Blood red water washed ashore, the river and ocean full with human remains. Loud explosions sounded in the distance.
Clang-Clang-Clang, the sound of crashing blades ringed out from above.
"I've seen countless like you. What makes you believe you're an exception?" A deep voice rang out accompanied by a hysterical laughter.
The person speaking was floating in the air, he had dark red hair with a pair of black horns sprouting from his forehead. He is carrying a large black blade, his clothes and weapon covered in blood. Blackish red aura surrounds his body.
The sky itself was torn asunder, cracks of crimson lightning splitting the heavens. Islands of broken earth floated aimlessly in the sky, dripping blood onto the burning lands below.
Opposite the demonic figure, a man stood alone, sword in hand, white robes stained with grime and blood. His face was young, his pupils were golden like the color of the heavenly palace, he looked tired as if he's been fighting for a lifetime, starting with his childhood.
"If no one succeeds before me," He whispered softly as if talking louder will drain the rest of his energy, "it just proves that I will be the first. The world is changing after all."
With a flicker of his blade, a brilliant golden light erupted, parting the suffocating darkness around him. Yet even that brilliance flickered like a candle in a storm.
"Hahaha! The first? Foolish!" The Demonic Master howled with laughter, his aura crushing down like a tidal wave of despair. "You Orders fools never learn... no matter how many times you cut us down, chaos will always rise again."
The world trembled beneath their feet. The waters vaporize. The mountains crumbled.
Emperor of the Orders:
I watch him, each wave of his aura rips through the world, destroying everything in its path, leaving nothing but ruins and death. The air is thick with the stench of blood and smoke, the mountains crumble as if they were nothing but dust, and the rivers boil under the heat of his fury.
That bastard… he's relentless.
I raise my hand, my blade responding in a serene, deadly dance, floating beside me, shimmering with a faint golden glow. A quick wave of my hand, and the blade multiplies into millions of individual transparent shards, each one a deadly strike, racing toward him like a thousand arrows.
But I'm too slow. A single whizzing blade slices through the air—too fast. It brushes past me, barely missing my face. The sound of it rings in my ears.
"Bruh… do I look like an idiot to you?" The Demonic Master's mocking voice sends a shiver down my spine. He floats just behind me now, his dark figure cloaked in shadows. "You think I'll wait for you to finish and then what? Die? No wonder you Orders fools always lose. This isn't a duel... There's no fairness in a battlefields."
I stand still, watching him. One hand slowly slips behind my back, fingers tracing an ancient symbol in the air, my palm facing upwards, glowing faintly with spiritual energy. The array is halfway there, and I know time is running out.
You talk too much, bastard. You know a lot but what you didn't know was that villains always die from talking too much.
I move my hand in slow, deliberate motions, trying to keep him occupied. I need more time.
"How many people like me have you killed?" I whisper the question, almost more to myself than to him. But it hangs in the air, curious, like a mystery that needs answering. I've gotten used to speaking more quietly over the years.
He chuckled, almost amused. "Giving up already? Trying to make conversation with your executioner?"
I can feel the power of his gaze on me, his presence so heavy, it feels like the sky itself is pressing down on me. But I don't care. My focus is on the array now.
Almost there… just a little longer…
"I'm just curious," I answer, my voice barely a whisper. "Maybe you'll be kind enough to tell me before I die."
His voice shifts, sounding dangerously low, almost like a snake poised to strike. "Just curious, or…"
Before I can even prepare myself, he vanishes. Not a sound, not a whisper. He's gone. And I feel it—the darkness in the air, a sudden weight behind me.
Shit.
I barely twist to the side, the hairs on the back of my neck standing up as a fist-sized blade shoots at my face from behind. My eyes widened. I dodge, but the shockwave tears through my array, shattering it to pieces.
Fuck, if I weren't so damn tired from months of fighting him, I would've seen it coming.
He then appeared a good 25 meters away, watching me with amusement.
"Tut-tut-tut, playing the sneaky game, huh?" he mocked. "Never thought an Order member would stoop so low, all that talk about righteousness."
This bastard really knows how to get under my skin...
I popped the last vitality pill into my mouth.
Sweet. At least, it was supposed to be. But all I tasted was iron, thick and bitter. Guess after months of bleeding out, even sugar turns to blood.
He didn't even try to stop me. He just watched, calmly preparing for battle. His face wasn't tense or cautious—just pure excitement, exactly as I expected.
"Finally. I was starting to think you ran out of pills," he sneered, his tone dripping with mockery. "It's been a hell of a boring month. You Orders types are always popping pills... tell me, do they taste better than swallowing your enemy's blood directly?"
How the hell am I supposed to know, you moron? I've never drunk blood before.
The surge of the pill rushed through my veins, but even that felt hollow. My body was patched-up glass, and the cracks were showing.
The damage done was too severe, I wouldn't recover even after I won.
"You know," he said, smirking, "that reminds me... I really enjoyed killing your family. Draining their blood dry."
He chuckled, as if recalling a fond memory.
"Family of the Heavenly Emperor…. No better favor"
That does it!
I stomped the ground, sending spiderweb cracks racing outward. I charged, sword blazing with fury.
