Warrior. Leader. Warmonger. Butcher.

All these titles and more were this Sovereign’s to bear, and he wore them with pride. These names were given only to those with power and recognition, which in turn gave him prestige and influence which he would one day wield like weapons as deadly as any sword or spear, but his origins were humble and ordinary as could be. The bastard son of a local politician in the minor state of Qin, his father refused to acknowledge this child born out of wedlock, a tale as old as time itself. His mother took the news in stride and named him Ying Zheng, which simply meant ‘Be Full’. That was her dream, that her bouncing baby boy would have food enough to fill his belly for the rest of his life. Times were hard back them, especially for a single mother, but she raised him with the help of her clan, a small tribe of nomads with less than a hundred souls who were best known for their strong breeding stock of cattle. An unremarkable beginning all things considered, but even as a child, those who knew him could see that he’d been marked for greatness. At the age of five, he wandered away while his mother worked and made his way to the crest of a hill, one overlooking a valley and the river running through it. The sun was barely peeking over the horizon and the light turned the flowing water bright red as it coursed through the valley and beyond, where the rustling grass swayed as the cattle grazed while wolves and wildcats lurked in the shadows and waited for the opportunity to strike. The sight of such pristine beauty literally stole his breath away, and when he found it again, everything had changed, for this exquisite vision unknowingly inspired him to harmonize his breathing with the rhythm of the world to draw the Energy of the Heavens into his body with each and every breath, marking this the day he became a cultivator of the Dao.

So began his journey to the peak of the Dao, the first step in an epic saga which would span dozens of millennia, but back then, every day seemed so full of meaning and significance. At twelve years of age, he woke up to screams in the dead of night, whereupon he took up his pitchfork and ran out to help fend off a band of opportunistic cattle bandits. Without any training or experience whatsoever, he single-handedly slaughtered three grown men and wounded five more before the rest broke and ran, an act of heroism which won him the admiration of his friends and a scolding from his mother for putting himself in so much danger. Much as he loved her, he loved the thrill of the fight even more, and by sixteen, he’d made a name for himself as a local head-hunter who’d captured many a famed bandit like the Bug-Eyed Brute, Elder Eight Plains, and the Birch Brothers.

Then the world was swept up by the tumultuous calamity which future historians would call the Warring States Era.

It started off simply enough, with the Jin state fracturing apart as the sons of the recently departed king warred amongst themselves over which one would succeed the throne. Hardly newsworthy unless you happened to live in the Jin State, which was merely one of some fifty odd-states of the Central Plains and hundreds of kilometres away from Ying Zheng’s home in quiet Qin. When he first heard of the Jin civil war, the news was weeks old and he paid it no mind, save to chuckle at the news of three separate Jin States and how the total number of states changed more often than the seasons. Little did he know that this civil war would soon make its way to his borders, as each Jin successor sought out allies to aid them in their quest to reclaim their ‘rightful’ kingdom. Yue, Wei, and Shan were first to join in, each backing a different claimant to the throne, and the war continued with vigour renewed, only for the young King of Wei to die on the battlefield without a rightful heir and spark off a new conflict back home. Qi, Lu, Song, Chu, and Han were next to join the fray, only for the wildfires of war to spread across the Central Plains and beyond within a matter of weeks.

And so the King of Qin rode off to war, with young Ying Zheng among the ranks of his hastily conscripted army.

Oh how his mother cried when he left, and he remembered how hard it was to hide his smile because he thought she was being over-dramatic. At sixteen years young, he was a crane among chickens, a towering boy who stood heads and shoulders above every man in the tribe. What’s more, he could lift a fully grown bull upon his shoulders and march all day and night if need be, and have strength enough to do it again the next day. This he told his mother, saying everything he could think of to assure her that he would be safe and promising to return home a victorious hero. His name would be known throughout the entire state and he would have wealth enough to buy her a thousand head of cattle so she could retire and grow fat off the labour of her tribesman. This was an opportunity, he told her, fortune found in disaster, for he would raid a king’s palace and capture a princess to be his bride, before looting all the priceless valuables kings were well known to hoard.

