Chapter 2: The Starry Abyss.
An eerie silence surrounded Yao Zi.
Darkness wrapped around him like a suffocating shroud, thick and impenetrable. His body felt weightless, adrift in an endless abyss. There was no ground beneath him, no sky above, only an infinite expanse of blackness stretching beyond comprehension.
Then, suddenly… light bloomed from the depths of the darkness.
A glimmering cosmos unfolded before his eyes.
Stars, nebulae, and swirling galaxies illuminated the void, painting it in shades of silver, violet, and crimson. It was a sight so vast, so breathtakingly surreal, that Yao Zi forgot to breathe, if he even could in this strange, weightless existence.
But it wasn't just the cosmos that stole his breath away.
A battlefield unlike anything he had ever imagined lay before him, suspended within this celestial abyss.
An uncountable number of figures, humanoid and otherwise, filled the endless void.
Towering celestial beings with flowing golden robes and radiant halos behind them, some with wings of pure light as they hovered above, their very presence exuding divine authority.
Opposing them stood monstrous entities, some with obsidian flesh, others with jagged horns, and eyes that bled darkness, exuding malice and primal fury.
Between these extremes lay even stranger existences, serpentine creatures wreathed in fire, titanic quadrupeds clad in armor forged from star-metal, and beings with twisted, eldritch forms that defied reason.
Some of them were alive. Most of them were dead.
Corpses of these transcendent entities floated through the void like discarded relics of an ancient war. Their lifeless bodies, some severed in half, others pierced by ethereal weapons, drifted in silence.
Yao Zi felt his chest tighten.
This was no ordinary battle, but a war of gods and devils, of creatures beyond mortal understanding.
Yet, amidst this terrifying sight, one figure stood alone.
At the center of this celestial battlefield, cloaked in an aura darker than the abyss, with 4 large pairs of wings darker than the night itself, stood a single being.
A man with 8 dark wings, in white and black celestial armour, surrounded by an ominous pitch black aura.
No, calling him a "man" felt completely wrong. He gave Yao Zi the feeling of something extremely horrifying, even though this wasn't real, Yao Zi felt an instinctual fear from the very bottom of his being when he saw the winged man in the white and black celestial armour.
The black aura surrounding him did not simply cloak him, it merged with the void, making it impossible to discern where he ended and the abyss began.
And yet, every being in the battlefield, divine or demonic, turned their attention towards him.
Some with unrestrained rage.
Others with sheer, unfiltered terror.
Yao Zi couldn't move. Couldn't blink. Couldn't breathe, as the tension continued to rise, the battlefield deathly silent.
Then, The black-winged figure stretched out his wings and flapped once.
A casual, almost dismissive motion. And with that single movement, a pitch black wave burst forth.
Like a tidal surge of malevolence, it rippled through the battlefield as if shaking the space itself, passing over the lifeless bodies scattered among the stars.
And then, something Yao Zi never expected happened.
The moment the pitch black wave touched them, the fallen transcendent corpses began to glow.
A deep, eerie obsidian glow seeped from their wounds, their hollow eyes, their broken limbs. One by one, the dead began to stir.
And from their corpses… they rose.
Pitch black spectral figures, identical in shape to the fallen warriors with a hue similar to the void, emerged from the corpses, wailing in soundless agony. Their forms were ethereal, like phantoms sculpted from the void itself, yet their eyes burned with a madness, pain and suffering that sent shivers through Yao Zi's very soul.
The battlefield trembled.
The divine and devilish beings who still stood did not hesitate.
With wrathful roars and unshakable determination, they charged toward the spectral horde.
And the spectral figures, with their twisted, agonized wails, lunged forward to meet them.
The moment they clashed... The vision shattered.
Like a mirror struck by an unseen force, the celestial battlefield fragmented into shards of golden and crimson light. The void twisted, collapsed, and vanished—
And Yao Zi felt himself falling.
Falling back into the cold abyss.
Falling back into reality.
Falling… into the unknown.
At the same time, he felt as if he was being devoured by that unknown. His mind slowly being warped with each passing moment as several bits of information poured into his mind. Information about the world he lived on, the cosmos he inhabited and some faint bits of information about the 8 winged being he had scene in that vision, yet he couldn't do anything... couldn't speak, couldn't struggle, couldn't retaliate, as if his very existence was under the control of a strange force.
Though overwhelmed, several pieces of information stood clear amongst all else. It turns out that the 8 winged being from his vision was actually once one of the most revered beings in existence, who sought nothing but to protect the cosmos from the invasion of beings from beyond the cosmos.
In an act of desperation, he had managed to awaken a strange power which he used to temporarily force back the beings from beyond the cosmos but... Like the cruel blade of fate, the very cosmos, the very beings he had strived to protect, turned against him due to fear of his unnatural awakened powers.
Eventually, he managed to fight off the attack launched against him, weakening the strength of his aggressors but at the cost of his life.
Before that, he chose to leave behind his inheritance for a lucky successor but, this inheritance carried ominous strings attached.
The price of gaining his inheritance was to bear the pressure of completing his dying wish. To teach this very cosmos that dared to turn it's back against him, the true meaning of the Demonic Dao, in hopes of his successor becoming a fearsome Overlord of the martial realm.
Since the path of a saint had failed, Then he shall create someone capable of taking the demonic path. Bringing karma towards the very cosmos, while pursuing ones own interests.
The very words were engrained into Yao Zi's soul, no matter what he wanted, he couldn't defy the Winged immortals wishes.
_________________________________________
Gasping for air, Yao Zi jolted awake.
" I'm alive?!" Yao Zi was astounded. His body trembled, drenched in cold sweat, as he instinctively reached for the ground beneath him. Rough, cracked earth met his fingertips, dry, lifeless and barren.
His breath came in shallow, uneven bursts. He was alive, but where? he wondered. His surroundings were eerily silent, devoid of the rhythmic lapping of water that should have been there.
The realization hit him like a thunderclap.
' How am I alive?'
His wide, disbelieving eyes darted around. The entire lake bed was exposed, reduced to a vast, parched crater, as if the waters had been devoured by an unseen force. The soil beneath his feet was dry and cracked, with faint, irregular outlines where waves must have once touched.
' Was I transported to another location?'
Yao Zi's gaze lifted toward the towering cliffs that enclosed the gorge.
' No... Looks like I'm in the same place. Everything's the same, except for the absence of the lake and...'
The thick, perpetual fog that had once shrouded the peaks had vanished. Not a wisp of it remained.
His mind reeled. A gargantuan lake, drained to nothing. A sky once hidden, now clear. A vision of gods and devils locked in a war beyond comprehension.
It was too much. For a brief moment, he let himself forget about the lake's disappearance, the missing fog, everything except that vision.
But then, His body froze. A sudden, strange feeling welled up inside him.
He raised a brow. His body felt strong. He felt an odd sensation pulse through his very core.
Yao Zi shut his eyes, then snapped them open a moment later, His voice carried a faint hint of surprise.
" Impossible! My dantain has returned..."
" But how?!" He grabbed at his hair in wonder. He was astounded but he naturally attributed this as well, to the effects of receiving the winged immortals inheritance.
For weeks, his cultivation had been crippled, reduced to the Martial apprentice level from the Martial Master level. The empty space within his abdomen where his Dantain used to be, had been a constant reminder of his shattered path. But now, not only could he see it, he could feel it again.
Besides being alive after falling to his death, he now felt whole again. His dantain was back and the feeling it was giving off were signs that he wasn't too far off from Quasi-Martial Master level.
But…that wasn't all he felt, deep within his dantain, he felt something else.
" This shouldn't be possible–"