A Realm beyond measure and comprehension drifts like a forgotten god's tear upon the infinite, crimson canvas of the 'Great Red Sea'. The terrestrial body of this titan-world was hewn by primordial forces into Five Great Domains and Two Forbidden Abysses, whose forms were then shattered into a myriad of lesser subdomains and sovereign territories, like the fractured reflections in a broken mirror of heaven.
Furthermore, the celestial vault that crowns this Realm is a grand pagoda of Nine distinct Heavens, a celestial ladder ascending from the dust of the mortal coil to the silent, empyrean throne rooms of the immortal. Although ancient schisms whisper conflicting truths of its primordial name, the supreme hegemonies that grasp this world in their palms have branded it with a singular, immutable decree: the 'Primordial Dragon Sealing Realm'.
Ancient scrolls, inscribed with the ink of starlight and bound in the hide of fallen celestials, murmur a chilling legend: that the most terrible and magnificent draconic sovereign from the planes of immortality, a being that dwelled beyond the Ninth Heaven, was shackled for all eternity within the molten heart of this very Realm.
This fearsome appellation and its attendant whispers are accepted as immutable truth, for while the faintest echoes of diluted draconic blood can be found pulsating within the beasts of this land, no lineage has ever been discovered that claims a direct bloodline, nor has any creature manifested the true, divine form of a dragon born of nature—a cosmic imbalance attributed to the inescapable grip of an invisible, world-spanning dragon sealing formation; thus, these divine beasts are now recorded only in the most sacred literature as beings of profound and distant myth.
Moreover, a primordial mandate burns within the soul of every sentient creature: an insatiable hunger to conquer the unknown, a spiritual imperative afforded precedence above all others, and this universal law has most assuredly taken deep root within the soil of this particular Realm.
It is for this very reason that the hallowed name of that enigmatic, mythological beast—the 'Dragon'—has been invoked to grant power and immortality to countless mountains, rivers, and dynasties across the boundless expanse of this world...
***
The Celestial Dragon Millennial Calendar (天龙千年纪),
In the 888th Year of the Lunar Dragon Cycle, an age of omens and sorrows.
"Lord Venerable!" In a singular, shattering moment, a youthful voice, a chord of reverent terror and blazing excitement, struck the profound, sacred silence of a grand hall that sprawled for thousands of meters like a sleeping giant and rose a hundred meters toward a firmament of its own.
Though this hallowed hall stood in a state of cavernous emptiness, its very walls and colossal pillars groaned under the weight of opulent, magnificent artworks of a bygone dynasty, their ancient visages meticulously carved and weeping with veins of lustrous gold and iridescent pearls.
The youth who stood as the sole living soul within this gorgeous expanse was himself a creation of arresting allure, graced with two large eyes that held pupils like twin abysses reflecting a nascent starlight, a nose as refined as a master's jade sculpture, lips elegantly thin, a cascade of silver hair that fell like a waterfall of liquid moonlight, and a well-sculpted frame that, though reaching only 1.6 meters, possessed a bearing as unshakeable as a mountain.
By any measure of Heaven or Earth, he was an adolescent of such stunning and remarkable grace that it seemed the world itself had paused to admire him.
In truth, this boy was one of the chosen of the heavens, having descended upon this Realm a mere decade prior as a veritable Son of Destiny.
'The day of his nativity was not merely marked, but was anointed by celestial portents that shook the very foundations of Heaven and Earth.
Upon that ordained day, a colossal phantasm of myth, bearing the divine semblance of a dragon, coiled through the heavens to encircle the capital nine times, its cry a thunderous decree that imprinted a new truth upon the annals of the world.
Simultaneously, from a sky immaculate and sun-drenched, a rain of purest liquid gold descended for the entirety of the day, while phantasms of the ascended manifested in the firmament, scattering blossoms of pure light that drifted down upon the city's expanse.
These ethereal petals descended upon the mortal forms of countless individuals, acting as shards of Dao enlightenment that catalyzed profound, shackle-shattering breakthroughs in their Cultivation, before ultimately gracing the earth and transforming the very soil into a cradle of spiritual fecundity.
The heavens themselves seemed to weep with joyous light to herald his advent, and it was for this sacred reason that he was burdened with his heaven-defying name, Xia Jiutian (夏九天).'
'In the first fragile moments of his new existence, Xia Jiutian was met with a shadow that fell upon the dawn of his life: the loss of his mother, the most cherished treasure in the realm, even as his lineage flowed from a bloodline forged in the crucible of ages, the most powerful and aristocratic family in the entire realm.
His fledgling years were consequently steeped in a chilling frost that settled upon his nascent soul, an ache born of a love for the mother he would never know, she who had perished in the sacred agony of childbirth, leaving him to preside over a silent kingdom of solitude, utterly devoid of familial warmth.