Time would prove him right. In his first battle, he took up his issued bamboo spear and used it to kill an enemy captain. A feat which should have jumped him to fame and fortune both, but fool that he was, he simply stole the horse with banner still attached and traded it to the quartermaster for a single silver tael and extra serving of dinner. The quartermaster then turned around and used this as proof to give his nephew credit for the kill, which earned the boy a captain’s rank of his own, but real gold does not fear the test of fire. During their second battle, the recently raised captain fell in the first charge, while Ying Zheng used the bronze halberd he’d looted from his first battle to cut a swathe through the enemy ranks. Nine weeks and five battles later, he lost that same halberd unseating the opposing commander from his lofty perch overseeing the battlefield, an act which caught the eye of his king and earned him a promotion to captain. From there on out, every battle saw him continue this upward trend as he made a name for himself among allies and enemies alike. During the clash on the Han River, he spotted a flanking force of a thousand soldiers getting ready to move across a floating bridge, so he attacked with ten men and held the enemy off long enough for reinforcements to arrive. In the siege of Shu, he was the first man over the battlements and took control of the eastern gate, which allowed the Qin army to stream in unchecked and overrun the fortress. In Shao, he took over the reins of command after the general and his cadre were slaughtered by an army of archers hidden in the mountainous crags overhead, whereupon he personally killed the opposing commander after offering challenge in single combat.

Nine years he fought, not even a decade in total. A seemingly insignificant amount of time in the grand sense of the cosmos, but when he finally returned home to the state of Qin, Ying Zheng was a changed man. True to his word, he’d amassed a fortune in looted treasures and awarded pay, and though he’d failed to bring back a princess, he had bedded all manner of foreign women which to him seemed every bit as laudable and prestigious. It was all for naught however, for when he returned to his tribe in search of his mother, he learned that she’d passed away shortly after he left, drowned in a flash flood while trying to save a pregnant cow who’d wandered too close to the raging river. Just like that, his lifetime of achievements all seemed for naught, for he’d lost the only person he cared for in this lawless world, the only person who cared for him.

Others saw Ying Zheng as the hero of Qin, a candidate for the next great general of the era, but in his eyes, he was merely an unfilial son who failed to protect his mother.

Such was his state of mind when he received word from his father, an invitation to a banquet during which he would be welcomed into the family. He attended the banquet in the clothes of his people, a conscious decision made after an entire day and night of quiet introspection, and he drew many a stare by showing up in patchwork leathers while riding atop a placid bull. Even after so many millennia, the customs had not changed, for only peasants rode cattle while the wealthy should be carried by steeds at the very least. He could have secured a horse for himself, having long since learned to ride and fight in mounted combat during his time away at war, a war which was still being fought outside the borders of Qin, but he cared not for the respect or admiration of these so-called noble elites. Instead, he rode his bull through the manor gates and barrelled straight into the banquet hall before stopping before the father who’d refused to acknowledge him some twenty-five years ago, all to ask but a single question.

“Did you send her flowers?” A simple enough gesture for a man of his father’s means, but it was clear the man did not understand Ying Zheng’s question. “For her funeral. Did you send flowers?”

There were no apologies made, he remembered that much, only muttered excuses about how things had changed and there were regrets for how matters unfolded, but what little he heard was enough to drive him to a blind rage. When Ying Zheng came to his senses once again, the banquet hall had become a scene of slaughter and bloodshed, with his father torn to shreds alongside three of his wives and seven other children. Ying Zheng’s half-siblings lay dead too, the oldest of whom was two years his senior, and the youngest still in braids, yet he killed them all the same, along with fifteen guests of no small esteem for no reason other than their close proximity. In the distance, he heard screams decrying him as a murderer while the rushed cadence of marching boots of the city guard heralded their imminent arrival, but all he could do was look upon what he had wrought in his rage and wonder why he felt nothing at all.

