Lu Mao walked along the forest path as it curved through dense woodland, where ancient trees stood tall with thick trunks and sprawling roots that rose from the earth like coiled serpents. The ground beneath his feet was uneven, shaped by time and nature, forcing each step to be placed with quiet awareness. Sunlight filtered through layers of leaves overhead, breaking into scattered beams that shifted with the wind and painted the path in moving gold.
The forest was alive, though not loudly so. Leaves rustled softly, distant birds called from hidden branches, and somewhere beyond the trees, the steady murmur of the Longyu River followed the path like a low, constant breath. Lu Mao did not rush. His pace remained steady, his figure slipping through shadow and light with natural ease, as though the forest itself had accepted his presence.
This road would take him far—through valleys, across the Longyu River, and into the rocky mountains beyond. Only after that would he reach Golden Sparrow City.
The name lingered in his thoughts, familiar in a way that did not belong to experience, but memory.
When he had been younger, his father, Jin Wu, had spoken of it only on rare nights—those quiet moments when the world seemed distant and his voice carried a weight Lu Mao had not understood at the time.
Because they were rare, Lu Mao remembered them.
His father had never been a man of many words. He did not paint grand pictures or waste breath on unnecessary detail. Yet the few things he chose to say had settled deep, leaving behind impressions that refused to fade.
"A place of all kinds."
That was all he had called it.
At the time, it had sounded simple. Almost vague.
But the way his father had said it—measured, certain—had made it feel like something far larger than the words themselves.
Warriors walked those streets. Assassins who moved without shadows. Thieves who could slip through a crowd like mist. Sword masters whose blades carried intent sharper than steel, and spear users who struck like lightning across open ground. There were those who fought with nothing but their bare hands, their bodies honed to the point where flesh rivaled weapons.
And then there were others.
The kind his father had mentioned only once, and never explained.
Those who did not belong to any known path.
Not quite human.
Not quite beast.
Something in between.
Lu Mao had laughed back then, dismissing it as a story meant to stir a child's imagination.
Now, as he walked toward that very place, the memory returned differently.
Quieter.
Heavier.
It no longer felt like exaggeration.
It felt like a warning.
—
Guilds were not like sects.
They were not like tribes either.
In this world, power followed three great paths—sects, tribes, and guilds—and each carved its own way through heaven and earth.
Sects pursued refinement.
Their techniques were structured, shaped over generations, each movement polished until it carried both purpose and precision. Strength, for them, was not simply force—it was control. Discipline formed their foundation, and elegance their expression. Every strike had meaning. Every form, a history.
Tribes walked a harsher road.
They did not refine—they endured.
Their bodies were forged through relentless training, hardened until muscle and bone became weapons in their own right. Where sects were measured, tribes were direct. Where sects sought perfection, tribes sought dominance. Their strength came not from restraint, but from overwhelming force that refused to yield.
Guilds…
Guilds did not follow a path.
They took from all of them.
And belonged to none.
They were built on missions—on risk and reward, on blood and survival. Strength was not inherited, nor patiently cultivated through tradition. It was earned, taken, proven again and again in a world that did not forgive mistakes.
Within a guild, there were no strict boundaries.
A graceful swordsman could stand beside a brutal brawler.
A silent assassin beside a reckless fighter.
A tactician beside someone who relied on nothing but instinct.
Different methods.
Different philosophies.
One result.
Survival.
And because of that—
Many chose them.
Even those raised in sects or tribes sometimes abandoned their origins, drawn by the promise of faster growth. Guilds offered something the others could not—freedom, and the opportunity to rise without waiting for permission.
Qi crystals flowed through missions, not lineage.
Rewards came from success, not seniority.
And in the case of great guilds like the Golden Sparrow, that flow of wealth and power had grown so vast that even high-ranking sects could no longer ignore it.
Lu Mao exhaled slowly as these thoughts settled.
Yet even such power did not rule the world completely.
There was something else.
Something that stood above rivalry, above ambition—something that did not care for sect, tribe, or guild.
Nightmares.
The word moved through Lu Mao's thoughts quietly, but it carried a weight no name on any ranking board could match.
They were not tales told to frighten children in dark alleys.
They were real.
And their existence shaped the world far more than any human force ever could.
Lu Mao's gaze lowered slightly as the memory of them surfaced.
Not something he had seen.
But something he had heard—enough times, from enough voices, to understand the difference between rumor and truth.
They came from the great crevice.
A wound in the world itself.
No one knew how deep it went. No one knew what truly lay at its bottom. Only that, at times, it stirred… and when it did, the world above paid the price.
When Nightmares rose, it was never subtle.
It was as if something buried too deep had forced its way upward, dragging darkness with it. Creatures formed from shadow and violet haze, their bodies shifting, their presence wrong—not just to the eye, but to the very flow of Qi around them.
They did not move like beasts.
They did not think like humans.
And yet—
They destroyed like both.
Armies fell before them.
Not slowly.
Not after struggle.
They fell.
Weapons shattered against their forms, as if striking something that did not fully exist. Formations—carefully constructed, precisely maintained—collapsed under their presence, their structure unraveling as though reality itself rejected them.
Only cultivators could face them.
Only those who had tempered their bodies and refined their Qi to the point where will and power became one.
Even then—
Survival was never certain.
Lu Mao's fingers tightened slightly at his side.
Because Nightmares were not just mindless creatures.
They had ranks.
Hierarchy.
Some moved alone, destructive but simple.
Others commanded.
Directed.
Led.
Like generals standing above an unseen army.
And when those ones appeared—
The world changed.
Once every decade, without pattern or warning, they would rise in greater numbers. From the crevice, from the edges of known lands, from places where the boundary between this world and whatever lay beneath it grew thin.
They spread.
Across the southern plains.
Across the northern plains.
No faction was exempt.
No distance was safe.
Sects that once stood opposed would fight side by side. Tribes that had warred for generations would turn their weapons in the same direction. Guilds would abandon profit, abandoning even internal conflicts, for a single purpose.
Survival.
The northern plains remained distant in Lu Mao's mind—a place spoken of more than seen. Separated by the colossal crevice, it was a land few from the south had ever reached.
Those who had crossed it…
Were either legends.
Or dead.
It was said that only the strongest cultivators could make that journey and return. Even then, what they saw on the other side was rarely spoken of in detail.
As if words were not enough.
Or not allowed.
Because of this—
Power gathered near danger.
Strong sects, tribes, and guilds did not avoid these regions.
They anchored themselves to them.
Close enough to respond when the Nightmares emerged.
Close enough to act before destruction spread too far.
Golden Sparrow Guild was one of those forces.
Not the closest to the crevice.
But not far either.
Close enough to hear whispers when the world stirred.
Close enough to feel the pressure when something beneath it moved.
Close enough—
To matter.
And yet, even that was not the true reason the world still stood.
There was one existence above all others.
The Immortal Emperor.