Despite the truth of his eight siblings, phantoms in the imperial court, Xia Jiutian had not once heard their names pass from the lips of another in the ten years since his birth, and aside from a few encounters with his father, as brief as a comet's passage across the night sky, he was left to wonder if they even still drew the breath of life.
This gnawing uncertainty was a void that only deepened, for such inquiries were met with a wall of silent, fearful reverence by the maids and servants in his periphery whenever he dared to voice them.
Thus, while he possessed a father and siblings in this new world, they remained a constellation he could behold but never touch, a reality that carved a still deeper, more profound ache into the core of his spirit—a yearning for connection that grew into a gnawing void with every passing day of his lonely eminence.'
'Beyond his distant father and spectral siblings, Xia Jiutian stood to inherit a boundless fortune, a river of gold and jade that flowed from the dawn of the dynasty, so vast its depths could not be plumbed even were he to spend it for a thousand lifetimes. Yet, a desperate fever burned in his blood, a yearning that clawed at his soul to simply capture the gaze of his father, the solitary sun in his cold, personal firmament.'
After the echo of the youth's voice dissipated into the vastness, the silhouette of a middle-aged man coalesced from the shadows a short distance ahead, as if summoned by the boy's very utterance—a man whose formidable physique stood 2.3 meters tall like a walking mountain, crowned with a mane of silver hair, his sharp brows presiding over eyes as deep as twin voids that had witnessed the birth and death of stars; his chiseled jawline and regal face bore the sagacious authority of a sovereign who commanded destiny, a presence made all the more terrifying by a radiant diamond crown that pulsed with inner light, his frame's terrifying power barely contained beneath a navy-blue silk robe embroidered with intricate, golden constellations.
This man was already moving in a stately procession toward an altar that levitated several meters above the ground in the hall's epicenter, each step causing the ambient qi to part before him in fearful reverence. Upon hearing the child's respectful address, the man began to speak without deigning to turn his gaze, his voice a decree that settled upon the soul like the weight of a mountain yet carried the warmth of a hidden sun, an utterance that instantly saturated the cavernous hall with its absolute authority.
"You may address me as Father when the eyes of the world are not upon us," he intoned, his words causing the very air to vibrate. "And do not permit the tempests of anxiety to trouble the sea of your heart; once this sacred ritual has reached its conclusion, we shall have an eternity for the discourse you seek."
Having delivered this pronouncement, the man's stride quickened, and seeing this acceleration, the boy immediately surged forward to follow in his sovereign wake.
In the space of a few heartbeats, both figures arrived within ten meters of the altar's hallowed perimeter; the boy, perfectly mirroring his father's movement, ceased his advance at that precise distance.
The altar itself ascended five meters in height and was half a meter in diameter, sculpted from an unknown, luminous crimson jade that bathed the entire hall in a sanguine, blood-like luminescence; it was ensnared in the coils of a golden dragon statue, a beast carved with such divine, terrifying verisimilitude that it seemed its next breath would incinerate the world.
The magnificent head of this draconic statue rested upon the altar's surface, its jaws parted in a silent roar, and suspended just above its maw floated a golden, bone-like artifact that radiated a searing, unbearable heat, an intensity so profound that any being without the protection of a heaven-shaking cultivation would be instantly rendered into molten slag and forgotten dust.
This peculiar object measured half a meter in length with the approximate radius of a man's arm, bearing the unmistakable, primordial appearance of a divine beast's bone. The impossible spectacle ignited a raging tempest of astonishment within the boy's mind, for even at the tender age of ten and hailing from a lineage that commanded marvels, having witnessed countless treasures that could topple kingdoms, never before had his eyes beheld such a resplendent, sun-forged golden bone, nor such a divinely beautiful and terrifyingly lifelike dragon statue coupled with so strange and ominous an altar.
The man's voice suddenly sliced through the air, imbued with an authority and seriousness so absolute it shattered the boy's reverie and jolted him from the depths of his thoughts.
"Attend to my words as if they were the edicts of heaven," he commanded. "First, you shall take three strides forward and offer a bow of profound reverence to the altar. Then, you will approach the altar's sanctum and anoint it with but a few drops of your own lifeblood. That is the entirety of your sacred task; that is all that is required of you."
With this solemn proclamation, the man produced a small, golden-hued knife, its form appearing as a miniature effigy of the very artifact that levitated before the boy.
After his gaze fell upon the ritualistic blade, the boy offered no further words and accepted the knife, a tremor of surprise rippling across his otherwise placid features.
And just as his father had commanded, he strode three paces toward the altar and first performed a bow of solemn, filial piety. Having completed this obeisance, he glided even closer to the sanguine stone, his eyes wide and unflinching as he fearlessly plunged the knife deep into the flesh of his right palm.
