matter how one looked at it. After this happened a scream of pain rang out that would make devils feel pity. Naath’s bones had all turned to dust, reconstructed, and turned to dust again nine times in an instant. They were clear like crystals and seemed to radiate with true void energy. His muscles had all torn and been rebuilt at inhuman speeds.

His muscle had also transformed, it had strands of black, white, gray, and sections where it appeared nothing existed at all. His souls had all been sucked dry and replenished tens of times in the same time frame feeling like they were being pulled apart and compressed at the same time. Naath screamed until his throat was bloody but it repaired itself just as fast as he tore his vocal cords. His eyes were open and bulging, one couldn't even see individual veins in the white of his eyes anymore they were completely red and bloodshot. The soul mark on his forehead moved and appeared, rotating rapidly. Then it multiplied and there were two marks, the marks then moved and slowly drifted into Naath eyes. Naath felt a new wave of indescribable pain, with his bones and muscles restored he gripped his hands into fists and grit his teeth so hard cracking noises rang out.

With his bones being hard like diamonds this was no small feat, it showed just how much pain Naath was enduring! The marks transformed his eyes, his pupils became darker than anything, the whites of his eyes became brilliant and smooth, the Iris’s became a fuzzy gray color and his veins became completely undetectable. Finally when all of this was over minutes later, Naath collapsed to the ground in a pool of sweat and blood. His breathing was rapid but quickly calming down, his clothes had all been torn to shreds by the energy vortex around his body. He fell into a deep sleep and nothing short of divine intervention would be able to wake him until he was ready to be woken.

Silence, complete and utter silence permeated the surrounding several miles. Even those whose ears survived the insane noises could only hear dead silence. No insects or birds made noise. The wind froze and stopped blowing as the vortex around Naath disappeared. In the eye of the storm of noise and events was a library with no top floor, countless ruined books and pages. 6 people on the floor bleeding from their ears and eyes, 4 stunned onlookers, and one emperor picking up the completely unconscious Naath. The library ironically was the only place where the noise continued, the librarian ran up the steps in a frantic manner.

When sunlight hit his eyes on what was supposed to be the top floor of a building he was confused. When he saw the carnage the library had endured, he was livid. When he saw the unconscious Naath in the emperor's arms, he was concerned. He felt several waves of emotions in a short time period but ultimately he was concerned for Naath. The young man was one of the few people he had met that had a good respect for books and a strong desire to learn and understand everything. The floor could be rebuilt, the books re-written, and the knowledge restored. However Naath was a rare talent, something not seen in the history of this entire small world. Seeing Naath unconscious and at the center of all of these events he couldn't help but be concerned about him.

The emperor saw the concern in the librarian's eyes and smiled. He spoke too but the librarian simply couldn't hear anything but ringing in his ears. He was a cultivator so his eardrums were healing quickly but they had completely ruptured from the noise level earlier. It was a noise like a titanic beast the size of a country roaring, only a few cultivators still had consciousness, let alone the ability to hear properly. He could tell from the gesture though that Naath was okay. He felt a wave of relief, and he helped the emperor out of the library and back to the royal palace. There Naath was guarded by the most loyal bodyguards and looked at by the finest doctors. Soon after Naath was laid down on a medical bed as people all over Beginning began to recover.

These events were surprisingly not talked about at all by anyone in the country with the exception of a few hushed whispers and drunkards telling stories. It became an open secret of the entire country, everyone knew there was a heaven blessed talent in the country and he was the source of the insane events that had happened. Nobody talked about it but everyone shared a look in their eyes and an odd sense of comradery from being part of the event. The country as a whole became a lot more unified from this event. Meanwhile back at the castle there were several alchemists and doctors looking over Naaths condition.

One of them grabbed Naaths right arm and sent some martial energy in to inspect his body making sure he was okay. However, when it got to Naath’s wrist when his energy suddenly felt like it was swallowed by an infinite abyss. The doctor was stunned and tried again, this time he found out where the consuming force came from. It was a little bracelet with a single bead on Naaths wrist that seemed to be devouring his energy. He went to remove it but upon touching the bracelet he felt his energy being drained at a horrific rate. He quickly retracted his hand in less than a second yet almost 20% of his energy had been sucked out.

His face paled and he shook his head using the other arm instead. After he did this he ‘saw’ Naath’s bones and muscles and was stunned beyond belief. Not only was the young man in front of him perfectly healthy, he had a body so strong and durable it defied belief! The alchemist turned and left telling the nearby emperor “he's fine, better than you and me in fact. He should wake up soon.”

Another of the alchemists went to check Naaths eyes to ensure there was no brain damage or issues with his soul. However when he looked into those eyes he felt like he had fallen into an abyss like he was looking at an infinitely deep pit. After looking for a moment he also felt like it looked back at him, through him, and saw every little secret he possibly had to hide. He was horrified! He ran out of this room with a pale face and a back covered in cold sweat. The last doctor in the room simply took one look and said “he's just exhausted from an extreme influx of martial energy. His body is in the process of balancing out.

Once his energy is done balancing he will wake up just fine. If you want to help him adjust quicker, bring some valuable treasures to help him regulate.”

Just as he said this a jade that was in Naaths pocket began to shine brilliantly and a soothing green light cocooned around Naaths body which seemed to relax another notch upon contact with the light. It was the jade he picked up at the shop earlier.