Far away in a distant planet, where fire and volcanos boiled and roiled as they covered the world in endless ash and soot. There was a palace standing in the middle of a raging infernal pool of lava.
Alongside the massive pool were thousands of infernal creatures that fought against each other for the smallest conflict. Fully portraying the traits of the Fire Domain's ruthless and merciless nature.
Within the massive palace, were many disciples and servants that broke their backs working, cleaning up the whole palace from the endless falling ash and making it as proper as it should be.
Inside this massive and apparently endlessly spreading, twisting and convoluted layout, was a man holding a spherical object in his hand.
It looked like the skull of a small bird.
The man looked like one of the higherups of this palace as he wore clothes far too fancy and elegant than any one of the disciples around the area.
"Are you sure of what you have seen?"
"Without an ounce of doubt, it was the Primordial Dragon Snake. And it seems to be headed towards the Barren Domain. I've had to give warning because I know that the Fire King's army is there." The speaker said.
"Good. I'll make sure to tell his majesty." The man said then the skull in his hand shattered.
He then turned to fling his robes behind him as he stepped forward. With every step, the whole place around him would change as if he was folding the very fabric of space under his foot. And soon he arrived at a hall where a single man sat.
Fire rose from the top of the head of the seated man as if it was a crown of flames, he was sitting with one hand supporting his head as he leaned on the side of his massive throne.
Underneath the man's relaxed foot were several naked women who seemed to be at the epitome of euphoria, pleased to serve and obey.
"Your grace!" spoke the man to the king. "We have a problem," the man said.
***
I flew through the open terrains unable to figure out what to do. I could fight off against a dozen of Nascent Soul cultivators without trouble, anything higher than that and I might need to actually sweat. But no matter how much effort I pour, I'm just one person, I'm no ungodly hero who'll have a way to blow through this invasion.
I'm just a weak person, proven so by Master Rain's intervention.
A man, capable of tearing down a formation that protected an entire planet with a wave of a finger. Such a laughable notion.
But I refuse to bend over and get railed without fighting back.
Several cultivators carrying an incinerating aura around them dove forward towards me.
I spat a toxic breath towards them, then dove through the smokescreen and grabbed one of them who was suffering under the Breath Sealing Poison.
My hand, already willed to turn fully white touched his skin, and in an instant, the man shriveled up. Bones, flesh, nerves, and skin, everything turned to a husk of its former self. Mummified beyond recognition, not even his soul managed to escape.
And immediately after, the energy exhausted and sucked out from that man rushed through my hand and I could visibly feel my cultivation base slightly strengthening and raising.
"No wonder the book warns from abusing this," I muttered because it only took a single touch to end this man's life and turn his strength into mine.
The other two cultivators didn't realize what hit them as I took out the closest with a swing of Creeping Demise, and followed after the other and grabbed him by the back neck, causing him to turn to a mummified corpse in an instant.
I kept moving without a destination in mind, because, going back to a major city will uncover me if I'm not too careful, and I have enemies on both sides.
From the Black Tower who has a fucking mugshot of me and a bounty on my head, meaning I can't turn back to my former appearance.
The second was the fact that the planet is now invaded by so many cultivators and it's getting uglier by the second.
I saw a couple of fights starting in the distance, and I decided to give a hand. A few poison breaths later and some sword swings and cultivators fell down.
"Can we please ask for brother's name?" asked a heavily wounded cultivator.
I looked at the man, then teleported away, I didn't need to tell him, it will only cause problems.
I continued moving and decided that since I didn't have any place to go to, I might as well go back to my roots.
My direction was back to Lucid Springs, it's a mortal city, so there shouldn't be anything happening to it yet. No cultivator would go around killing mortals for no reason. But still, I couldn't help but worry about my stupid sons and the townsfolks.
Days of uneventful travel went by as I crossed a massive distance that would have taken less than a few hours on the back of Y. And thankfully when I arrived, it seemed that the city wasn't harassed or assaulted. And the town was build built at a steady pace.
The mortals didn't care much for the Immortals and didn't probably even know what was going on. The saddest part would be if the Fire King manages to take full control of the plant, they will die and be enslaved and never know or understand why their simple lives turned into a living hell.
It is the oppression of the strong and the fate of the weak.
Looking at Lucid Spring, it feels like small heaven unaware of the hell that's set aflame around it.
The livelihood of the people in this small town will soon be turned upside down. But I won't allow it.
I went to the edge of the city where there was a small worker shack.
"Benefactor!" a mortal old man said, "Welcome, please," the man said as he recognized me.
"How is work?" I asked.
"It's going great, we rebuilt the roads and cleared all the debris, and now are working on rebuilding the torn down buildings. But I'm just a humble worker, you can know more by asking the current city lord." The old man said.
"Don't worry about that, here, I'm willing to buy your shack," I said as I handed the man a small pouch filled with silver."
"Thank you kindly!" the man instantly swiped the pouch from my hand. If I didn't know better I'd say this dude is too fast for an old man.
But I didn't care much, I still had many things to do.
"I'll need you to clear out for a few days."
"No need, you can have everything in the shack, with this I can rent a room at an inn."
I nodded at the man who happily left.
"Good," I said as I sat down, I closed the shack and locked it with a formation to keep anyone from intruding or using Divine sense.
Then I entered the Lord of Lords Pagoda.
With the time dilation, I should be able to make something using the materials I got from the enemy cultivators.
I began pulling the corpses of the cultivators I killed and sorted their pouches.
I found a lot of random crap, weapons and armors, protective charms that could have been used to save their lives, and other materials that could be handy in what I'm going to do.
I also found some rare ingredients and recipes of alchemy and inscriptions. But nothing I can use right now or can be used to help.
Of all the pouches, I found three things that I thought were interesting
The first, is a rice-sized Saint Qi crystal it was very small, but it had enough Qi in it for what I needed to make.
The second was a smallholding bag, but this one had hundreds of thousands of insects inside it. It seems that this holding bag is able to keep live beings inside it and whoever was using it had nurtured these insects to do his bidding.
The insects inside the bag were all the same kind, a type of flying beetle. The poison God's Book gave a description of these things.
"Fire Horn Beetle." These beetles are a very rare breed that if nurtured correctly can give birth to a mutated form of beetles called the Hell Horn Beetles.
The Fire Horn Beetles are able to pierce through steel with their horns and create a sensation of a searing sword cutting through flesh. Their ability to bring death is incredible that they became a common thing in an Insectomancer bag, Their horns are very poisonous and if the person attacked by these insects isn't dead from their horns, they'll not survive the poison that can burn through their insides and char them black.
The mutated form, Hell Horn Beetle is too hard to manifest as it requires a great deal of controlled Qi in an enclosed environment to create, but a dozen of these beetles are capable of matching an Ascendant in power. The only problem is that Hell Horn Beetles need enormous amounts of Saint Qi for them to manifest, and it is not often worth nurturing them due to the cost.
"Interesting, I'll keep this to the side, I don't know how to tame bugs, but I should find something in the Lord of Lords library."
The last thing was a tree branch that looked like it had come from a random tree, but seeing it enclosed in a crystalline jade box made me doubt that this was something normal.
I tried to see if I could find anything interesting about it, and I almost gave up thinking this was probably a random tree branch or a final fuck you, for whoever killed that cultivator as a means to mess with whoever killed him, hoping that they have a treasure only to find a twig.
But I was oh so wrong.
The poison god's book almost leaped in joy as it began flipping its pages and revealed a page that had a similar drawing of this tree branch.
***
Heaven Branch
Deviance against heaven. But a part of it nonetheless…
***
"Well, the passage is starting off strong, let's see what this branch can do…"