In that very instant, an agony as sharp as a thousand soul-flaying needles erupted in his palm, and to his utter astonishment, this torment was so potent that it coursed like a river of wildfire through every meridian and spiritual channel of his being. Yet, the boy refused to manifest any weakness that might bring shame upon him before his father, so he endured the cataclysmic onslaught with sheer, unyielding willpower, and after a few torturous seconds of this silent war, the pain began to recede like a chastened tide.
By this time, the boy's hand had already begun to bleed, but to his shock, the blood that flowed was not the familiar pure red of his past; it possessed a sublime hue more akin to liquid crimson gold.
Then, without another moment's hesitation, the boy swiftly swept his bleeding right hand across the altar's surface, causing a small, divine cascade of blood to spill from his wound onto the sacred, waiting stone.
Upon withdrawing his hand, the boy's eyes immediately shot upward toward the Alter , for an inexplicable and profound connection had suddenly blossomed between the core of his soul and the bone levitating above.
Perceiving that nothing overtly calamitous had yet transpired, he reasoned that this ethereal sensation was perhaps merely a foreordained consequence of the ritual itself.
Therefore, casting all other tumultuous considerations from his mind, he turned back toward his father with the greatest haste, for he could no longer bear the agonizing delay that kept him from the private audience he so desperately craved.
And with a countenance set alight with unrestrained excitement and a smile as brilliant as the morning sun, just as he was about to take a single step toward his father, the boy's eyes ensnared a strange expression contorting his father's godlike features—a complex tapestry woven from threads of profound shock and a sorrow as deep as a starless abyss, an expression he had never heard described in lore, let alone witnessed, and he was certain that no soul in the entire domain had ever seen such a fracture in his father's invincible facade before.
In the precise moment his father's hand, from across the chasm of distance, began to ascend toward his own head, a chilling premonition, cold as the void, seized his heart, screaming that something had truly and irrevocably gone awry; spinning back around with an urgency that tore at his very being, the boy saw that the golden, bone-like object which had been floating above the altar had utterly vanished from its celestial perch.
Then, as a dreadful realization began to dawn like a black sun within him, the boy snapped his gaze directly upward, and a glacial chill of pure terror flooded his entire body at the sight; the golden bone was now hovering just above his own head, vibrating with a frantic yet silent energy, floating in a bizarre, impossible stasis as if restrained by an immense, unseen celestial force.
Though an abyss of primal fear opened within him upon comprehending the mortal peril he now faced, a strange and unknown warmth simultaneously began to course through his heart, a comforting current born from the belief that his father was shielding him from this impending doom.
This fragile, comforting sensation, however, did not persist, for his father's voice, now laden with an unmistakable weight of uncertainty and sorrow, immediately reached his ears:
"Son, you were born for a destiny of unparalleled greatness; consider this merely a trial the heavens have set upon your path. All of our honorable ancestors are gazing down upon this moment from the realms beyond. Therefore, with the utmost respect for their immortal legacy, you must accept this challenge fearlessly and with unwavering confidence, as befits the youngest child of my blood."
The instant these words ceased to echo in the hallowed hall.
BANNNNNG?!
The boy felt a cataclysmic impact upon the back of his head and neck that was akin to a star collapsing within him, unleashing an unimaginable torment, far more intense than what he had previously endured, that exploded throughout the entirety of his body.
It was a sensation of some foreign, divine entity forcibly invading his physical form, immolating his flesh and blood from within, and shattering his very bones into countless, incandescent fragments.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!
This time, the agony was so utterly, cosmically unbearable that the boy could no longer contain the tempest within and let loose a soul-rending scream that threatened to crack the very pillars of the hall; just as the pain crested beyond the absolute limits of his endurance and he felt the cold precipice of death approaching, strange, luminous sigils suddenly materialized before his eyes, arcane characters he did not recognize yet understood with an innate, primal knowledge, and finding no other recourse, he began to unconsciously chant them aloud.
"~Blood-Rooted Bone, Amber Pillars Gleam;~
~Dragon's Tears Flow Through Fractured Dream~."
In the very moment he uttered this arcane, sorrowful verse, the torment wracking his body subsided by a mere sliver, and as a consequence, he managed to reclaim a fragile shard of his mental equilibrium.
Then, before he could voice a single word of pleading to his father, his eyes widened toward his own leg in sheer, unadulterated terror, for despite feeling no pain in that moment, his both feet had begun to dissolve into shimmering nothingness yet he stood still; he could no longer feel the limb, as if some cosmic hand were meticulously and slowly erasing the ink of his existence from the sacred parchment of reality.
