Despite my fears, I went through the prayer room’s wall as if it weren’t even there. Darkness and stone surrounded me as the silver thread dragged me deeper deeper into Mt. Suntouched. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t do anything except hope for this journey to end soon.
As if answering my prayers, I left the darkness and stone behind, emerging into an area filled with light and air. I hit the ground and rolled for several feet, before stopping when I hit something. I sucked in breath, before casting my divine sense out.
I found myself in some kind of underground throne room, one that showed off a staggering amount of wealth.
It was massive, easily the size of Sturm Manor. The walls of the throne room were made of rough-hewn gray stone. They were studded with thousands upon thousands of jewels, gems, and precious stones. Sapphires, emeralds, rubies, as well as amber, turquoise, diamonds, and much more.
Golden orbs floated all over the throne room, each of them shining with warm light.
Great pillars, made from the same gray stone as the walls, supported the throne room’s ceiling. Unlike the walls, they were carved with depictions of legendary creatures. Jewels and gems served as the eyes, scales, and feathers of these creatures, among other things.
The floor, once again the same gray stone, was polished and smooth. It was also inlaid with jewels and gems, this time in intricate designs and patterns. In the center of the throne room was the image of a massive serpent made up of emeralds. Giant pieces of amber made up its eyes, and its fangs were made of white jade.
Near the back of the room, close to the wall, stood the throne itself. It looked like it was carved from a single giant piece of green jade. It was decorated with gold lotuses, as well as gold serpent imagery.
I turned my attention from the throne room to the one holding the silver thread. No, the silver whip. I laid on the ground next to her, and I realized that I had hit her legs earlier, when I stopped rolling.
The woman was short, an even five feet by my reckoning, yet her presence far overshadowed her short stature. It felt like being in the presence of the tallest mountain in the world. No. That wasn’t enough. It felt like I was in the presence of the entirety of the earth itself, and beyond.
When I forged the familiar contract with Aurora, I caught a glimpse of her former self. She had been a World Serpent, a divine being large enough to encircle the entire world. The woman standing above me made her seem like nothing more than an ordinary serpent in comparison.
The woman had a slender build, and long black hair tied up in a complicated style. Gold pins held her hair in place. A gold circlet sat upon her brow, adorned with a single egg-shaped emerald. The woman wore green and brown silk robes in the style of Spirit Earth. They were far more beautiful than anything made by mortal hands. Her skin was the color of white jade, smooth and perfect. It had a faint golden luminescence to it, as if liquid gold ran through her veins rather than blood.
Like Master Tempest, the woman radiated immortal mana. She was a goddess through and through, the sovereign of her domain, an empress clad in divinity.
Unlike Master Tempest, the woman didn’t wear a mask, leaving her face bare. Back on Spirit Earth, people used the term “jade beauty” to describe a woman of great beauty. I had seen so many so-called jade beauties during my life as Celestial Thunder. The woman before me made them all seem dull and homely. Only Annabelle was more beautiful than her.
It was her eyes that captivated me the most, however. They were deep brown, rich and warm. Those same eyes looked down at me with love and affection.
Hope and fear filled my heart as I recognized who the woman was. I wanted to reach forward and touch her, to see if she was real, but I was afraid to. What if she disappeared on me if I got too close, like a mirage in the desert? So I just stared at her, mesmerized.
“I know you have questions, my child,” the woman said, her voice as beautiful as her voice. “I answer as many of them as I can.” Her eyes turned cold and hard, before she looked up. “First, let me retrieve my husband. He owes you an apology.”
The woman drew her hand back, the one holding the whip, before snapping it forward. It stretched out, going through the ceiling of the throne room. After several seconds, the whip grew taut and the woman yanked it down. Moments later, a man emerged from the ceiling, wrapped up in the silver whip.
Master Tempest.
My master yelled as he fell down, letting out a groan as he hit the ground next to me. Before he could move or do anything else, the woman marched over and stomped on his chest, pinning him to the ground. Master Tempest let out a pained groan.
“Dear,” he called out in a cajoling tone, holding his hands in front of him in a placating gesture. “What’s wrong? Why are you so angry? There’s no need for any of this.”
