Chapter 1: The desolate world
The world before them had been dead long before they arrived. It was not a natural expiration, but a structural collapse as if the very logic that anchored the sky to the earth had been systematically unmade.
"This place is wrong," Xiao Yang whispered, the words catching in a throat gone dry.
He stood at the jagged precipice of the broken plane, his spear white-knuckled in his grip, eyes narrowed at a horizon that held no light.
Beside him, the old man remained as still as a tombstone, his gaze fixed on something far beyond the limits of mortal sight something that made his ancient pulse quicken with a rhythm he hadn't felt in centuries.
"Come, Xiao Yang," the old man murmured, his voice sounding like silk dragged over stone.
"I sensed a disturbance in the Chaos energy. Perhaps we shall stumble upon a treasure in this barren husk of a world."
But as the elder prepared to step into the void, his body rebelled. The Law of Flight a fundamental right of their cultivation had been revoked.
The air did not support him; it repelled him.
"Grandpa, I… I can't fly?" Xiao Yang's voice cracked, the edge of panic slicing through his usual arrogance.
The old man didn't answer immediately. He looked down at his feet, then at the swirling, hungry nothingness beyond the ledge.
"It appears this plane was once a High-Level Domain before its annihilation. Our cultivation should allow us to traverse the void as easily as walking a garden path. Yet here, the Dao is crippled. Every movement carries a price as if the world itself is demanding a toll of blood for every inch we advance."
Xiao Yang felt a cold unease settle into his marrow. He had spent five years cracking the outer formations of this "small" plane, but he had never imagined a world so broken that the Laws themselves would refuse to support his weight.
He nodded, his youthful confidence beginning to fray like old rope.
They began to walk, their footsteps heavy and leaden, sinking into soil that felt like powdered bone.
They moved toward a rhythmic fluctuation of energy emanating from the center of the ruins. As they traversed the blackened landscape, the old man spotted stains of dried blood ichor so potent and thick with malice that even the river of time had failed to wash it away.
After a few paces, the old man halted. His experience, forged in the fires of a thousand ruins, whispered a grim warning.
They increased their speed, staying grounded, until they reached the heart of the plane.
What lay ahead was a masterpiece of slaughter.
Countless bodies lay piled in silent, staggering mountains, decomposed down to the marrow. Yet, in defiance of all logic, the blood soaking the ground remained wet and vivid bright, steaming, as if the massacre had occurred mere heartbeats ago.
Some corpses still wore their skin, frozen in expressions of eternal agony; others were nothing but hollow, bleached bone, their ribs pierced by weapons that had long since rusted into shadows.
"This wasn't a battle," the old man whispered, his voice trembling. "It was an erasure. A systematic removal of life from the script of existence."
"Grandpa… look! Over there!" Xiao Yang pointed into the distance, his eyes widening with a feverish glint.
The old man followed his gaze and froze. Shrouded by layers of thick, bloody clouds, a vision began to take shape. The visibility was near zero, yet something massive loomed within the haze like a ghost.
"If we cross this line," the old man warned, "we may not return. Places like this exist to swallow those who enter."
"Since when did you fear ruins?" Xiao Yang forced a grin, though his knuckles were white as bone. "We have survived the Forbidden Depths. This is just a small, desolate world. What could it possibly hold that can threaten us?"
Driven by a hunger for profit that bordered on madness, Xiao Yang began to rummage through the remains. He turned over shattered storage rings and inspected rusted weapons, but his face darkened with every touch. Everything he grasped disintegrated into gray ash.
"Useless junk!" he spat, tossing aside a cracked blade that turned to dust before it hit the ground. "Five years! We wasted five years of life to enter this wretched place, and we find nothing but dust?"
His eyes burned with infinite greed. He looked toward the crimson mist, where the war drums of the past seemed to echo. "Whatever survived… whatever is worth the five years… it's in there."
The old man sighed, a sound of profound exhaustion. "Very well. If you insist on seeking your fortune in the mouth of a tiger, let us go."
The moment they stepped into the crimson haze, the world fell away.
The minor strands of Chaos Qi that had lingered in the atmosphere vanished.
The air became thick and metallic, scraping their throats raw with every breath. The fog was not mist it was resentment, condensed and rotting.
The old man rippled a small green light from his palm, pushing aside the haze, but even his soul sense was crushed by an invisible, heavy force.
His cultivation, strong enough to survey entire continents in the blink of an eye, was now forced back to within a few dozen feet.
"The Dao itself is screaming," Xiao Yang whispered, his spear trembling.
The ground cracked softly beneath them, sounding like the snapping of teeth.
Suddenly, Xiao Yang stopped. He looked at a cluster of flowers blooming from a pile of skulls.
"Blood Lotuses…" he breathed in shock. "A flower born from relentless slaughter, watered with pure hatred."
Greed spiked in his chest like a needle. He reached out, his hand trembling, but his fingers froze mid-air.
An invisible, cold tether seemed to jerk his soul back into his body. He didn't feel fear; he felt a hollow, artificial confidence.
He didn't realize that his own eyes were beginning to leak a substance as black as ink staining his cheeks like tears of shadow.
"Those are distractions," Xiao Yang said, his voice sounding hollow, as if he were a vessel for a much older voice. "
The real treasure is ahead."
As they advanced, the mist tore open.
A sound echoed within their souls a subtle beat, like a war drum resonating in perfect synchronization with their own hearts.
"Illusion?" Xiao Yang gripped his spear, his vision blurring.
"No," the old man said, his eyes wide. "Memory."
The landscape transformed. Before them, armored figures of light and darkness clashed in a vision of a war that had shattered galaxies.
Divine techniques rained down like falling stars, and the earth was sundered apart by the mere movement of a sword. The animosity was so vivid it felt like it could scald their skin.
And then silence.
They ventured deeper. Hours passed, or perhaps an eternity.
They reached the ruins of a city massive walls made of jade-like stone, marked by runes so old even the old man's soul sense recoiled from them.
"This world should not have existed at this level," the elder muttered.
Hu "These markings… they are the remnants of a Supreme Dao Formation. To think a plane this small was once the center of such terrifying power…"
In the center of the ruined city was a massive crater, as if a single strike from the heavens had obliterated everything that once breathed. Within the crater stood a large stone tablet, its surface crawling with strange runes that moved like living organisms.
"Grandpa… it's calling us," Xiao Yang said, his eyes glazed with a terrible hunger.
"Be cautious," the old man warned, a tingle of true fear running down his spine for the first time.
As they approached, the war drums grew louder, vibrating beneath the soil. Then, the mist shifted one last time, revealing a silhouette that made Xiao Yang forget how to breathe.
It loomed beyond the crimson fog like a ghost palace an ancestral manor that stretched far beyond the eye could see, carved directly into the bone of the plane. Its roof peaks pierced the sky, cracked and dulled by endless ages, yet holding an ancient greatness that could crush a human heart.
The structure seemed to peer back at them, dormant and terrifying, like an ancient god waiting to be fed.
"Grandpa… is that a palace?"
The old man's pupils shrunk to the size of needle points. He looked at a single, ancient character carved into the ruined gate.
A name that had been scrubbed from the history of seventy-two domains. A name that should not exist.
"Shen…"
The word drained all strength from the old man's voice. He fell to his knees, his face pale with a realization that came far too late.
Only then did he understand this path had never been theirs to choose. They had not found the ruin; the ruin had summoned them to pay a debt for an era they were never meant to remember.