The events of that night saw him go from state hero to wanted criminal in the blink of an eye, but it mattered little to him. He never cared much for the state of Qin, felt no kinship to the nation which he supposedly belonged to, for his people were nomads who merely spent most of their time in Qin, while travelling to and from no less than four other states. As such, he escaped easily enough even without the help of his people, though they were not spared the wrath of the King of Qin, who had them all drawn and quartered for the crime of fostering a murderer as if they’d raised him for the sole purpose of going against the state. A power-hungry fool and incompetent ruler both, for word of Ying Zheng’s strength had spread far and wide and talents in short supply, meaning the doors of every state hostile to Qin and a few supposed allies were now open to him. In the end, he settled on serving under the state of Zhao after its king pledged to raze Qin state to the ground, a conflict in which Ying Zheng stood at the forefront of every battle.

Ostensibly so he could avenge his former tribesmen, but in truth, he merely wanted to kill and slaughter to his heart’s content, to find the thrill of the fight he’d lost upon receiving the news of his mother’s death, and the state of Qin had given him reason enough to do so.

Years passed as he devoted himself to the art of war, a subject in which he excelled, and he cared not who he fought so long as there was blood to be spilled. He became the young tiger of Zhao, then the rising Dragon of Han, who grew into the conqueror of Yan and the slaughterer of Wei. Though no one would go as far as to claim him the winner of every battle, he gained a reputation as the herald of death and victory both as he conquered lands and people for the states he served. Kings rose and fell like chickens over the next few decades, but Ying Zheng continued to fight for whichever patron would have him, until at the age of fifty-three, he decided it was high time he served his own interests instead and crowned himself the Mercenary King of the Azure Sea. Unlike the other kings who sought to grow and expand their lands, Ying Zheng cared not for wealth or territory beyond what he needed to sustain his army, whose services he sold to the highest bidder. In doing so, he amassed fame and fortune both, as well as a reputation for being a murderous savage who slaughtered everyone in his wake, soldiers and civilians alike.

Not because he was still the same angry boy of yesteryear. No, since the night he killed his father and half-siblings, his heart was but an empty shell, one which beat only when the thrill of battle surged through his veins. He had long since forgotten the blazing heat of hatred and fury, and could not remember a time when he felt love’s warm embrace, but he fought on because battle was all he knew, yet even he had long since grown tired of it. Almost four decades had passed since his inaugural battle at the age of sixteen, and he had never known a full season without bloodshed since. The kings of the Warring States era knew not how to govern, only how to kill and be killed, and now the third generation of soldiers were marching to these same wars, including Ying Zheng’s own grandchildren.

Try as he might to love his family the way his mother loved him, Ying Zheng could never muster up anything more than fondness for those around him, with his wives, children, and grandchildren seeming like little more than strangers who happened to share his blood. None of them had inherited his strength, only the enmity he’d sown in his life spent on the battlefield, and he knew that without him to defend them, his family would soon follow him to the grave. Thus, with his frail mortality weighing heavily upon him, he vowed to end this era of bloodshed once and for all out of a misguided sense of familial obligation, hoping that his children and grandchildren would one day know peace. The only way he saw to break the cycle of violence however was to conquer every state across the land, so he secretly sent his most talented strategists to the most powerful states to help them secure their own borders, while he led his army on a rampage which at the time seemed without rhyme or reason.

Though his motivations seemed all but unfathomable to his foes as he led slaughter after slaughter throughout the Central Plains, he knew his goal lay well within reach. He targeted helpless towns and worthless cities of no strategic value and slaughtered everyone within, only to slip away and strike at another vulnerable target no one would expect. These acts of terror were denounced by one and all, yet the desperate Kings continued to hire him all the same because he provided results, for the beleaguered states he targeted could hardly leave him free to run rampant which took pressure off the neighbours which they coveted so. Though others claimed he'd long since lost his mind to the bloodshed, Ying Zheng knew this was but a means to an end, for his true motive was to wholly expend the fighting strength of each and every state while allowing his confidants to work their way higher up the chain of command. The more bitter the struggle, the more soldiers would die, and the weaker their states would become, so when he finally set his mind to conquering the Central Plains, it only took another decade to put an end to the Warring States Era with the death of the last Yue King, whereupon Ying Zheng was crowned as the first Emperor of the Azure Sea at seventy-five years of age.

