Arc 3: Heaven-Sealing
Chapter 1
The world shattered quietly.
Not with thunder or light—
but with silence so vast it pressed against his soul like the weight of eternity itself.
The moment he stepped across the boundary, the universe folded.
There was no ground, no sky—only an endless sea of mirrored void, stretching infinitely in every direction.
Above him, constellations bled into rivers of ink.
Below, entire galaxies rippled like reflections on black water.
This was the Infinite Domain—
a world without origin or edge, created solely to contain one thing:
the Heaven-Sealing Sword.
His foot touched something that wasn't quite solid.
It pulsed like the heartbeat of a dying god.
Every step he took shattered the fabric of light beneath him,
each crack revealing layers of reality folded like glass shards spinning through the void.
So this is it, he thought. The cradle of silence. The grave of heavens.
His cloak of black fire hissed in the cold wind that wasn't wind at all.
The True Body of Mara pulsed faintly beneath his skin,
purple veins crawling like living flame,
their rhythm echoing the chants of the six desires.
Even that divine demonic power trembled here.
The Infinite Domain was not bound by mortal concepts—
time staggered, light bent, and sound turned backward.
He raised his hand.
The air shivered.
Thousands of reflections of his arm appeared—each belonging to a version of him that had died somewhere, somewhen, seeking this very place.
He did not flinch.
"So even my failures gather here," he murmured. "Good. Let them watch."
He stepped forward again—and the world reacted.
A thousand silent screams erupted from the void.
Shapes formed out of the darkness—eyeless, formless, yet filled with sorrow older than any god.
They were guardians—echoes of the Sword's Will.
Their voices fused into one:
"Leave. The seal is eternal. You are not meant to stand where heavens end."
He extended his hand, and the Finger of Flowery Swords awakened.
Light condensed at his fingertips, forming a blade of pure will, its edge trembling like a petal caught between breaths.
He flicked his wrist—
and silence was cut in half.
The nearest guardian split into two cleanly, dissolving into crimson petals that scattered into the void.
Each petal became a star as it drifted away.
But more came.
Dozens.
Hundreds.
Their forms fused, becoming a colossal silhouette shaped like a dying sun.
"You tread upon the sin of creation!" they cried.
"You are the unorthodox flame! You are the Mara-born!"
He smiled faintly.
"Correct."
The Demonic Heavenly God Art unfurled within him—
nine invisible swords circling behind his back, each one radiating a different agony.
The Sword of Starvation ignited first.
Space warped, and the guardian's light began to drain, collapsing inward.
Their cries turned to static, their forms flickering like torn film.
Then the Sword of Thirst sliced through their essence,
its ethereal edge cutting not flesh, but will.
A single step.
A single swing.
The void cleared.
When silence returned, the landscape changed.
Stars—frozen, dead, and hollow—floated around him, their cores bound by golden chains.
Each sun pulsed faintly, echoing a divine scream that had long since ended.
They were prisons.
And within each was a memory—
of those who once sought the Heaven-Sealing Sword,
of gods who fell into despair trying to reach it.
He reached out to one.
The moment his finger touched the surface, a universe ignited inside his mind.
He saw countless worlds burning.
He saw the first wielder of the Heaven-Sealing Sword standing alone atop a dying heaven,
sealing the sky itself with a single swing.
And he heard a whisper.
"The sword does not grant power. It demands everything."
When the vision ended, blood dripped from his ears.
His heart beat irregularly,
his body trembling under the weight of what he'd seen.
"A sword that seals heaven," he murmured, "should first seal the self."
He knelt and pressed his palm to the fractured light beneath him.
Dark Qi gathered—forming a sigil of the Golden Scripture of the Unorthodox Path.
Its verses whispered through his veins:
"Five elements deny order.
Metal cuts Dao.
Fire burns sin.
Water reflects illusion.
Earth anchors truth.
Wood births eternity."
The domain quivered.
A ripple of golden-black energy expanded outward, erasing the chains around the frozen suns.
They screamed—
and one by one, they exploded into flowers of light.
The explosion did not end.
Each sun birthed a thousand fragments of itself,
each fragment becoming a mirror,
each mirror a window to another reality.
He stood at the center,
the lone constant in an infinite storm of creation.
The Infinite Domain had acknowledged him.
The first seal was broken.
"So," he whispered, voice calm amidst collapsing stars,
"the path begins with destruction."
He raised his hand toward the furthest mirror—
where, deep within,
the faint outline of the Heaven-Sealing Sword shimmered,
buried within a realm that looked like an entire universe turned inward.
He stepped forward.
The void folded around him, forming a spiral of endless descent.
The next trial awaited.