“Apologize,” the woman demanded with a stern look on her face.
“I’m sorry,” Master Tempest said right away.
The woman rolled her eyes.
“Not to me, you moron,” she hissed. “Stop pretending to be an idiot and apologize to Celestial Thunder. I tolerated your little game, and even played along, but you crossed the line. Now apologize for playing with his heart.”
“I just wanted to tease him some more,” Master Tempest pouting, scratching. “Besides, we aren’t supposed to reveal our identities to him.”
“Yes, until he guesses who we are on his own,” the woman pointed out. “You deliberately made it more difficult for him, but he figured it out anyway. He called your name out earlier. That means it’s time to end things. You’ve had your fun.”
Master Tempest heaved a great sigh.
“You’re right,” he said, before turning his head to face me. “I suppose I did take things a little too far.”
He grinned at me, before removing the silver mask. I thought I was good looking, but my master’s face blew my looks out of the park. If he walked around in public without his mask, women would flock to him in droves. Blood pounded in my ears as seeing Master Tempest’s face confirmed my greatest hope beyond a shadow of a doubt.
However, above all that, a single thought occupied my mind. I could never let Annabelle see Master Tempest’s face. If she fell for him, I don’t know what I would do.
“Well?” Master Tempest asked, interrupting my thoughts. “Aren’t you going to say anything?”
“Shh,” the woman said. “Give him time.”
“Mom? Dad?” I asked, the words falling from my lips before I even realized. Embarrassed and horrified, I covered my mouth for a second, before I started babbling. “I apologize, I didn’t mean to speak so informally-…”
Moving faster than I could see, even with my divine sense, the woman embraced me. Her warmth enveloped my entire being. The scent of rich earth filled my nose.
“Shh, it’s okay, my child,” the woman said. “Just as you consider us your parents, we consider you our son. Feel free to call us whatever you like. There’s no need for formalities between us, not anymore.”
Her words, and the warmth of her embrace, shattered what remained of my self control. Like when a dike collapsed, everything I had been holding back poured through. Tears ran down my face as I cried and let out a keening sound filled with pain. For a brief moment, I was a child again, seeking comfort in his mother’s arms.
I latched onto the woman, holding her tight. No. Not a woman. She was Celestial Weaver, one of my first masters back on Spirit Earth. She was Terra, the Goddess of the Earth. She was Mom.
“I missed you both so much,” I whispered, my voice filled with raw emotion. “I thought you two had died.”
Celestial Weaver patted my back.
“I know,” she said, her voice filled with sorrow. “We heard about what happened after we disappeared. We missed you too, though your dad’s actions might lead you to believe otherwise.”
“Hey!” Master Tempe-…Master Celestial Blade protested. “I just wanted to see how far he’s come since we last saw him. It’s better than spoiling him like a child, like what you’re doing right now.”
“Nonsense,” Celestial Weaver said, her voice as sharp as a whip. “You just wanted to prank him, even though you knew that he thought we were both dead, you insensitive lout.”
A beat of silence followed her words.
“I’m sorry,” Master Celestial Blade said, his voice filled with remorse. “I took things too far.”
He put his hand on my shoulder, but I shrugged it off with a huff and buried myself deeper into Celestial Weaver’s embrace. With my divine sense, I saw my master’s face fall.
“Tch, serves you right,” Celestial Weaver said.
“Now now, Celestial Thunder,” my master said, holding his hands out in a placating gesture. “Don’t be like that. You’re a full grown man now, a reincarnated Immortal, not a child. No need to hold a grudge.”
I turned my head towards Master Celestial Blade and gave him a sideway glance.
“How much?” I asked.
He gave me a questioning look.
“How much is my forgiveness worth to you?” I asked.
Master Celestial Blade stared at me for a few moments, before he broke out into laughter. Even Celestial Weaver chuckled.
“You greedy little weasel,” my master said, though his words contained no malice. “I can give you a magic gourd that produces an endless amount of high-grade spirit water, though it will only produce a limited amount each day.” He held up a finger. “This is a one-time offer, and the only time I’ll blatantly break the rules for you. No more freebies after this.”