In this instant, the boy's terror had ascended to its absolute, soul-freezing zenith, eclipsing even the searing memory of his recent agony. Without a moment's delay, his gaze darted toward his father, a silent, desperate plea for aid, for protection against the sudden and horrifying unmaking of his own being.
In that very moment of extreme, suffocating dread, a sliver of desperate hope ignited within the boy's soul as he perceived a look of profound, sorrowful understanding dawn upon his almighty father's countenance.
Yet, the river of time waits for no mortal, for already, in utter silence and bereft of all sensation, an irreversible event had transpired that sent a glacial winter through his entire existence; first his legs had vanished into light, and now his waist and upper torso began to fade into utter, terrifying invisibility.
Subsequently, gazing upon his father's vaguely emotional visage and his profound, statuesque inaction, the boy could not help but arrive at the devastating, soul-crushing realization that it was far too late, and that he was now destined to be lost to the cold and silent realm of eternal sleep.
Terror had utterly conquered the fortress of his mind, yet paradoxically, he felt a great tranquility, a peace like the calm at the eye of a hurricane, descend upon him in that moment, for the final, hidden wish of his heart—to simply spend a few precious moments with his father—had, in some tragic measure, been fulfilled.
Thus, for one final, lingering time, the boy fixed his gaze upon his father's face, seeking to commit every line and shadow to the deepest archives of his memory before he drifted into that eternal, dreamless slumber. This gradual, complete dissolution, though occurring with the shocking swiftness of a lightning strike, stretched into what felt like an eternity to him, a yawning chasm of endless and silent despair.
As the inexorable tide of his vanishment crept from his chest to his throat, his father, having suddenly closed the distance between them, placed a hand upon his remaining head and spoke his final words with a tone of profound warmth and absolute assurance.
"Do not be afraid," he decreed, his voice a balm upon the boy's fracturing soul. "To be obliterated in such a manner is also a trial for you, one that shall further purify your mind, body, and soul from the specter of death—the ultimate, eternal adversary for heaven-defiers such as us."
"You appear to be teleporting to some unknown, fated destination; it was my deepest, most selfish desire to keep you by my side, to shield you from all harm beneath my wing, but the cruel machinations of fate have decreed otherwise.
My blessings shall accompany you on this uncertain, perilous odyssey, and there is but one final truth I wish to impart to you: Never, in this hellish, unforgiving world, betray the truth of your own self. And you must promise me that you will never surrender towards Evill, never."
Having finished his decree, the man gazed down upon the fading visage of the boy, his heart weighed down by a gravity that could collapse a sun.
At that, the boy, forcefully suppressing the raging torrent of his sorrows, pains, and emotions, proclaimed with a voice ringing with the unwavering confidence of a future sovereign, "I will, Lor… FATHER!"
Uttering this sacred vow, the boy could sense the last grains of his time slipping through the hourglass of his existence, and he knew this impending journey was destined to be an arduous one; thus, he fixed his final, fading gaze upon his father and began to etch that magnificent visage into the very fabric of his soul, holding the image until he utterly and completely vanished.
~~Fooooooshh!!!!~~
In a silent explosion of light, the boy disappeared from that place, as though he had never existed within this sacred shrine, this ancient city, this glorious dynasty, or even across the vast, uncaring expanse of the entire domain.
But a few fleeting, heart-stopping moments had passed between the beginning of his dissolution and its finality, yet that brief, suspended span of time was sufficient for this father and son to offer their final farewells—or perhaps, it was not, and never could be.
Now, within this long, desolate shrine, the man stood in solitary, silent vigil, his strange, unreadable gaze fixed upon the altar, his expression a vague mask of emotion that barely concealed a surging, world-ending killing intent so potent it could vaporize an entire ocean and extinguish the stars.
Drip Drop!...Drip Drop!...Drip Drop!...Drip!
All at once, a few crimson drops of blood, as brilliant as rubies, seeped from the corner of the man's mouth and fell to the floor, each impact creating a heavy, thumping sound that echoed like a death knell throughout the silent, grieving hall.
The sheer, cosmic impact of the events that had transpired in these few moments was so immense and utterly unimaginable that should the outside world ever learn of this incident, it would undoubtedly ignite a world-shaking uproar and sow the seeds of boundless, bloody chaos.
Forgetting the incident itself, if any soul were to merely witness that man in such an emotionally compromised and wounded state, they would be frightened to the point of soul-collapse, let alone behold the absolutely unimaginable sight of him shedding his own precious, divine blood.
This was because that man had been worshipped as a living, breathing deity by the entire land long before he ever ascended to the throne; now, after thousands of years of sovereign, undisputed rule upon that very throne, no being in existence could even conceive of harming him, much less possess the heaven-defying strength or realm-shattering courage required to make him bleed.