“They say that Immortal Ascension is the dream of all who practice the Way, that immortality is an end in and of itself. But they were wrong. Eternal life… is merely the beginning.”
~Unknown Immortal
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[-Origin Plane -|- Sol’s Domain -|- Planet Star’s Cradle-]
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The world was vibrant, blooming with life and color. Children played on cobbled streets paved with gold and diamonds, and merchants sold their wares to anyone who entered the exquisite shops of the city square. Precious herbs, spell talismans, alchemical concoctions and magical treasures were being bought and sold every minute. The atmosphere was brimming with almost tangible liveliness. It was an era of Cultivation and prosperity in the land of Southern Mu.
By an extravagant fountain spouting unmuddied, essence-rich waters, a group of children and adults crowded in attentively as they watched a girl of about fifteen or sixteen as she told a story. Her arms waved around vivaciously, making large gestures to emphasize a point as various expressions crossed her face.
“And then,” the girl’s eyes twinkled like stars, a look of admiration on her face, “Zhurong, the God of Fire himself, slew the ancient dragon with a mighty blow!” Her little hands made a chopping motion and she stamped the pavement cutely. The audience had their eyes wide open in amazement, despite having heard this story countless times.
Suddenly, the ground rumbled like the breathing of an awakened titan.
“That wasn’t me, alright?” The girl pouted.
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Seven-colored light sundered the heavens; quivering thunder shocked the land. The skies trembled and the earth split open with deep, rumbling groans. An area of 100,000 leagues was instantly cleared of clouds. On the world beneath, native lifeforms stopped their activities and stared up at the stars. No matter their position in life, no matter whether they were rich or poor, ordinary mortals or immortal cultivators, there were few who could feign disinterest at this unnatural sight.
A monumental golden apparition appeared in the skies, ablaze with a sun-like radiance that could be seen from the farthest reaches of the boundless earth. Its presence turned the starry skies of the night into afternoon light, hovering motionlessly for a brief moment before descending upon the land with earth shattering ferocity. An astonishingly dreadful aura enveloped everything in an instant; it was as if a giant hand had grasped the entire planet in its palm.
The gaping earth rose up to create a great ring of mountains and valleys; clouds converged and drained into the vast crater at the center. Azure water flooded the basin as white mists coiled thickly overhead. Energy gushed intensely through the mist; instantly, this entire region was filled with a sacrosanct air.
Half an hour passed by. Streamers of light crisscrossed the skies as several tens of thousands of figures all flocked towards the epicenter of this event. Soon, these shadows revealed themselves to be the figures of men and women, each of them standing amidst the empty sky. They waited; many eyed the shrouded earth with wanton greed and unspoken desires.
Only the birth of a precious heavenly treasure could induce such movement across an entire territory. Not only were there human experts, the elders of prominent ancient races such as the Fae Court, Desolate Race and Beast clans had also arrived, though they hovered in the distance, far from the center. After all, this region was a stronghold of the human race.
“Everyone here must have a sense of propriety. Without the ability, what meaning is there to compete? This treasure isn’t something that just anyone can obtain!”
A voice like thunder rolled across the sky, accompanied by waves of terrible pressure that struck down more than half of the airborne figures. Like ghosts summoned from the void, a heaven-warping legion walked out from between cracks in the skies, led by a violet-armored commander. Their steps were heavy and measured, each footfall causing booming thuds more shocking than earthquakes. The imposing general spoke again.
“Gentlemen, today my Great Xia dynasty will be claiming this treasure. This king will remember your favor greatly.”
He clasped his fist and performed a slight bow towards the people who had managed to stay airborne. At his words, the less than ten thousand experts still remaining withdrew resentfully to a further location, yet all of them kept their gazes on the cloud-covered mountains. Another half hour elapsed.
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Three enormous shadows arrived from the north, encircling the gathering like sharks drawn to fresh blood. The size of each shadow was as large as a country, blotting out the sky. Savage roars and unearthly screeches echoed across thousands of leagues, piercing the heavens in their wake. The fabric of space distorted and undulated along their towering silhouettes. A True Dragon and True Phoenix appeared above, quickly followed by a Heaven-Devouring Python.
