Wu Huang slowly opened his eyes.
"Where am I?" he wondered, his voice echoing in a void without resonance.
He tried to look at his hands and his body, but he found nothing; it was as if his essence lacked physical form. A pang of uncertainty ran through him.
"Am I dead? Is this the world after life?"
Confusion enveloped him like a dense mist. This was not the first time he had experienced the proximity of the end—or at least, so he believed.
In his previous life, death had claimed him suddenly. He didn't know if it happened while he slept or if the impact was so devastating that his mind, in an act of self-preservation, had erased the memory. It was an absolute void, a trauma buried in oblivion.
Suddenly, the absolute darkness erupted into light.
Wu Huang looked up, and what he saw left him stunned.
"A forge?" he murmured, incredulous.
It was neither an immortal palace nor a divine hall; it was a humble, earthly place. In the center, a piece of incandescent metal was being shaped under constant blows. However, something didn't fit: the figures present and the walls of the workshop appeared blurred, distorted by a dreamlike veil. The entire place vibrated with the ethereal quality of a distant memory.
Wu Huang remained silent and watched.
A man who appeared to be a blacksmith stood before the fire; though the surroundings were blurry and difficult to see, only this man felt vivid, overflowing with life.
The blacksmith inserted a heavy bar of coarse iron into the heart of the embers. Wu Huang noticed how the metal turned from cold gray to cherry red, and finally to an incandescent orange.
With a pair of tongs, the blacksmith brought the metal to the anvil. Each hammer strike was dry and possessed a force that would be impressive for a mortal, but for a cultivator like Wu Huang, it was nothing extraordinary. However, he was surprised that each blow seemed to make this entire strange space tremble.
The metal jumped with sparks, groaning under the blacksmith's strength. Indifferent, the man continued. Under his hammer, the bar began to split and expand, taking on a shape that seemed familiar to him.
Once the metal took form, the blacksmith heated it once more and, suddenly, plunged it into a barrel of oil. A violent hiss and a cloud of steam filled the forge.
Before he could process it, the man was already holding the finished weapon in his hands.
Wu Huang's eyes widened, tinged with a spark of wonder.
"The Black Halberd?" he whispered, recognizing the dark metal that seemed to swallow the light.
Suddenly, the environment fragmented. The humble forge dissolved into the air and, in the blink of an eye, the setting changed completely. There was no longer calm, only the chaos of a battlefield.
Innumerable soldiers clashed on an open plain under a leaden sky. The metallic scent of blood and the stench of death flooded everything. In the midst of that carnage, one figure stood out above the rest.
That man moved like a true God of War.
He swung the halberd with lethal grace, as if the weapon were not an external object, but an extension of his own bones. Dozens of soldiers threw themselves at him in desperate waves, but he reaped them all with a single movement—a dance of steel and shadows that knew no mercy.
Around him, mountains of corpses grew incessantly. Friends and foes alike fell under the implacable edge of his weapon.
In the end, when the clashing of swords ceased, he was the only one left standing upon the hill of the dead. With a demonic smile etched onto his face, he let out a harrowing cry toward the sky. His body, though weakened and covered in deep wounds, refused to yield until his final breath.
Finally, his strength abandoned him and he fell to the ground, but even in the silence of death, his hands never let go of the weapon.
The scene changed again.
It was another battlefield, this time deep within a palace. A man in black armor, accompanied by soldiers, was advancing. The palace guard and the soldiers were fighting, but the man in black armor stepped forward, wielding the halberd and swinging it with ease. All the guards were torn to pieces, and the survivors were surrounded by the soldiers and brutally slaughtered.
The man advanced toward the palace, and at the far end, the Emperor looked at him.
Wu Huang's eyes widened with shock; the Emperor had a face similar to his own.
"Wu Huang, you tyrannical dog! Your path of blood ends today. Not a trace of you shall remain beneath the firmament! I will settle our past and present scores; not even your soul shall escape the cycle of reincarnation!" the man shouted with a fury that seemed to burn the world.
The Emperor, with a cold and indifferent gaze, looked up and watched him for a moment. "I have heard those same words from mouths more worthy than yours, and all those 'children of destiny' now fertilize the soil of my kingdom. If Heaven desires my end, let it descend itself. A mortal like you is not worthy of being my executioner," the Emperor said as he rose, drawing a golden sword that was familiar to him.
Wu Huang, stunned by the revelation, exclaimed:
"Is that my master's sword?"
Ignoring his confusion, the two warriors exchanged no more words. They lunged at each other like colliding comets. The Black Halberd and the Golden Sword clashed countless times, making the sky crackle and the earth split. The majestic palace, symbol of an empire, was reduced to rubble under the weight of their techniques; the world itself seemed to collapse before the presence of both immortals.
That display of power was superior to anything he had ever witnessed. Not even his master's battle against the ancient corpse compared to the magnitude of what was unfolding before his eyes at this moment; it was a dance between titans that surpassed the limits of understanding for both humans and cultivators alike.
Unfortunately, a confrontation of such caliber could not be sustained for long, and it was clear who the victor was.