BEYOND THE DIVIDING LINE

Lingering scent of blood was faintly carried by the howling wind, causing ruffled trees to grow somber, and broken and battered earth to bathe in its afterglow. Far up in the sky, beyond the point where one’s eyes can discern between the things, a beauty beyond compare hovered tenderly in the air, behind her two golden, mirage-like wings, flickering in and out of existence. Mirroring their glory, her gold-painted hair flowed freely, silken and unrestrained, fluttering in the wind. Her face was oval-shaped, eyes piercingly blue to the point one would discover the meaning of life if they stared long enough into them.

The woman was average in height and wore relatively loose, leather and cloth armor, yet even the simplicity of her clothes could not hide the sculpted figure she possessed. Yet, no matter how breath-stealing beautiful she was, her cold expression, and even colder gaze, drove away all and everything. Her battle-hardened face carried a deep, still-bleeding scar on her right cheek, causing her perfect features to collapse; yet, even then, it hardly tarnished her beauty. Whether there was one or ten, something that could hardly be described with proper words wouldn’t lose much value, as neither did she.

Her name was Scarlett, and she was one of the eight chosen, designated to protect the world from gods’ invasion. She coldly stared at the figure a mile away from her, wrapped in strange, purple cloth from head to toe; the figure was nearly ten meters tall, and had twenty-four limbs that didn’t differ an arm from a leg. The two had been battling for nearly an hour, and the beauty has yet to figure out even the God’s element.

Sighing inwardly, she knew there was nothing else to do but to fight. For nearly two thousand years, this was her destiny. Since the day she walked out the cradle, all the way until blooming womanhood and today, she had but one purpose, and time has come for that purpose to be fulfilled. The short, silver-sword that was barely two-and-a-half fingers wide flickered in her hand. The sword didn’t even come to a meter-and-a-half in length, yet its sharpness, durability and overbearingness wasn’t something that could be discerned by a mere glance.

Her wings fluttered behind her as she sped off into the distance, immediately appearing in front of the strangely disfigured god. She thrust her sword, leaving behind only a faint, silver gleam. Even thoughts themselves couldn’t keep up with the speed of the sword. The god wrung one of its countless limbs sideways and tapped the sword away, causing it to stray sideways; in response, Scarlett immediately spun sideways from the momentum, slashing her sword from backside in, aiming at the approximate place where the figure’s neck should be. However, what awaited her was yet another limb; and although she slashed right through it, causing blood to spur out in droves, she had done so countless times to before to no avail.

Cursing inwardly, Scarlett didn’t retreat. Rather, she pushed her Mana to burn like an unholy inferno, causing her entire body to attain a golden sheen. A less than a breath later, hundreds of golden arrays of light flashed out from her body in a bladed-form, surrounding the disfigured god and slashing at it in the continuous barrage. Blood spurred out yet again, appearing like the river as it fell from the high sky. Yet, the god didn’t even screech out in pain; rather, it suddenly spun half its limbs in a strange motion as a towering, two hundred meters wide magic circle appeared behind it. Scarlett’s heart skipped a beat as she quickly flashed back; a mere moment later, the magic circle began spinning until it turned into nothing but a blur. When it stopped, a loud, heaven-defying thump echoed out, breaking past the Spacial Lock itself and entering the world.

Following the thump, the magic circle split midway through like a gateway to hell, seemingly opening a door to another dimension. From it, a swarm counting in millions of ghastly figures burst out, screeching in horror. The day darkened, and the aura of pure, undefiled death ran through the air, making it almost impossible to breathe. The ghastly figures eclipsed the sky from all sides, and their sheer numbers far outstripped the number of people living in one of the Divine Realms.

Scarlett’s expression turned solemn as she gazed at the ghastly figures. She looked past their droves and past the aura of death, to where the disfigured god still hovered in the same spot: she was unable to make it move even an inch. She smiled bitterly and shook her head as her free, left arm reached toward her chest and pressed slightly above her breast.

“First Seal, Remove.” she muttered softly. The flickering wings behind her suddenly grew clearer in color and shape, and intervals between flickers grew longer. Her aura surged to nearly ten times it was before, and her golden hair grew a whole five centimeters longer. “To think I had to remove the First Seal so quickly… aya, aya, my master would spear my ass if she knew.”

As her aura surged, her sword grew an inch longer and half a finger wider, yet she didn’t seem to be troubled by it. Brandishing it tightly and upright before her chest, she lowered her head lightly and softly muttered a few, indescribable words. Her entire body was suddenly enveloped in blinding, golden light that burst outward like an explosion, causing the hallowed souls to screech out in pain. Like a piercing sun, she stood at the heart of the darkness, her golden gleam illuminating the abyss while bringing life to the place only death belonged. After a few moments, her voice abruptly stopped and the golden light enveloping her dimmed, transferring over to her short sword which now seemed to be fully ablaze in the coated golden.

