The skies over the Nether Abyss churned with unnatural hues, crimson bleeding into indigo, purple veins slashing through the clouds like festering wounds in the heavens. Thunder cracked without warning, not from any storm, but from the endless tension between light and dark, divine and demonic, that rippled across the desolate battlefield below.
The land was jagged and fractured, marked by wounds from wars long past. Shattered pillars jutted from the earth like broken bones, remnants of temples and towers that once stood proudly. The very ground seemed alive, heaving and pulsing, as if remembering every drop of blood that had been spilled upon it.
And at the edge of the deepest chasm, where light dared not tread, stood two figures cloaked in shadow and flame.
Yi Wushuang, the elder twin, was robed in black silk laced with silver patterns. He had a cold glint in his pale violet eyes. He bore no weapon as he was the weapon. His presence alone chilled the very air.
Beside him stood Yi Wuyan, robed in deep crimson, his figure bathed in an eerie glow that danced between beauty and destruction. His red robe flowed like blood on silk, embroidered with black lotus and hellfire motifs. Long raven hair spilled down his back like a river of shadowed flame, and his face, ethereal, dangerously beautiful, bore a cruel serenity. Those ruby eyes shimmered like cursed gemstones.
"Ten thousand years," Wushuang whispered, his voice smooth as velvet, dark as sorrow.
"Ten thousand years they imprisoned her… and never once spoke her name again."
Beside him, Wuyan's fingers curled into his palm, tension threading through his frame like coiled flames barely restrained.
"They preach mercy," he murmured, low and edged with bitterness.
"Yet all they gave her was death."
Once, their mother had been a goddess.
Beloved. Gentle. Radiant.
She fell in love with a demon king, and for that, Heaven condemned her.
Her love, branded treason.
She had chosen Yi Luotian because she saw what others could not.
Beneath the surface, he was a kind soul—one who wielded power not to dominate, but to protect.
He ruled the underworld with fairness, governing not through fear, but through unwavering law.
Cruelty was never his doctrine.
Justice was.
He was misunderstood, reviled, and painted as a force of destruction, but those who lived beneath his reign knew the truth.
He had carved a home in the deep underworld, a sanctuary not for the wicked, but for the forsaken—for those whom the gods had cast aside, deemed unworthy of salvation.
The underworld, dark though it was, had never been empty.
It had been a refuge, a kingdom shaped by mercy, a place where souls cast from the heavens found solace, where those deemed irredeemable could begin anew.
And with her, he had found love and peace.
For him, she bore two sons beneath a starless sky, hidden from Heaven's unrelenting gaze.
For a time, they lived untouched.
Yet, peace was never meant to last.
Until the day she was captured and was dragged from her children's arms, torn from the home they built, and taken back to the Celestial Realm for punishment.
She was cast into Sky Prison, a place devoid of light and warmth, a place where despair reigned supreme, and her spirit fought against the shackles of despair that weighed heavily upon her.
And Yi Luotian, for the first time, knew true helplessness.
So he had begged.
The Demon King, who had never once bowed to heaven, knelt outside Yu Huang Palace—day after day, year after year—for ten thousand years.
He asked not for forgiveness.
Only to see her again.
They did not even let him near the prison gates.
And then, the punishments began.
For ten thousand years, she endured—shackled in isolation, stripped of name, stripped of form. Her divine soul frayed, thread by thread, until it dissolved into nothing.
No reincarnation.
No return.
When he heard that her soul had been destroyed—shattered beyond rebirth, scattered into nothingness—he rose in silence.
Yi Luotian stood beneath Heaven's gaze, his hands empty, his heart a hollow weight against his ribs.
She was gone.
Yun'er—his beloved, the woman who stood beside him, whose smile was as brilliant as the sun, is dead.
He lifted his head slowly, casting his gaze toward the golden halls of the immortals who had condemned her.
For the first time, the great Demon King did not beg.
He merely turned, stepping away from the celestial halls, his movements slow, deliberate—not in retreat, but in promise of revenge.
And the First Divine War began.
Yi Luotian met his end in battle, engaged in a fierce duel with the former Supreme Deity of Water. In their final confrontation, they unleashed a torrent of divine power, resulting in devastating blows that split the sky. Their ultimate strike shattered the heavens and obliterated the land, transforming it into the Nether Abyss.
When the twins found Yi Luotian's broken body, his hands were still clenched around her hairpin.
The last relic of their mother's existence.
And so, vengeance passed to their sons.
Yi Wushuang and Yi Wuyan, two sons born of a forbidden union and heirs to the Underworld, waited for a millennium.
They gathered forces and strengthened their armies as they waited for the right time to strike.
Now, that moment had finally arrived.
Wushuang lifted his gaze, staring at the battlefield where once their father had fallen.
The ground still bore traces of past wars, deep cracks threading across the abyss like wounds refusing to heal.
"This is the place," he murmured, "The gods shall perish here under our hands."
Beside him, Yi Wuyan stood motionless for a moment, his ruby-red eyes tracing the ruins before his fingers moved—graceful, deliberate, curling around an ornament hidden in his sleeve.
A jade hairpin.
Delicate, yet unbreakable.
The last thing their father had ever held before he died.
The same hairpin that once sat within their mother's hair.
He ran a thumb over its silver filigree, tracing the details as if willing them to remain—before exhaling slowly, deliberately.
With a flick of his hand, the hairpin disappeared back into his sleeve as he gazed at the battlefield ahead. Grief had long since transformed into hatred.
"The Nether Abyss will bury them," Wuyan said, stepping forward.
His voice was low, seductive, laced with a tempered wrath that simmered beneath flawless beauty.
Soon enough, the main celestial force descended upon the Nether Abyss, led by none other than the God of War, Tianwu. They tore through the clouds like falling stars, encased in golden light that scorched the skies.
For a brief moment, the Abyss was bathed in blinding brilliance.
Neither side moved. Neither side spoke.
Then Wuyan let out a low chuckle, the sound lazy and laced with mockery.
"So this is the famed God of War?" he drawled. "He looks more like a blunt axe than a blade. A boorish brute, really."
Tianwu's face turned red with fury, and he raised his massive sword, pointing it at the twins. "Who are you calling a brute, you foul-mouthed demons! Your realm knows nothing of civility."
Wuyan smirked but said no more.
Beside him, Yi Wushuang remained silent. His violet eyes, calm and unreadable, swept over the celestial formation—observing, measuring.
Then his gaze fell upon the man standing just behind Tianwu.
And paused.
Across the battlefield, Mo Chen met his gaze—ice-blue, steady, unrelenting.
For a brief moment, it felt as if time had stopped.
Wushuang's violet eyes darkened, scanning Mo Chen's posture, his stance, and the unyielding coldness in his gaze.
How interesting.
The prodigal disciple of the man who had taken their father's life stood before them, an embodiment of calm resolve.
There was no trace of hesitation in his demeanor; instead, he radiated a sense of detachment, as if the weight of past actions had no bearing on him.
Wushuang had seen that same detached stillness before.
In the former Supreme Deity of Ice and Water.
A flicker of something unreadable passed through his thoughts.
His lips curved—just barely, a ghost of amusement.
"Very well," he thought.
"Let fate begin its second act."