Su Luo awakened from the void within a cultivation chamber of hammered bronze. His breath echoed within the confines of eternity, his dantian stirred with the faintest trace of spiritual qi, and his eyes opened wide, drinking in the blood-red glow that seeped through a rectangular aperture in the chamber's ceiling.
With a convulsive movement that spoke of countless reincarnations, he sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the jade platform on which he had been reborn. Darkness surrounded him like the embrace of the primordial chaos, made thick and oppressive by the mere hint of light from the Heavenly Aperture above. He grimaced, blinking as his spiritual sense slowly awakened, and tried to stir the dormant cultivation base within his sea of consciousness.
The void within him was complete. No qi flowed through his meridians. No spiritual power coursed through his channels. He was like a mortal, perhaps less than mortal, for even mortals possessed the spark of life force that he now lacked.
The rectangular aperture hovered some eight or ten chi above him. The steady, crimson light came from a source beyond his perception, carrying with it the profound sense of the Dao, vast, incomprehensible, infinite in its scope and majesty.
Drawing deep breaths of spiritual energy so thin it was like trying to cultivate in a desert, he carefully stood upon the jade platform. His legs remained weak, his balance uncertain. The distance to the chamber floor was unknowable, perhaps a zhang, perhaps more. The darkness at the base of the platform was absolute, like the void between stars.
Su Luo rubbed his hands together, feeling the calluses that spoke of sword cultivation, and stretched toward the aperture. It remained beyond his reach by several chi.
He drew his hands back, wiped them on the simple white robes that all newly reborn cultivators wore, and prepared himself. The Dao of movement flowed through his muscles as he leaped.
His first attempt was pitiful. Without qi to enhance his body, he was no better than a mortal child. He fell back to the platform with a sound like thunder in the enclosed space.
Again he leaped. Again. A fourth time, each failure teaching him the cruel reality of his powerless state, before he began to think like a cultivator rather than react like a beast.
The platform was large enough. He stepped to its head, measured his steps with the precision of a formation master, then strode forward in a crouch. His arms swept up as he channeled what little life force remained in his body, and this time his hands slapped against the aperture's broad rim. His fingers, strengthened by lifetimes of sword cultivation, curled over the edge.
Gritting his teeth, Su Luo hauled himself upward. His arms shook with effort, muscles burning as if he were attempting to lift a mountain, until he managed to pull his head through the aperture.
The sight that greeted him stole his breath and nearly caused him to fall back into the chamber below.
The space was so vast that for a heartbeat he thought himself transported to the outer regions of the starry sky. A great pillar of luminous amber qi, some thirty zhang wide, split the darkness in the distance and rose to impossible heights before fading into the celestial dome above. It shone like a river of liquid sunlight, rich and golden and merciless in its perfection, inhuman in its scale and without flaw or imperfection.
Su Luo stared in wonder, his cultivator's instincts recognizing this as no mere light but rather a manifestation of pure Dao energy. Only his body beginning to slip back into the chamber below forced him to heave himself up and out, rolling onto his back before sitting up to truly take in the majesty before him.
The beam was revealed to be a passage between two massive walls that drew together at the top of a dozen steps. Steps that were easily three hundred zhang wide, separating the great plain on which he sat from the platform that led to the golden radiance.
That radiance turned the upper surface of each step to a rich crimson, like jade stained with phoenix blood, and reflected off the bronze floor in patterns that spoke of the mysteries of formation arrays. Swathes of natural dao patterns in the metal caught and scattered the burning glow, creating the impression of a bloody sun setting behind clouds of spiritual mist.
Su Luo felt himself become as small as a grain of sand before that immensity. The floor on which he sat was patterned with countless rectangular depressions like his own, laid out with the geometric precision of a grand formation array. Each depression reflected the amber light uniformly, showing they remained sealed, chambers awaiting the rebirth of their occupants.
His mind, sharpened by countless cycles of reincarnation, began to race. Were others trapped below in the cycle of rebirth? Was he alone in this trial? Where was this place? What tribulation awaited him? The questions multiplied like demons in his heart.
Movement to one side caught his spiritual sense, and he rose to his knees, peering as a shadow struggled up from a distant chamber. The aperture yawned dark and unsealed, like a mouth opened in silent scream.
Eager yet cautious, he leaped to his feet and took several steps before stopping. "Fellow cultivator?" His voice echoed strangely in the vast space.
The figure, for so it appeared to be, rolled out onto his back and lay there gasping for breath like a fish cast upon dry land.
Su Luo could sympathize. The awakening from the void was never gentle.
"What realm is this?" the man began, his voice deep and resonant like distant thunder, but his words trailed off as he shifted and caught sight of the pillar of liquid light.
Su Luo walked toward him, taking care not to step into any of the sealed chambers, even dormant as they were. He paused when he noticed something that made his cultivator's mind sharpen with interest. Crouching, he brushed his fingertips over numbers carved into the bronze at the base of one depression.