Then, the thick, blood-red clouds spanning the infinite expanse of this world slowly parted. The physical form, the face behind the voice that had commanded the ambush was finally revealed.
Covering the entire, massive expanse of the firmament was a single eye. The physical form of this entity was too enormous to be fully comprehended; its left eye was the only visible part, large enough to utterly eclipse the entire world.
"By order of the Great Empyrean, under the authority of the Great Dao and the verdict of the Divine Lords, I hereby execute judgment on the Devil Race, cleansing their sin by annihilation," the voice roared in absolute judgment.
Immediately, the pupil of the celestial eye eclipsing the world with its gaze tore open into a massive golden vortex. Out of it dropped thousands of blazing, flaming asteroids, plummeting from the sky to the earth and scorching every living thing to nothingness.
Mo Lingtian looked on helplessly as the dark figure rose from his knees. The dark figure ruthlessly dragged Yen Shui by the spear still lodged in his chest, pulling him across the ground toward the sky where the thousands of blazing asteroids fell.
"Yen Shui," another voice spoke. It was not as overwhelmingly authoritative as the entity whose eye eclipsed the world, yet it still carried a powerful, divine air.
"Your refusal to abide by your own oath has triggered the judgment of the Great Dao," the voice spoke again.
Mo Lingtian immediately turned, tracing the source of the sound. Behind him hovered eighteen warriors, all clad in pristine, ethereal robes styled in the immaculate manner of the Gods. They were suspended in the sky, each holding intricately crafted swords and celestial blades.
The seemingly most powerful one among them slowly stretched out a hand. Yen Shui's broken body was instantly pulled toward him in response, floating lifelessly just a few meters away from the divine vanguard.
While this unfolded, the massive asteroids of fire continued to rain down from the sky as the celestial eye gazed intently upon the dying world. Mo Lingtian looked around in suffocating frustration. He couldn't save who he wanted to save, and he couldn't kill who he wanted to kill.
All his life, the Chief and the elders had raised him, indoctrinating him with a grand purpose he was destined to fulfill. His head was full of ancient prophecies, full of the sacred duties he was meant to carry out. Mo Lingtian had been told he was born and preordained to be the ultimate protector of the Devil Realm.
And yet, right now, he was nothing like a protector.
He was no different from the rest of his race, shackled by the inability to cultivate, completely defenseless against the absolute slaughter delivered by the League of Gods.
"All of you, step back," the abyssal voice spoke.
Instantly, all eighteen warriors, including the dark armored figure who had driven the spear into Yen Shui's heart, disappeared. They were no longer present in this alien world.
Then, the eye covering the expanse of the entire sky slowly closed its lid before retreating away from the very edge of this dimension. The falling asteroids consequently ceased, and the scorching bombardment finally halted.
But when Mo Lingtian looked around, all that remained of the Devil Realm were dead bodies, shattered bones, fire, ash, a half-dead Yen Shui, and himself. Now, the only vessels carrying the last bloodline of the Devil Race were him and the Chief.
"Accept your judgment," the echoing voice returned.
From the highest heavens, a massive, glowing palm descended, casting a blinding, inescapable shadow over the entire ground. It was as colossal as it was majestic. Trapped within the glowing, transparent golden palm were the silhouettes of entire starry constellations. As it fell, the gravitational force crushing the world exponentially increased, forcing both Yen Shui and Mo Lingtian flat against the burning earth.
Just a few meters before the glowing palm could totally decimate the entire landmass, the time flow within the world subtly shifted. It created a profound twelve-second time pause that froze everything present including the descending palm of the cosmic gazer.
"One... two... three," Yen Shui whispered.
With his final breath, he forcefully channeled the three drops of essence blood passed down generations after generations from the ancient devil into Mo Lingtian's body. The Chief had utilized the remnant laws of time locked within the ancient blood to buy just enough seconds to fuse the blood directly into Lingtian's meridians.
Then, utilizing the immense vitality from the two hearts ripped from the elders, Yen Shui blistered a hole straight through the fabric of space, tearing open a chaotic void rift to pave a path of escape.
"Child... leave," Yen Shui breathed weakly, his life force fully extinguishing as his head fell limp against the dirt.
It all happened too quickly for Mo Lingtian to even register. The time freeze had briefly affected his own perception, and by the time the flow of reality resumed, he was met with the crushing weight of the descending palm, a dead Yen Shui, and a violent, tearing void rift.
"You... froze my time?" the cosmic voice rumbled, having felt the subtle temporal impact the moment reality resumed.
Without the slightest hesitation, Mo Lingtian threw himself into the void rift. He crossed directly into the chaotic expanse of the true Void, a place where even cosmic entities and powerhouses could only catch fleeting, dangerous glimpses.
– The Old Fisherman –
"Old Ma, did you catch a lot of fish today?" a group of young men asked, chuckling as they drew their heavy nets onto their boats.
