His soul left his body, slow and light like a smoke rising from fire and it floated up. The body stayed on the grass with swords inside, but the soul looked the same as him, only transparent, see-through like glass.
The soul started to rise higher and higher, going up into the sky, pulled by something he could not see.
His soul was heading to a place called Jietai, the Platform of Judgement.
A place between heaven and hell, where every soul first goes, and there the deeds of your life are counted, to decide if you climb up to heaven or fall down into hell.
"Wait… wait… wait a minute… I died… and I can talk?" Liu Yang's voice came out weak but clear.
He looked at his hands, thin and see-through like glass.
"So ghosts exist too…? So my grandmother's ghost stories were true…"
He was floating there, his new ghost body feeling light, so light, not heavy like how his body was lying as a rock on the grassland before.
He could see things far and near, clear, like nothing blocking his eyes.
He could even open his mouth and talk, and that alone made him more shocked than the fact he was already dead.
He looked down and saw his demon body lying on the grass, swords still stuck inside the chest, the awkward smile still on its face.
The soldiers were already walking away, their boots pressing the grass flat as they went back toward their station, like killing him was nothing but a small chore.
Liu Yang lifted his hand and put it on his forehead, blocking the sun a little, trying to look far. His mouth opened wide as he saw it for the first time.
There was a city. A real city. Surrounded by tall stone walls. Inside, he saw houses made from bricks, stacked in rows.
He saw shops with signs hanging in front. People walking on the streets.
Some wore normal clothes, some wore armor, some wore shiny metal plates, some only leather strapped tight to their body.
From one corner smoke rose high from a blacksmith's shop. From another place, he saw mages walking with their long robes and tall hats, staffs in their hand, glowing faint at the tips.
Outside the walls stretched the grassland where he had died, wide and endless, rolling into the hills.
Beyond the hills he saw mountains, tall and rough, like natural walls protecting the city from rear.
As he was about to be pulled in, his soul started twisting, spinning like a swirl, his whole see-through body was sucking into the dark void like water going down a hole.
And in that moment, one last sound came out of his mouth. His voice was weak, shaking, but it carried through the empty space.
"You guys… just wait… I swear on my soul… when I get my body back… I will drop… I will fall the Thousand Sword from the Heaven itself… and I will burn your whole city down… ha…ha…ha…ha…"
And in an instant he was not in the same place anymore.
The world around him stretched out, endless, no walls, no floor, no sky, nothing that made sense.
Liu Yang was shocked to see it. He tried to walk, his feet moving like he was on ground, but no matter where he went there was no end.
It was like running and running, and the more he ran the more the place stretched, like a rubber band pulled forever but never breaking.
[System Activated]
[Intercepting Soul Destination]
[Destination: Jietai]
[Soul Destination Intercepted]
[New Destination: Theodore]
[Finding new host...]
[Finding new host...]
Liu Yang pressed his see-through hands together, shaking. "Please… please no error this time… for god's sake…"
[New Host Found]
His eyes lit up. His lips moved fast. "Please, please let it be human this time… please… no more horns, no more blue skin…"
[Host Race: Demon]
[Reminder: Demon is also a living being. Congratulations, you got lucky.]
Liu Yang's jaw dropped, his face twisted. "What the fuck?! You call this lucky?! Are you really on my side or not?!"
[Transferring Soul to New Host...]
[Soul Transferred]
[Have a Happy Journey]
"Ahhh…"
His eyes opened slow, not fast at all, like his eyelids were carrying weight on them. They lifted a little, then dropped down, then lifted again.
He blinked once, then blinked again, and only after that, after fighting it for a while, his eyes were fully open at last.
He looked up, dazed. His body wasn't lying on grass anymore. The soft feeling under his back was gone. Now it was hard, cold, biting into him. A stone floor.
"Where… where am I?" His voice came out low. He rubbed his hand on the ground.
"Why is it so hard under me? First it was soft, then in the next second it's hard like rock."
He shifted his legs. His arms twitched. His mouth opened wide in shock. "I… I can move…?!"
His body was answering him now. Slowly, he pulled himself up, not fully standing, but half bent, like when you rise from a bed halfway, your stomach lifting up but your legs still lying flat.
He put his hands on the floor and moved them around, waving on it slow, and it felt rough under his skin, and it was cold too, the kind of cold that went straight into his palms, and he could feel every little bump, one by one.