Chapter 2: The Last Supper of Heaven and Earth, 2
Blades fell like rain.
Hei Yao Zhenren's wings of black flame beat once, and the deluge of divine steel shattered, sparks scattering like insects caught in a furnace. His laughter thundered above the storm as his shadow dragon coiled and devoured another group of disciples, their screams swallowed in an abyss that left only drifting bones behind.
He moved through the battlefield like a phantom king. Every gesture was ruin: a raised hand summoned a lotus of obsidian petals that bloomed into fire, consuming a hundred cultivators in a single breath; a step forward cracked the earth, sending shockwaves that toppled entire formations. Their banners burned, their chants faltered. Yet still they came, endless as waves against the shore.
Golden light clashed against his darkness. Holy scriptures manifested as chains, luminous serpents coiling around his limbs. He tore them apart with a snarl, shattering verses that once bound gods. A rain of arrows descended from the Bai Clan's archer corps, each shaft tipped with thunder. Hei Yao exhaled, and a storm of shadows rose to intercept them, the air filling with the stench of burnt feathers as black crows materialized to devour the bolts midflight.
But even as his power surged, a sharp lance of pain stabbed his chest. Blood spilled down his ribs, hot and wet. A spear of light had grazed him, burning deeper than flesh. For a moment, the world tilted.
And in that tilt, the battlefield blurred.
Not mountains, not banners, not disciples screaming their dogma. But asphalt. Rain-slick, black under the glow of neon. Red and green lights smeared across puddles. A streetlamp flickered, buzzing like an insect caught in a jar. The roar of engines filled his ears.
Geralt Riviana Thompson was standing at a crosswalk.
His hands were stuffed into the pockets of a worn jacket, headphones blaring the battle music of some JRPG he had been grinding all night. His breath puffed in the cold. In his backpack, tucked between notebooks he rarely touched, was a console still warm from hours of play.
He was thinking of the dungeon he hadn't cleared, the boss whose attack pattern he had nearly mastered. Thinking of how he would call in sick tomorrow, maybe fake a cough, so he could stay home and push through the story. Thinking of how his life felt so much more alive when it was made of pixels and quests than when it was made of lectures, bills, and deadlines.
The streetlight turned green. He stepped forward.
The sound came first: a screech of tires, sharp enough to tear the night open. Then the glare of headlights, far too close. He turned his head, too slow. The car jumped the curb, metal screaming, glass shattering. Impact. Bones gave way like brittle sticks. His body twisted, weightless, and the world spun.
The last thing he remembered was not pain, not even fear. It was the bitter sting of unfinished business. A save file left incomplete. A story he would never finish.
The battlefield roared back into focus.
Hei Yao Zhenren staggered, catching himself on cracked stone. Blood dripped from his mouth, sizzling as it touched his aura. His lips curled into something between a grin and a snarl.
"Ah," he rasped, spitting crimson. "So that's where it began."
Another strike came — a monk descending from above, staff blazing with golden fire. Hei Yao caught it in his bare hands. Flesh burned, the stench rising in a choking plume, but he gripped tighter until the staff splintered. The monk's eyes widened in horror a moment before Hei Yao crushed his skull between his palms and tossed the corpse aside like refuse.
He was not just Hei Yao Zhenren. He was Geralt, too.
The boy who had longed for another world.
And the world had answered.
He remembered waking beneath a crimson moon, his lungs filling with air that hummed with qi. His body was not his own: taller, leaner, stronger, yet fragile in ways he did not understand. Around him, robed figures had circled, whispering of omens, of a child abandoned, of fate. He had not understood their words. He had only understood the hunger in his bones, the thrill when sparks of power danced at his fingertips.
A new world. A world of cultivation, of demons and sects, of gods who walked the skies.
For years he stumbled, weak, mocked, treated as refuse by the so-called righteous. They denied him access to scriptures, barred him from sects, cast him out as unclean. So he turned to what they shunned. Forbidden caves. Black manuals inked in blood. Arts whispered of only in warnings. Where others saw taboo, he saw opportunity. Where they hesitated, he devoured.
And in devouring, he ascended.
Hei Yao Zhenren. True Lord of Black Obsidian. From hunted prey to sovereign predator. He carved a throne from the bones of elders who once spat at him. He tore open the heavens and bent them to his will. His name spread as a curse, as a prayer, as a promise of power and death alike.
And now, after centuries, after reaching the very peak, here he stood—surrounded by those same sects, those same dogs who dared call themselves righteous.
Hei Yao's laughter shook the mountains. It spilled out, cracked, bloody, defiant.
"You think death frightens me?" he roared, shadows surging in waves from his body. "I have died once already. I was torn from one world to another. I carved a path through heaven's belly! Do you think your pathetic blades can end me? I am Geralt, who defied death. I am Hei Yao, who devoured the heavens! I will not fall to worms in robes!"
He spread his arms wide. Black fire cascaded outward, a tidal wave of demonic qi that swallowed the valley. Disciples screamed as their flesh blistered, their bones cracking before they dissolved into ash. Holy artifacts shone desperately against the tide, but one by one they cracked, their light guttering into nothing.
For a moment, the coalition faltered. Elders shouted orders, their lines wavering. Fear glittered in eyes that once brimmed with zeal. Hei Yao strode forward, blood dripping from his wounds, his laughter echoing. His very presence was a storm, suffocating, absolute.
And yet—above them all, something stirred.
The air thickened. The sky itself groaned. From the ranks of the orthodox sects, thousands of cultivators knelt in unison, their voices chanting verses older than empires. Sigils ignited beneath their feet, burning into the earth. Rivers of qi surged upward, weaving together, forming a vast lattice that stretched across the torn heavens.
An array.
Not merely divine. Not merely righteous. Something older, something deeper.
Hei Yao's eyes narrowed. For the first time that day, the laughter faltered.
"So," he muttered. "They dare."
The array blazed. Sun and Moon converged, fusing into a single sphere of blinding radiance. Light poured down, chains of fire lashing outward, spearing through his wings, his flesh, his bones. He roared, shadows exploding in defiance, but the chains held fast. The ground split beneath him, the citadel's last stones collapsing into dust.
And through the pain, through the fire searing his very soul, Hei Yao smiled.
Because he remembered.
Once, he had been Geralt. Once, he had been Hei Yao. And if fate thought to shatter him a second time—then fate would learn how stubborn his soul truly was.
His voice rose above the storm, laughter mingling with agony.
"Do your worst, heaven! Burn me! Seal me! Scatter my flesh to the winds!" His eyes blazed, black fire burning even as his body crumbled. "But know this—I will return!"
And as the array tightened, as the coalition screamed their triumph, Hei Yao Zhenren let his essence slip into the cracks between worlds.
His laughter lingered, even as the heavens believed him undone.