Demonic Master:
Ah... finally.
The little brat snapped. His fury was delicious, blinding him like a cornered beast. I licked my lips as he closed the distance, sword glowing with that pathetic righteous aura.
"That's it... show me your rage, little emperor," I whispered, not bothering to dodge.
Let him come. Let him swing.
His blade roared toward my neck, fast, furious, sloppy.
I tilted my head—barely. The blade grazed my cheek, drawing a thin line of crimson.
"Tch... close," I chuckled. "But not close enough."
Before he could reset his stance, I brought my knee up, smashing it into his gut.
CRACK!
I felt something give under the impact—maybe a rib or two.
He spat blood into my face.
Good. More.
I grabbed him by the throat before he could recover, slamming him into the dirt like he was nothing but a rag doll. The earth cratered beneath him.
"You Orders are always the same," I growled, tightening my grip as his face twisted in pain. "So noble. So righteous. So predictable."
But he wasn't done yet.
Even pinned under me, that bastard gritted his teeth, forcing his hand up between us, palm glowing with a barely completed array.
"Hmph, still trying to play smart?!"
I pushed harder, crushing his wrist, bones snapping like brittle sticks.
But then—BOOM!
The half-formed array exploded right in my face, blinding me with raw spiritual energy.
The brat used his own broken wrist as bait… Shits.
Through the smoke and pain, I heard him whisper, barely audible but full of venom.
"Righteous? Maybe. Predictable? Guess again."
Tch.
The brat's little trick singed my face more than I'd like to admit.
I licked the blood off my lips.
Mine. His. Didn't matter.
"Guess you Orders aren't completely hopeless after all," I snarled, cracking my neck.
But playtime was over.
I let the crimson aura around me condense, my flesh rippling like water under a storm. My skin peeled away, my muscles dissolved into a viscous blood-red liquid, bubbling and squirming with hunger.
"Let me show you," my voice gurgled from everywhere and nowhere, "what TRUE evolution looks like."
I exploded into a wave of liquid flesh, splattering across the battlefield.
My body stretched, morphed, took the shape of a colossal dragon head made of molten blood, jaws wide enough to swallow cities.
I crashed toward him.
BOOM!
The impact turned the earth inside out, swallowing him in a flood of blood.
I could feel his spiritual armor crack, the golden glow suffocating inside my form.
"Try running now, brat," my voice echoed inside the crimson tide.
But even in this form... that damn light of his stung. Where his sword slashed, my liquid flesh hissed, parts of me evaporating into steam.
"Cute," I sneered. "But you'll get tired before I do."
I surged again, reforming a massive claw and slamming it down like a mountain.
"This is the end of the line. Orders? Heavenly Dao? It's all a lie. You're no hero. You're just a cornered rat."
I felt the satisfaction of crushing him deeper into the earth. Bones shattered. His aura flickered. His breathing—ragged.
I loomed over his crumbling body, my liquid form pressing into every crack of his armor, every wound in his flesh. His sword flickered like a dying star.
"Pathetic," I growled, forming countless tendrils of blood to spear him from all directions.
"Guess the so-called Emperor of Orders is nothing but a corpse that hasn't realized he's dead yet."
I prepared to end it—one final strike, the killing blow, the moment I'd savor for eternity.
But then...
The cracks in his flesh burst open—not bleeding—but shining like cracks in reality itself, pouring out blinding golden light.
What... What is this?!
But it was too late. The golden light erupted like the wrath of the Heavens themselves, a sun born from his body. My liquid form evaporated instantly where the light touched, my regeneration failing for the first time.
"NO—NO! THIS ISN'T POSSIBLE!" I screamed, my form melting into steam, burned from existence.
My screams echoed into the void as I turned into nothing but drifting ash.
Emperor of the Orders:
For what felt like eternity, I lay broken. Bones shattered. Core cracked. Energy slipping away.
Finally, I dragged myself up.
My clothes were torn, my blade cracked, and blood covered my body. I look like a savage and my necklace, the emerald jade necklace, the only thing I have left of my mother was cracked and broken.
"Was that all worth it?" I whisper to myself, I hold the broken necklace closely to my chest.
I can feel it. The world... empty. Dead.
Wait.
I looked up.
A tree stood over me—the Grand Tree of LianXu.
This is LianXu…. my homeland….
I crawled onto the giant stone that rested under the tree, most of it hidden deep in the ground and carved my last words.
When the world lies in ash,
When rivers run red with blood and tears...
When empires crumble to dust,
This stone shall remain.
To the seekers yet unborn, I foretell:
When war spans a thousand years...
When righteousness blurs,
And blood floods every shore...
There shall be no path of return.
Only when Chaos and Order stand together
Shall peace remain.
Tip the balance, whether toward the heavens or the abyss...
And the world shall once more burn to ash.
I carve this... as a warning... for all who follow...
I didn't know why I carved them. Just a feeling... like someone, someday, would need to read them.
I rest my head against the tree and close my eyes to rest as I have done many, many times when I was little.
This time… Forever
My conscious fading away
This is all I really wanted, to rest peacefully beneath the trees of my home.