Looking sternly toward the direction of the God, she flickered, leaving behind nothing but a flash of light, and appeared nearly a mile of as she began swinging her sword as though it were a thin branch. Each swing carried with it two-hundred-meter long array of golden light which burst forth with undisputed energy, cutting away both the darkness and the ghost as though there were loafs of bread. One… two… within a span of two seconds, hundreds of slashes were sent out, coating the darkening dimension in brilliant light, as though a star was being born in the depths of abysmal universe. Yet, she hadn’t slowed down; rather, her sword grew faster and faster. Even up-close, she appeared as though she was making no movements at all, yet array after array was sent out, arc after arc, slash after slash.

Soon, her figure was lost within the golden bath, and she truly became the shimmering star in the heart of darkness. A thousand… ten thousand… one hundred thousand… soon, the number of slashes eclipsed the staggering million as the spherical dimension of darkness was burst open in a heaven-defying explosion, breaking apart the massive magic circle into smithereens as the god itself was blown back like a cannonball, leaving an arc of streaky blood behind. Ghastly screams bellowed out into the sky as the hollowed souls were cleansed fully, and the blue sky once again regained its color. The golden hue dimmed and Scarlett’s figure finally appeared again. Despite the massive unleash of strength, there were no visible signs of either struggle or exhaustion. Not even a smile of victory was painted on her face – just her usual, cold expression, and even colder gleam inside her eyes.

Meanwhile, across the eight Spacial Locks, similar situations occurred. After the initial timeslot for probing out each other, both humans and gods were beginning to unleash their first layer of strength, as all battles intensified. No matter who it was outside those Spacial Locks, even those esteemed Divine Mages, were they to see the scenes, they would be left with nothing but confusion. The display of strength and prowess far our stripped any common understanding of the world. Figures were blurs, spells appeared and disappeared before one had a chance to blink, and the levels of destruction – if not contained within the Spacial Locks, each of which cost trillions upon trillions of Mana Stones and three times as many resources – would have leveled the entire Realms to the ground ten times by now.

Still, it wasn’t a strange sight. Every time a Great War would occur throughout the history of the world, the scenes would be similar. After all, even if one was a Divine Magus, there was a clear limit to their strength; yet, the display the eight have shown had clearly surpassed any and all limits binding humans. In reality, the strongest Divine Magus that has ever existed out of the Eight Chosen from each generation never went past Seventh Cycle. Rather, it was almost impossible to cross it. Whether you had ten thousand or ten million Gifts, resources of every single Clan, Kingdom and Sect, and ten thousand lifetimes worth of time, however talented humans were, there was a lock placed in each and every one of them. Their upper limit was Eighth Cycle – it was impossible to cross the final boundary.

However, when crossing past into the Divine Magus Realm, humans have found long ago that eight people would have that limiter removed from their Souls. And, what’s even more surprising, their rise from the First to Ninth Cycle was practically a child’s play. The resources they required were minimal, and talent played almost no role in it. However, they had no way of discerning which eight would be given that strength – so they only superficially supported the most talented ones, while keeping majority of resources in reserve as a backup plan. Still, there were always some signs that they’ve picked up on over the course of generations. Every chosen throughout the history had a Divine Gift which allowed them to practice any and all Laws in the world. In addition, they all had strong, resonating Bloodlines. While not a certain determiner, at least it excluded quite a lot of people.

It is the difference between the Eight Cycle and Ninth Cycle which was the clear division of strength; even if ten billion of Eight Cycle Divine Mages were to gang up on a Primordial God, they’d stand no chance. However, just a single Ninth Cycle Divine Magus could do that job. One of the reasons is the Mana; Eight Cycle Divine Mages had limits, yet Ninth Cycle ones didn’t. However, the greatest difference was that Ninth Cycle ones mimicked the structure and knowledge of Primordial Gods – rather than the union of nine elements, as all prior Cycles require – it was a return to singularity – to a single element. They would establish direct connection with the Source and derive the strength from there, rather than elements and Laws surrounding them in the world. This is what allowed them to stand against Primordial Gods and exchange blows. However, the exact level of strength was still within individual’s grasp; Ninth Cycle simply removed the limiter. How far above it would one reach depended on themselves. That is why some throughout the history were even able to kill Primordial Gods, while some were equally killed by the other side. However, unless at least four Primordial Gods killed their opponents before the Tunnel closed, it was all for naught; if they were to remain on this side of the world after the Tunnel closed, they would lose almost all of their strength.

In the end, though, who lived or died depended solely on one’s strength – as was the case for everyone else. However, crossing the limit came with a heavy price; even if they survived the ordeal, they would extinguish all Magic within themselves, and were bound to live as ordinary Mortals for the remainder of their days. Still, to those who’ve seen the peak and beyond of Magic, and cruelty of the swaying storms, life of a Mortal was beyond appealing. To struggle eternally was no one’s wish, not even those who were battle-crazed down to their bones and Soul.