Divine flames roared out from the phoenix’s body towards the dragon, scalding its purple-black scales. A terrifying suction force accompanied by grey light emanated from the serpent’s spread jaws at the other two beasts. Divine runes filled the sky as dense violet light covered the dragon. Each one was battling viciously for sole possession of this region. All three gazed at the surrounding tiny figures with anger and disdain.
“These foolish creatures actually want to contend with us! How audacious, how overreaching!”
“Abhorrent humans, their reproduction speed is so fast! They populate this world like ants. I’ll massacre them all and dye the earth red in rivers of their blood!”
“Yes, we must raze this area to the ground to silence these creatures! Let’s purge the entire territory! None will survive!”
The three divine beasts ceased their mighty struggle at once. In unison, their attentions turned towards the humans below. Divine light covered the nine heavens with glowing splendor as ancestral techniques crashed away in all eight directions.
That true dragon brandished a titanic paw, sharp claws glinting with deadly intent. Dark violet light flourished and transformed into the ghastly spectre of a giant claw, slashing down towards the armored legion. The commander’s eyes flickered darkly as he flung out a formation of protective sacred talismans. That violet claw continued downwards and ignored everything in its path, penetrating through the formation and crushing bodies into drizzling red mist.
This was a display of prestige, a declaration of irrevocable might!
The three giant creatures began slaughtering with their full strength, no longer holding back any scruples and revealing their innate divine abilities.
Rich golden flames churned into a flame sea, seething with virility and incomparable heat! The flame sea scorched myriads of living things into grey chaff, each death fueling wisps of fire to burn even brighter. Holy mountains and mystical valleys became blackened wastelands, numerous cities and millions of lives reduced to ashes and dust in a single breath. Space rippled like seawater as cavernous wormholes devoured their prey hungrily.
The humans that occupied these vast lands could hardly be considered weak. Many sects and clans possessed several million members, and there were even mighty countries with more than one billion!
Experts who had bathed in precious elixirs and devoured the flesh of pure-blooded primordial beasts since birth ascended into the sky, dazzling like afternoon suns. Their bodies gleamed with valiant courage, each one strode forward with the bearing of a god of war. As the humans flew towards the divine beasts, their weapons and armor glowed like embers in the twilight, bewitchingly beautiful.
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But before they barely approached even one thousand meters of the colossal beings, stray beams of light and mystical abilities struck them down. Broken viscera and bloody mist scattered to the winds. No one could withstand these forces of nature, they weren’t something that mere numbers could compensate for. Pitiful cries rang out, and fallen warriors were as numerous as the clouds.
An absolute calamity! The greed of the human experts caused their own downfall, and even their kinsmen were not spared! Murky grey whirlpools manifested at random locations within a circumference of 100,000 leagues. Fleeing men and women were drawn into their spiralling depths and shredded into blood essence, subsequently devoured by the great serpent.
“Why?! Why are the Heavens punishing us so?! Have they come now to collect the debts of our forefathers?!” An elderly man cried out, hands outstretched to the skies.
“Please! Father, brother, save me!” A young woman’s eyes widened in terror, only to lose their fleeting light as both she and the small child in her arms were brutally disemboweled.
Desolate wailing rang out in succession only to be snuffed out as quickly as it began. The mortals who lived under the governance of powerful cultivators could do nothing but watch aimlessly. Their protectors, those who sought enlightenment in the Laws to gain great power, were but fluff in the wind in the face of true might.
Any who escaped the whirlpools’ suction were either burned alive or crushed underfoot. Obliterating force howled unimpeded through the air, uprooting cities and strongholds. Entire clans and their ancestral lands became history, forever ceasing to exist in a moment. Violent gales erupted with each earth-shaking movement, enshrining the world in ravaging chaos.
Once the land was cleansed of all life, not a single blade of grass remained.
No longer did the great beasts waste their energies. They rushed towards the confines of the white mist without the slightest hesitation. They’d found each other to be roughly equal in power during the battle earlier, and continuing to fight among themselves wouldn’t bring about the desired outcome.