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
I paused to consider his offer. To be honest, it was a really good one. As the name suggested, spirit water was water that contained large amounts of Water mana. This worked well for my cultivation, due to my elemental affinities. Spirit water was also useful for alchemy, since many recipes used water as a base.
A gourd that produced an endless amount of spirit water was a priceless treasure for someone at my current level. Back on Spirit Earth, many of the smaller Clans and sects would consider it an heirloom, reserved only for their most important disciples. I would need to keep such a treasure hidden, otherwise someone might try to steal it from me.
High-grade spirit water was useful for my cultivation until the Golden Core stage. After that, I’d need a higher grade of spirit water. Besides, spirit water, no matter the grade, wouldn’t be as useful for me during the Essence Collection stage. I would need large amounts of different kinds of mana, not just Water mana. Still, preparing for that stage now wasn’t a bad idea.
“Deal,” I said. “I’ll forgive you in exchange for this gourd.”
Master Celestial Blade chuckled, before reaching into his robes and pulling out a gourd. It was large enough to contain about a gallon of spirit water. Even better, it just seemed like an ordinary gourd to my divine sense. That should cut down on the number of people who would try to steal it from me.
“Here.”
My master tossed the gourd to me. I caught it and tied it around my waist, since I hadn’t thought to bring one of the holding bags with me.
“It refills every day at dawn, so keep that in mind,” Master Celestial Blade said.
I nodded, before enjoying Celestial Weaver’s embrace for the next few minutes, letting my fear and pain fade away.
----------------------------------------
After I regained my composure, I took several moments to tidy myself up. Now that I had calmed down, I felt mortified about losing control earlier. Granted, I had a good reason, but it still embarrassed me. The first thing I did after meeting my first masters again, after thousands of years apart, was break down and cry. Not exactly my finest moment.
As I cleaned myself up and wiped my tears away, Celestial Weaver summoned a jade table. It emerged from the ground, as if the floor were liquid, before settling in place. It looked similar, but quite the same, as the jade table in Master Celestial Blade’s pavilion.
“I imagine you have a lot of questions, Celestial Thunder,” Celestial Weaver said. “However, we don’t have much time together, so keep it brief.”
“Yes,” Master Celestial Blade said, looking off into the distance. “Not only is my wife bending the rules by bringing you here, but we’ll have company soon. Aeros is furious. He’s flying around, looking for me and ranting about my ‘cowardice’. It’s just a matter of time before he thinks to come here.”
“Hmph, let him come,” Celestial Weaver sneered. “If he dares show his face in my domain, I’ll bury that arrogant upstart within the depths of the earth for the next decade.”
My master smirked.
“As amusing as that would be,” he said. “We can’t afford any more discord within the heavenly court. You know this. I would consider it a victory as long as he doesn’t discover our connection to Celestial Thunder.”
Thousands of questions buzzed within my mind, each of them demanding an answer. However, since we had a limited amount of time, I asked the most important one.
“What happened to you two?” I asked. “When I went to go find you after you disappeared, your trail ended at the Ruins of Fate.”
Just before my first masters disappeared, they told me that they were heading off to investigate a newly discovered hidden realm. They didn’t tell me which hidden realm they were going to, so it took me a while to retrace their steps when I went looking for them. I eventually picked up their trail, after searching high and low, though it led me to a dead end.
The Ruins of Fate was a dangerous hidden realm back on Spirit Earth. It was a pocket dimension filled with a thick black cloud, which hindered all of one’s senses, including spirit sense. Countless landmasses, topped by ruins of all shapes, sizes, and styles, floated through the black cloud, thus the name.
What made exploring this realm so rewarding was that one could find all kinds of rare and unique magic items, resources, and techniques within the eponymous ruins that couldn’t be found anywhere else on Spirit Earth. However, a myriad of dangers also lurked within those same ruins.
Strange and bizarre creatures prowled everywhere. Natural hazards and traps that endangered one’s body, mind, and soul littered the place; including portals that led to places unknown. And of course, there were cultivators who sought to steal from others rather than risk exploring the ruins themselves.
