Chapter 3: The Last Supper of Heaven and Earth, End
The chains tightened, and the heavens split with a groan like the snapping of an ancient bone.
Hei Yao Zhenren's body buckled beneath the weight of the array, his knees sinking into shattered stone. His obsidian flame roared upward in defiance, swallowing disciples, melting banners, turning proud sect formations into blackened cinders—but for every hundred he devoured, the brilliance of the Sun-Moon sphere above only grew brighter.
The coalition of sects howled their chants. Blood trickled down their lips, staining white robes and golden armor, but none faltered. The air was a sea of incense smoke, burnt offerings, and ozone. The mountains trembled beneath the weight of their spell.
Chains of molten light coiled around his wrists, his throat, his chest, glowing so fiercely they burned into the marrow of his bones. His demonic wings writhed against them, snapping and reforming in endless bursts of flame, only to be crushed each time.
"Hold him! Do not relent!" cried the Abbot of the Radiant Flame, his staff blazing with golden fire. "This devil has plagued heaven and earth for too long! Today, we end him!"
Their voices rose, hoarse and wild, but Hei Yao's laughter cut through them like broken glass dragged over stone.
"End me?" he rasped, his lips curled in a feral grin though blood drenched his chin. "Do insects believe they can bind the abyss? Even now… I could devour you all."
He jerked his arms wide. The chains screamed. Entire formations of cultivators tumbled from the sky as the backlash shattered their dantians. Hei Yao rose half-upright, his body cracking like a statue about to break apart, but still he loomed over them. His eyes burned black and violet, stars drowned in hellfire.
The coalition's courage wavered. A hundred thousand cultivators, yet none dared meet his gaze for long.
And still, he laughed.
"Look at you—shivering, bleeding, clinging to your chants. Righteous, you call yourselves? You are carrion-feeders, gnawing at the corpse of heaven. I am truer than any of you!"
The obsidian lotus blossomed at his feet, each petal a blade of night that drank light itself. Elders screamed as the petals spread, cutting their wards apart. Blood rained as a sect master's head rolled from his shoulders, consumed before it could hit the ground.
For a heartbeat, Hei Yao stood tall again, wings spread, a god of ruin towering over the battlefield. His flame split the sky in two, carving the storm into a wound of black fire.
And then the sphere descended.
The fused Sun and Moon pressed downward, its radiance unbearable, its gravity grinding the valley into dust. Mountains bent, rivers boiled, stone turned molten. The chains surged tighter, dragging Hei Yao upright like a criminal displayed before execution.
His bones screamed louder than his enemies. His ribs cracked, splinters piercing flesh and muscle. His vision swam in blood. Every breath was a knife shoved into his lungs.
And still, his laughter broke again, wild and jagged.
"Me… Hei Yao Zhenren, True Lord of Black Obsidian… brought to my knees by worms?" His grin split crimson lips, his teeth shining with blood. "Tell me… where is your heaven now? Does it dare gloat over my fall? Even a Demonic Divine God cannot escape its chains?"
For a flicker, the laughter died.
Regret slithered in, heavier than the chains.
He saw the palaces he had conquered but never ruled, always moving to the next war, the next slaughter. He saw disciples who had bled for him, their bones now dust beneath this valley. He saw techniques left unmastered, treasures yet unclaimed, enemies yet unbroken.
And deeper—he saw a different face. A young man beneath neon lights, rain on asphalt, the screech of tires, the shattering of glass. Geralt Riviana Thompson, sprawled on cold pavement, dying not with glory but with a whimper. He had sworn never again to die weak, never again to be bound by fate. He had risen, clawed, consumed—until he became Hei Yao Zhenren.
And still, he fell.
Why?
His chest heaved, chains rattling with each breath. His voice cracked, hoarse but rising like a storm.
"Why must I die again?" His scream tore across the battlefield. "I devoured the marrow of heaven! I crushed gods beneath my heel! I became the abyss! And still—still you tear me down?!"
The coalition redoubled their chants, spurred by desperation. The Sun-Moon sphere blazed brighter, its edges jagged with divine fire.
Hei Yao's hair whipped around his face, drenched in sweat and blood. His laughter broke again, feral, a beast's final defiance.
"Then hear me, cowards!" His voice shook mountains. "If I am to fall, it will not be silent. I curse your heavens, your sects, your false justice! If fate dares write me as villain—" His wings flared in black fire one last time. "—then I will devour the script itself!"
The Sun-Moon sphere fell.
The valley erupted in white-gold brilliance, brighter than any dawn. His body split apart, obsidian flame shattering into fragments of night. His soul tore loose, chains dragging it into the crushing core of the array. The world screamed with him, a roar of defiance that rattled heaven's bones.
Then silence.
His enemies wept in triumph. Elders raised their arms, disciples collapsed in exhaustion, banners fluttered in broken wind. Hei Yao Zhenren was gone.
Or so they believed.
—
Hei Yao drifted.
No body. No chains. Only fragments of thought scattered in endless dark. He felt himself unraveling, pieces of memory drifting like ash: the neon streets of his first life, the blood-soaked mountains of his second, the laughter, the rage, the endless hunger.
He reached for them, clawed for them, but they slipped away.
Time dissolved. Maybe moments passed. Maybe millennia.
Then—light.
Not the crushing brilliance of the Sun-Moon sphere. A softer glow, warm and steady.
He gasped. Breath filled his chest. His lungs worked again. His heart thudded in rhythm. His eyes opened.
No battlefield. No ashes. No blood.
Velvet curtains swayed in a gentle draft, deep crimson embroidered with golden suns and moons intertwined. A chandelier of crystal and gold dripped light like honey across polished marble floors. He lay upon a bed carved of ivory, its silk sheets perfumed faintly with lavender and myrrh.
Hei Yao sat up sharply. His chest heaved. His hands—slender, pale, unscarred—rested against the silk. Not his hands. Not the hands of a god-slayer.
He swung his legs over the bed, bare feet brushing a rug so thick it swallowed sound. A mirror stood across the chamber, tall and gilded. A stranger's face stared back: youthful, aristocratic, framed by hair black as midnight, eyes a shade of violet that gleamed faintly in the lamplight.
Hei Yao froze. His reflection was not Hei Yao. Not Geralt. Someone else entirely.
The chamber was silent but for the faint crackle of candles. He rose unsteadily, body foreign, yet alive. Alive.
Before he could speak, a knock echoed against the door.
A voice, formal and steady, called through the wood:
"Young master, are you awake? The banquet awaits you."
Hei Yao's breath caught. His eyes narrowed at the door.
The battlefield was gone. His name was gone. But something else had begun.