Yet at that moment, a diagram of planets and suns spread out like Heaven’s net, obstructing their path. The surroundings became liquid darkness apart from formations of glowing celestial bodies; it was as though they were trapped inside an infinite galaxy of stars. It became neither day nor night, a space completely cut off from the world. Those incomparably fearsome divine beasts stopped and turned around.
“Meddlesome creature, let us through!” they roared.
Grimly staring at the three leviathans, a silver-haired, middle-aged man stepped out from a rapidly deforming gateway in the void. Boundless green and silver light radiated out from his body and illuminated the darkness. Thick ruby blood dripped down from his right index finger, dissipating into the surrounding void. His long purple robes billowed around him wildly as they began fraying at the edges.
“You heinous beasts! Slaughtering the innocent, aren’t you afraid of the Ashina’s punishment?!” His eyes shone with grief and madness as he roared back.
“Why should the Heavens scare me? They can’t touch me, I am almighty!” Three hideous voices overlapped into a thunderous cacophony; divine light charged at countless stars as the great beasts unleashed forth innate abilities at their dark prison. The planets and suns trembled, several instantly collapsing into ethereal shards as the blackness began to fracture.
Puchi!
The silver-haired man coughed out one mouthful of precious blood after another. Scattered within this blood were fragments of internal organs. The golden and silver light surrounding his figure lost some of its luster, and he tumbled backwards several meters. He glared hatefully at the three beasts and shouted out in wrath.
“Even if the Heavens won’t punish you today, there is still me! My descendants’ deaths can only be repaid using your lives!”
He chopped down towards his own right hand, severing it at the wrist. Blood cascaded out from his wound and leaked into the fracturing shadows. Innumerably dense runes suffused the dimming astral bodies, causing them to shine with undeniable power.
His remaining hand ripped into his own heart. Precious lifeblood flowed out endlessly and the man’s face grew pale. His features withered and his skin became dry and cracked. Yet within the man’s eyes gleamed a pernicious, baleful light. His own grandson was dead without leaving behind a whole corpse. Right now, he must kill these wicked animals at any cost!
“Big Bang!”
An irreconcilable howl shook the heavens. Deafening crackling sounds ran up and down the man’s skin as the surface of his body began to fragment. Each sun and planet in the dark galaxy shuddered and fluctuated with terrifying black light. Time seemed to stop for an instant. Then, that terrifying black light submerged everything. The three great behemoths fought back with ceaseless divine radiance even as the whole world exploded in an eruption of primordial might.
When the heat and debris withdrew, emptiness filled the space between heaven and earth. Three gigantic shadows drifted unstably towards the diffusing white mist. The divine beasts had surprisingly prevailed, but at a great cost. Precious essence spilled endlessly from their broken forms, nourishing the earth with vigorous energy. Triumph coursed through their hearts; they had won, and the heavenly treasure was theirs. And yet, their hopes were not realized.
Upon contact with the mist, their already battered bodies were completely extinguished, their souls scattered. Nothing was left behind. The earth stood still once more.
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White clouds of mist converged rapidly towards the center of the newly-formed lake, as if time was flowing in reverse.
Standing atop the water’s surface was a magnificent, supple youth that might have passed as human were it not for the color of her eyes. They were a luminous azure-gold, peeking out mirthfully above high, sculpted cheekbones and sultry crimson lips. Waist-long hair spilled over her shoulders in luxurious, gold-spun waves. Her skin itself was the color of light honey, with a complexion as smooth as polished mutton jade.
The young woman surveyed the scene of destruction surrounding her with fiery, impassioned eyes, as though gazing at a masterwork painting to which she was the virtuoso. Already, the flames of war were dying, and the lifeblood of Immortals had watered the earth. An indescribably smug grin lifted the corners of her mouth, revealing small, pearly white teeth.
“Cultivators, mortals… they’re all the same, and they never change. Always so eager to throw away their lives for nothing but a mere dream.”
Her head turned towards the sun rising on the horizon. An expression that was simultaneously expectant and filled with melancholy appeared on her face.
“Sol’s Domain, Ashina Clan, I have come.”
Only a whisper on the wind remained as her figure blurred and vanished from sight.