However, the biggest danger within the Ruins of Fate was getting lost. The black cloud hindered one’s senses, so navigating through it was a challenge in and of itself. It was easy to lose one’s way, which made it almost impossible to find the way out again. It took careful preparation, and a sufficient cultivation level, to survive the place. Even then, most cultivators who entered the Ruins of Fate never made it out again.
I spent a lot of time within the ruins, searching for clues as to what happened to my first masters. However, I never found a single trace of them. It was as if they had vanished into thin air, a common fate for any cultivator who got lost within the Ruins of Fate.
Due to the black cloud, it was impossible to determine the hidden realm’s size, but most theorized that it was at least the size of a continent, if not larger. Add in the various dangers and hazards, and it was easy for any cultivator to disappear without a trace.
“Is that what they named that place?” Master Celestial Blade asked. “When we explored it, people hadn’t settled on any one name for it yet.”
I nodded.
“Yes,” I said. “People started calling it the Ruins of Fate because it required a good deal of luck to survive the place.”
“Fitting,” Celestial Weaver said. “While your dad and I were lucky enough to leave that place alive, we weren’t lucky enough to make it back home.” She grimaced. “A strange beast attacked us while we explored one of the ruins. It was a mix between a praying mantis, a chameleon, and a leopard.”
I tried to imagine what a creature like that would look like, and shivered. It sounded like a nightmare come to life, which was par for the course in the Ruins of Fate.
“It was the perfect ambush predator,” Master Celestial Blade said in a flat voice. “It stalked us for months within those ruins. Despite our best efforts, we couldn’t defeat it. The creature would attack, inflict a few injuries, before fleeing. No matter how hard we tried, we could never finish it off before it got away.”
“We were at the end of our rope, so your dad and I decided to take a gamble rather than let that thing kill us,” Celestial Weaver said. “We entered one of the portals.”
I sucked in a breath. No one, and I mean no one, who had ever entered one of those portals made it back out again. Wherever they led, it was a one way trip. Many believed that the Ruins of Destiny was somehow connected to a number of different worlds, which would explain everything within the ruins, including the ruins themselves, since almost none of it corresponded with anything on Spirit Earth.
“And the portal you chose led to Lumina,” I guessed.
They both nodded.
“We survived the trip through the portal,” Master Celestial Blade said. “But it didn’t take us long to realize that we couldn’t make it home again.” He shrugged. “With little other choice, we settled in and adjusted to our new circumstances.”
“As with most who came to Lumina from Spirit Earth,” Celestial Weaver said. “We hid our true nature and blended in with the locals. Unlike now, there weren’t many cultivators in Lumina back then. In fact, as far as we know, we were the first to arrive. Others came later on, but for a long time, we were the only ones from Spirit Earth there.”
My ears pricked up at that. If that was the case, then it was possible that all the cultivators who ended up on Lumina came through one of the portals in the Ruins of Fate: either they all went through the same one, or more than one portal in the ruins led to this world. If so, that would explain why a cultivator from Spirit Earth only showed once every few centuries. The chances of a cultivator going through the right portal, or portals, wasn’t high.
That still didn’t explain why some cultivators ended up reincarnating here. Perhaps Spirit Earth and Lumina were tied together in more ways than one.
“It took us several millennia, but we eventually achieved immortality and reached the heavens above,” Master Celestial Blade said with a chuckle. “The gods of that era were certainly surprised to see us. You should have seen their faces. Back then, the only way to reach the heavens was by becoming a divine spirit through Ascension. They had never heard of cultivation.”
“It was tense for a while,” Celestial Weaver said. “They were suspicious of us at first, because we were foreigners from another world, but they grew to accept us.”
They both wore wistful expressions on their faces, as if lost in memories of the past.
“If you became Immortals here, why didn’t you come home?” I asked. “You had the power to travel between worlds by that point. Why didn’t you return to Spirit Earth?”
Why didn’t you return to me? I wanted to ask that, but couldn’t. I was afraid of the answer.
As if she read my thoughts, Celestial Weaver smiled and reached a hand towards me. I took her hand and held it.
