The full moon hung low in the sky, its pale light spilling across a sea of stars. It bathed the dense forest below, casting soft shadows and illuminating the winding paths enough for a traveler to walk without fear of stumbling.
Occasional roars and the chirping of insects filled the air around the mountain peak, where an old man and a little girl sat gazing at the moon in silence.
The old man was lean, his skin like tree bark. He had a head of white hair and a long beard that reached his chest. His eyes were a striking purple, and a small black hoop earring hung from his left ear. He wore a simple white shirt and loose brown pants, an outfit that gave him a refined air despite his age.
The little girl beside him also had purple eyes and looked to be about six years old. Dressed in a white one-piece that reached her knees, with two braids in her hair, she looked quite adorable.
The old man let out a long sigh. "It has been ten thousand years. I think it is time for us to reform your dragon form and give it one last try. If we fail to break the seal this time, I will not try again."
The little girl smiled sweetly. "Papa is so strong; we will surely break the seal. And those bastards… we will let them know the consequences of injuring Little Su." She clutched her little fists, her face scrunched in anger.
Then, as if she decided on something, she turned to him. "Papa, this time we will kill those bastards and use their blood essence to condense my dragon form."
The old man patted her head with a kind smile. "Sure, Papa will help you take revenge."
Little Su giggled happily. Her body then dissolved into smoke before condensing into the shape of a small black dragon with bat-like wings and obsidian claws. With familiar ease, the little dragon settled on the old man's shoulder, a peaceful look on its tiny face.
The old man sighed once more, his thoughts drifting to the past.
He was not originally from this world. On Earth, he had been an orphan, captured from the orphanage by human traffickers when he was ten. His life there ended swiftly. He was delivered to a group of evil cult members who, after giving him a bath and good food, used him as a sacrifice to please their god that very evening.
As the blade severed his head, his vision went black. It remained a void for an unknown time until, suddenly, he opened his eyes in this mysterious world called Celestia.
He knew little of his family in this new life. As far as he could remember, he only had a grandfather, who died when he was fifteen. From then on, he lived alone with only his bloodline spirit, Little Su, for company.
At first, he dreamed of marrying and starting a family, but he soon gave up on that idea after learning more about this place.
According to the village elders, this was a sealed pocket world, created from the dead body of a god-tier world-devourer beast and a time serpent to serve as a tomb for ancient gods. Many had entered this place when it first appeared, thinking they had found a great opportunity, only to be sealed inside for eternity.
To make things worse, the place suppressed every life form within it, locking all cultivation at the mortal realm. Simply put, no matter how powerful an immortal you were outside, inside you were just a mortal who would age and die.
Most of the initial arrivals accepted their fate and lived normal lives. Others chose to fight it.
Six of the strongest seniors from that time studied the seal and located its core, but they failed to break it, since their cultivation was sealed to the mortal realm. One of them, known as the Battle Maniac, was the only one strong enough to even leave a scratch on it.
As their next plan, they decided to spread the Battle Maniac's cultivation technique, hoping their descendants could master it and combine their might to shatter the seal. After doing this, these six seniors opened the coffins of the immortal gods, threw the bodies out, and laid down inside themselves to preserve their bodies from the flow of time.
Over the years that followed, talented descendants sometimes managed to cultivate the Battle Maniac's technique to a high degree. Each time, they would wake the six seniors, and as a group, they would try to break the seal. After failing, the seniors would teach their techniques to the juniors before returning to their coffins to sleep.
This process had repeated so many times that Draven had lost count.
He had witnessed it all from the very beginning, for he was the sole survivor of the first generation, other than the six sleeping seniors. The reason for his longevity was simple: he was the only one who had ever cultivated the Battle Maniac's legacy to the ninth stage, surpassing even the Battle Maniac himself, who had only reached the seventh.
For ages, no one in the village could pose a threat to him. But four years ago, everything changed.
Villagers discovered a hidden tomb in the forest containing many large coffins. Thinking it was another way to preserve their lives like the six seniors from legends in the village, some greedy individuals opened the lids without consulting anyone.
But what they didn't expect was that, unlike the life less corpses the six seniors had found, these coffins contained different types of godly beasts and the beings inside were very much alive.
What followed was a disaster. The village was wiped out. Only Draven, relying on his strength and battle experience, managed to escape. Still, his bloodline spirit, Little Su, was gravely injured, and he had barely managed to nurse her back to life.
Now, after four years, Draven had finally reached the tenth and highest realm of the Battle Maniac's technique. If he could not break the seal now, there would be no path forward. This was their final attempt.