"What do you think?" he replied dryly, hauling two large, overflowing baskets of fish from his boat onto the wooden planks of the ferry dock.
"Old Ma, how do you do it? Is it a family secret?" another man washing his net asked. He sounded surprised, yet not truly shocked; Old Ma's uncanny fishing skills were one of the most talked-about mysteries in the port.
"Hey! I almost forgot to ask you. My wife has been feeling unwell lately. Will you be open tomorrow to give her some acupuncture?" another fisherman called out.
"I need to go home. Unlike you, I don't have a wife to warm my bed for me," Old Ma replied. He hoisted a long wooden rod over his left shoulder, balancing the two heavy baskets of fish anchored at either end.
At that, nobody joked around anymore. They all watched quietly as he slowly walked away, down toward the back of the ferry dock, waiting until he was slightly out of sight before heaving sighs of pity.
"I've known him since I was a kid. Now I'm married with two children, yet he still looks more pitiable as the days go by," one of the young men sighed. The others simply nodded in agreement.
As Old Ma walked down the long stretch of the ferry dock, he quietly hummed a poem he had recited for decades. It had become a popular, melancholic tune that men sang as they drank themselves to a stupor in the local liquor parlors.
"What a lonely life, what a sad time,
I have roamed the three realms with no children, no wife, no love.
Just a bottle of wine, a fine plate of grilled fish,
And a company of sworn brothers to pass the days till I reach my end."
As he sang, passing by the riverbank of the Great Sea where the waves aggressively washed against the giant wooden pillars of the dock, he suddenly sensed a faint heartbeat. It was a rhythm that was unusually erratic.
Old Ma was a highly skilled acupuncture physician. One of the many skill sets he had unmistakably mastered over several decades was the ability to detect life force traveling through a physical body.
He could trace the pulse from the heart to every meridian and vein without any direct contact. He could read pulses and heartbeats from several meters away without the use of magic or cultivation.
"Who is there?" Old Ma asked, peering closely at the riverbed.
Lying there, continuously washed over by the cold, biting waves of the Great Sea, was a bruised, torn, tattered, and battered young man.
Old Ma took a few cautious steps closer, glancing around to see if anyone else was nearby. With each step he took, his heart became more unsettled. Just a few meters away from the body, he stopped, conflicted about what he should do with the half-dead boy.
After struggling to make a decision for several long seconds, he set down the heavy wooden rod resting on his shoulder. Leaving his catch behind, he went to find a horse and a straw cart. Carefully, he loaded the battered body onto the cart, covering the boy thickly with stable straw to avoid drawing any unwanted eyes as he led the horse out of the fishing port and toward his secluded home.
– Old Ma's –
"You're finally awake," Old Ma said, washing a blood-soaked bandage in a small wooden bowl.
"You... who are you?" the young man asked softly. He weakly sat up on the narrow bed, resting his right hand against his temple.
"Me? Just call me Old Ma," he replied, dipping a neatly folded cloth into a basin filled with icy water.
"The splitting headache came too fast, didn't it?" he continued, watching the young man clutch his head more tightly.
"Let me..." Old Ma said, bringing the icy cloth closer to the boy's forehead.
To his surprise, the boy flinched violently, snapping his head up and for the first time, Old Ma locked eyes with him.
His gaze was cold, lifeless, terrifying, haunting, and violently domineering. His pupils flickered with a faint, dangerous hue of deep green. In that fleeting second, a primal chill ran down Old Ma's spine, and the wet cloth slipped from his fingers, dropping straight to the floor.
"Where am I?" the young man asked again, breaking off the terrifying gaze.
Old Ma immediately regained his composure, picking the cloth up from the floor as his hands trembled slightly from the aftershock.
"You're in the Demon Realm," Old Ma replied emphatically, watching the boy's reaction from the corner of his eye as he re-dipped the cloth in the icy basin.
"What? The de... Demon Realm?" the young man yelled, visibly panicked.
Old Ma watched as the boy's defenses instantly shot up, his eyes darting around as he guarded against every corner of the small room.
"You're not from the Demon Realm, are you?" Old Ma asked, deliberately letting the tension in the room build as he squeezed the excess moisture out of the cloth.
"Don't worry. I knew it from the moment I saw you at the riverbed. If I wanted to kill you or hand you over to the soldiers, I wouldn't have saved you," he continued, gently pressing the icy cloth against the young man's head.
"I've treated a lot of patients from all walks of life in the Demon Realm, and they all have a similar, underlying rhythm in their heartbeats. But yours... it was extremely erratic. I couldn't detect any similarity in your pulse," he added, reaching down to check the boy's wrist.
"I'll help you recover your life gate. When you're able to stand on your own two feet, you can leave," Old Ma stated firmly.
Before the young man could protest, Old Ma smoothly pressed the tip of a fine needle against a specific pressure point at the back of his neck, instantly knocking him unconscious.