Like a star cast from Heaven to the earth.
Yuanchen plummeted—the wind grinding against his body, his consciousness returned and he opened his eyes. The flattering of his robes, the clouds caressing his body trying to bring a halt to his descent. The rushing wind flooding into his ears and lungs, he tried to reach for something, anything to ground himself but he kept slipping.
The memory of moments before returned.
His sect, the place where he had laughed, shared joy and sadness in, had turned its back on him—Accused and humiliated, then banished and stripped off what is rightfully his.
The sneers of the elders moments before he collapsed.
Yuanchen's heart turned cold, ice chipping away at the once pure heart. For 23 years, he had devoted himself to the cause of the Sect, despite being unable to call upon his Qi he had kept the doctrine of the Sect at heart. Meditated when everything was impossible, he even ignored the sharp tongues that would talk about him behind his back. The shadow of being unwelcomed in a sanctuary where cultivation of the neurons was the pinnacle of strength, other innate talents ignored least you could cultivate your core and grow the gifted implants in the body.
A tear rolled from his eye.
The lone tear stained with heavy regrets, regrets that he would never tell his sister to take care of herself.
A dry chuckle escaped Yuanchen's throat, the irony of thinking about his sister and how mad she would be when she found out about his fate.
Yuanchen's body passed through the barrier separating Heaven's Feel from the rest of the lower world. The force of his descent coupled by the natural resistance of the gravitational sphere set to separate Heaven's Feel and the lower world lit up the sky in an array of colors, the radiance putting the sun to shame.
As if all the earthly tethers had been uplifted. Every pain in his body healed, Yuanchen felt himself covered by what he could only describe as magnificence. Warm tendrils of a mystic force covered his body making him experience warmth he had never experienced before, the tendrils of the mystic force woven into his attire, his soul and all imperfections he had vanished.
Yuanchen looked around. His breath hitched in his throat, the sanctuary he was in, was breath taking. Crystal clear water surface with a mystic fog sitting above the ankle length water, underneath him, slithering where his hand was, was a creature he knew from the folklores of the world before this one, the world where people could move mountains, split the heavens—a world of powerful beings that make beings that are powerful in their world look like infants.
"Where am I?" Yuanchen mused and got up from the water.
"This is my domain. Where I rule over all there is, there was and there would ever be." A voice reminiscent of Yuanchen's own echoed and the fog lifted revealing a man standing above the water with his hands behind his back.
The man wore white robes, with black under clothing. He had long flowing hair tied by a jade hairpin and his features were that of the highest order of beauty. A Crimson flower mark was visible on his forehead, blood-red eyes stared at Yuanchen and his facial features, made even the Jade empresses Yuanchen knew pale in comparison.
The man seemed otherworldly.
Yuanchen settled into a fighting stance, his hands tightened to fists. He knew he couldn't stand a chance against the man before him, the overwhelming power that radiated from the man, made the hairs on Yuanchen's neck stand up, his instincts screamed to run but he couldn't run.
"Who are you?" Yuanchen asked through a shaky voice.
"I'm Shengyuan, the one true order of the universe. Kneel." Shengyuan said and his word carried by the order he represented forced Yuanchen to his knees.
Shengyuan observed the man, his eyes oozing a purple light and he landed next to him. "Intriguing, it seems in this world cultivation is no longer the same. In just 500 years everything changed so drastically, humans are surprising."
Yuanchen listened to the monologue as he tried to get up but his body refused the command to get up. In just one order, Shengyuan had suppressed any will his body had and made it obey the one order he had given it. Something Yuanchen was unfamiliar with, despite reading about every scripture that achieved paralysis through manipulation of the target's implant and flow of Neuro-Qi.
"What do you want? Someone as powerful as you has nothing to do with someone as weak as me." Yuanchen inquired, hesitant on overstepping his bounds.
Shengyuan chuckled, the water became violent and the fog thickened in amusement. His red eyes looked down on the boy, he could literally taste the fear rolling off the boy with every word he said toward him.
He placed his finger on his chin.
" Where we are, is a place between life and death. We are neither alive or dead at the moment. As for you being weak? Who told you such folly? You are not weak, you possess a rather powerful body, and indomitable soul much like mine used to have."
Yuanchen listened.
" Yuanchen that's your name correct?"
Yuanchen nodded—the man knowing his name without him saying it seeming like a forgotten thought to ask.
"Despite cultivation relying on Conduits and artificial leylines. You are one of the few in this cursed world of mine that has the true body of a cultivator but at the moment, you are destined to die, it is in your fate however, one thing fate miscalculated upon your demise is me!"
"How so?" Yuanchen asked as he finally got to move his body and he adjusted his sitting position.
Shengyuan glanced at the sky in the realm.
In the distance were tumultuous clouds that pulsated with Qi—his heavenly tribulation prison, the blasphemous clouds that had kept his soul sealed away in such a place where he could not exert his will over creation itself nor reincarnate.
"You and I can become one."
Yuanchen for the first time since he had arrived in the place got upto his feet, this time no outside force forcing him to kneel. He glanced at the ethereal being before him, his death was imminent, he knew he had only one choice in the matter and that was to agree with the proposal that the man had suggested.
Transmigration—a concept he had thought was a fools dream, but at this moment, this hour, he was the fool that was dreaming.
He had a lot to live for, to clear his name, find the whereabouts of someone, and to take his revenge against the elders for his death. The chills in his heart fully turning it into a heart of ice, and coldness. A heart, that lusted for revenge against the Heaven Archive Sect.
"I accept, let's become one. " Yuanchen's face showed no signs of hesitation, firm resolve only.
^
Yuanchen cracked open his eyes and groaned from the pain in his back. He looked above him and saw the chipped roof of what seemed like a temple, the dancing rays of the sun creeping through the crack and settling behind him. He got up from where he laid and looked at his hand—he could see through it, something he was not able to do before. His eyes roamed around and he could see the world clearer, the disconnected leylines and the underneath power source.
He clenched his fist and Qi exploded from his body rattling the eerily quiet temple causing it to shake.
"I can cultivate now? That was not a dream."
Yuanchen's grinned, he could feel the overwhelming, potent Qi flowing through him, the Qi that was not natural in the world he was in—in that moment of joy, his nose scrunched up as the scent of burning coals, rusted metal etc flooded his nose—he knew where he was.
A place where every reject was cast to. A place in the lower world where even the lowest of the low rebuked, rejected and detached from. A place that was like its own world, scorned by everything in existence.
Sunderfall.
Yuanchen chuckled, it was poetic. Sunderfall, a rejected place that shared an aspect with him, both rejected by everyone and everything, he felt at peace where he was.
"Time to get moving." Yuanchen said in a double voice that highlighted the dual souls coexisting within a singular flesh and bones—he jumped from the platform he had crashed on and disappeared.
Unbeknownst to Yuanchen, a pair of eyes appeared from the shadows of the temple and as soon as they appeared, they disappeared.
Leaving a puzzling piece.
Who could it be?