“By that point, your dad and I had lived on Lumina for more time than we had lived on Spirit Earth,” she explained. “We grew to love this world and its people. At some point, it became home.”
“We went native, in other words,” Master Celestial Blade interjected.
“Of course, we never forgot where we came from,” Celestial Weaver continued, as if Master had never spoken up. “You and Celestial Hound and the others were always on our minds.”
At the mention of Celestial Hound, my expression turned dark and a spike of rage pierced my heart. Celestial Weaver gave my hand a brief squeeze, as if to console me.
“I know,” she said. “We can’t reveal the truth of the matter to you, we’ll leave that to Celestial Hound himself since you deserve to hear it from him, but he had good reason for doing what he did.”
I stared at her, the implication of her words hitting me like a mountain to the face.
“Celestial Hound is here,” I said, my voice flat. “On Lumina.”
The only way they could’ve heard the full story was from Celestial Hound himself, which meant that he was here or he had been some time in the past.
“Yes.”
My heart simultaneously went hot and cold as I realized that the son of bitch who stabbed me in the back, the one who I loved above almost all others and considered my brother, was here on Lumina. Rage filled me, to the point where I felt like I was choking on it.
“You know what,” I said, my voice even despite the turmoil in my heart. “It’s better this way. Now I don’t have to travel all the way to Spirit Earth to get revenge on Celestial Hound. I can just kill him here.”
Knowing that he was here on Lumina, made it easy to figure out who he was. Given what I knew, one figure fit the bill the most. The clues were all there, staring me right in the face. Perhaps I was wrong, but my intuition told me that I wasn’t.
“Celestial Thunder,” Master said in a sharp voice. “Calm your heart, lest you form an inner demon.”
I clenched my jaw, and for a moment I refused to listen. Calm my heart? Was he fucking kidding me? Did he know what I had gone through? I couldn’t remember which hurt more: the pain of having my soul shattered, or the fact that it was my best friend who did it.
However, after several tense seconds, I closed my eyes and took several deep breaths. With each one, the turmoil in my heart grew calmer and calmer. Soon, my emotions were like a still lake, calm and unperturbed. My pain and anger hadn’t gone away, not by a long shot, but I no longer let them have sway over my mind and my heart.
No, I would save that for later, when it came time to exact bloody vengeance.
“If you never forgot us,” I said, changing the subject. “Then why did you never visit? You could have at least returned long enough to tell us that you were alive and well.”
My first masters both grimaced.
“We planned to,” Celestial Weaver said.
“However, then as now, a threat loomed on the horizon,” Master Celestial Blade said. “We would not abandon the people here to their fate, not even to see you and the others. This is a sentiment that you can empathize with, I’m sure.”
I nodded. Despite having lived longer as Celestial Thunder than as Gabriel Sturm and Brandon Norwood combined, I was more attached to Lumina than Spirit Earth. Places mattered to me less than people. The only ones I cared about back on Spirit Earth were Flameclaw, my foster daughter, and my disciples. Now that I knew that Celestial Hound was somewhere here on Lumina, they were the only reason why I still considered giving Spirit Earth a brief visit; and I didn’t even know if they were still alive.
“Despite our best efforts,” Master Celestial Blade said. “Our enemies won and drove us out of the heavens. Only a few of us managed to escape. If it hadn’t been for your mom and I, they would have all died.”
That tracked with what I knew. According to the Church of the Sun, Master Tempest and Terra played a key part in resisting the greater demons and dark gods who conquered the heavens. While it was Sol and Luna who eventually drove them back, it was Master Tempest and Terra who kept the flame of hope alive long enough for that to happen.
I felt an unearned sense of pride that my first masters were such powerful and legendary figures. It made me all giddy inside.
“After Sol and Luna liberated the heavens and reestablished the heavenly court,” Celestial Weaver said. “We made plans to visit Spirit Earth, after things had calmed down enough and we could take the time to do so. However, we soon had no reason to.”
I narrowed my eyes at her.
“Because Celestial Hound arrived on Lumina at that point,” I guessed.
“Yes, and he brought your broken soul with him.”