Darkness.
In a black void of nothingness, he existed. Woven together and shaped. He cried out in the abyss he had come to know, and it responded by shaping him with hands of black.
Memories of his life flashed and faded, so hard to follow.
He saw a village of fishermen and samurai who trained with the blade and studied the concept of the Dao.
These people would rise in the morning and then fall at the dead of night, allowing the cycle to be repeated. A life where every step was one taken with the will of refinement.
Yes. This was where he lived. He was a wretched being. A creation who should have never been born who came into existence on this cursed island. Some called him a demon. Others viewed him as their savior. All of them wanted to use him.
His life was nothing more than that of a puppet. His body of flesh and blood might as well have been wood and string.
But why was all this flashing through his mind? Why was he suddenly thinking of all of this? Well, that was simple. This casual life, this village of the Dao, no longer existed. Fire rained down as a king with a body forged of metal descended upon the land and destroyed everything.
He watched the flames devour the village of Dao, and before his eyes it seemed to twist into a sun.
A sun?
That was right. A land of the rising sun.
The vision of the burning village shifted just as suddenly, and he saw a blonde-haired man hastily placing him upon a boat.
"You must go." That man said. "Go, and don't you ever look back. Travel far and even further than that and reach the land for which you were destined. Behold the power of the Dao and teach it to them, those naive fools. Go, my child, and live your life. Exist in the day and reach the end of night."
And it was as these strange memories and concepts flashed through his mind that he began to realize something.
Who was he?
Why couldn't he remember everything? These thoughts or words upon the page were nothing more than fragmented memories and concepts from a life that felt familiar, and yet he simply couldn't recall.
Then he began to fall.
The void vanished, and it was replaced with a sea of white. A blank page in which fate and destiny would entwine, and in return they'd tell a story.
And as he reached the bottom of it all, and the counts upon the page concluded, everything would be engulfed in a brilliant flame once more, and he saw even more memories.
A palace of solid ivory that could fly through the skies.
A statue of a being with a thousand hands. Some sort of… Golden God?
A set of stars that all formed into eyes as tendrils of darkness flowed and cracked the fabric of reality.
And then finally, a memory of a young boy whose village had burned to the ground, fleeing on a boat, only for that ship to capsize and for him to plunge into the dark sea, hitting his head upon a rock.
Rock?
Right. That had been the first cause of his madness. A loss of memory had occurred from that point. That explained his fragmented memories and why everything was so hard to follow.
He pressed on and watched what happened next.
By some miracle, that boy didn't drown. In fact, he managed to survive all the way up to the beach of a brand-new nation. A land of cultivation, and as he lay upon the ground, coughing up water and vomit, he would come face to face with the love of his life.
A pretty girl smiled down at him after giving him a form of CPR. "Are you okay?"
Jeong blinked. "No. No, I'm not." He reached up and he clapped her on the shoulder. "I've seen things. So, so many things. A void of white, infinite darkness, realms of hands that stretch out forever, and beings who lack heads. I've begun to realize something as well. We are their heads. God needs us, and we are God. Or maybe God is human? We exist because we must, and our destiny is to cease to be. This is all nothing more than a box of threads, and each person is connected to those threads following the command it orders of them."
"What?" The girl looked confused, for he was making no sense. After all, her mind couldn't process what he had seen, but he knew the truth.
Was this what had driven the king of elves insane? Most likely.
Jeong grabbed her again and squeezed tighter. "We live in a world of threads, and it is my duty to be the lord."
"I-I don't understand?"
"I am the Lord of Threads."