The unification of some sixty odd states was a grand accomplishment worthy of any mortal in history, but little did Ying Zheng know that his saga had only just begun. He spent another decade solidifying his rule, raising his most trusted allies to Kings in return for their loyal service. Yang Kai, the Flame Monarch of the West who wielded the fires of Heaven against his foes. Liang Bo, the Flute Virtuoso who conquered the North with his instrument and political machinations. Xing Wushen, the Martial God of the south whom Ying Zheng only defeated by the narrowest of margins. Tian Yi was the last of his great generals, but the man rejected any and all efforts to reward him and wanted to only be allowed to serve at Ying Zheng’s side, protecting him against unseen threats as he had for the last half century or more. These were his four conquering generals, the Warriors who helped secure his reign while he ruled from the Central Plains, the brothers in arms who made it possible to unite the Empire under his rule, and with their help, he hoped that it would survive beyond his coming death.

Back then, a man of eighty-five should have been a doddering great-great-grandfather on the cusp of senility and immobility both, but he was hale and healthy as a man half his age, while still arguably the strongest Warrior in all the lands. Every night he went to sleep expecting never to see dawn again, but he only grew stronger as he slipped free from the chains of anger and hatred to find Balance once more in the twilight of his years. When he was born, the world knew little of the Dao, with Cultivators being as rare as qilin horns and phoenix feathers, but the Warring States Era had sent humanity hurtling forward in terms of comprehension of the Dao. While he’d progressed further and faster than most, his brothers were not far behind, but he cared not to chase the heights of perfection and instead focused on living out his life as best he could and safeguarding the Empire he’d built, only to accidentally Shatter the Void and become a Nascent Immortal a week before his one-hundredth birthday.

A fortuitous event which garnered the attention of a passing scholar, a portly glutton of a man who called himself Di Zi. A homonym for ‘Good Student’ and something of an inside joke which he’d never shared, one Ying Zheng picked up on when the man introduced himself. After sneaking into the Emperor’s palace courtyard no less, shortly after Ying Zheng’s otherwise unnoticed ascension to Nascent Immortality. Only then did Tian Yi notice the intruder, but the seemingly innocuous Di Zi defeated the master bodyguard and assassin with little more than a wave of his hand. A simple application of Manifested Domain, but in those days, he was the first individual Ying Zheng had ever met who could duplicate the Secret Art with which he used to conquer his Empire.

It almost pained him to remember how naïve he was back then, so foolish and blinded by pride. All roads lead to the Dao, and out of all his famed generals, Ying Zheng’s perspective of the Dao was the most generic by far. Not that this was a disadvantage, and in fact was anything but, for his solid grasp of the fundamentals of the Dao had enabled him to build a foundation stronger than that of his generals and effortlessly ascend to Nascent Immortal. All of which Di Zi explained in great detail, for he harboured no ill-will and was merely wandering the lands in search of a place to call home, somewhere with resources and stability aplenty to carry out his research and studies. It was pure luck that he passed by Ying Zheng’s manor when he did, for a day or even an hour earlier or later and he might well have missed it and carried on along his merry way. The Heavens providing for Ying Zheng in his time of need once more, for now he had a teacher to help guide him towards the Dao and make sense of his lifetime of attainments.

Between Di Zi’s knowledge gleaned from the prosperous lands beyond the borders of the Empire and Ying Zheng’s accumulated experience, they broadened their understanding of the Dao which enabled the portly scholar to Ascend in turn. Never before had Ying Zheng met a man as brilliant and far-seeing as his fifth brother, and he would not come across another for many a millennia, but those early days of discourse and introspection were among the happiest times in Ying Zheng’s life. Together with his fifth brother, they guided their other four brothers to become Nascent Immortals as well, and under their rule, the Empire enjoyed more than a full century of peace and prosperity, a time unlike any other. Di Zi’s scholarly pursuits were not limited to the Dao itself, but encompassed all manner of topics including agriculture, economics, culture, and more. With his guidance, the Empire’s population exploded as food became more plentiful and nourishing all across the lands, with fine silks replacing coarse hemp in the wardrobes of even the poorest of his folk. They built roads along trade routes and encouraged travel within their borders, opened schools to teach any and all who cared to learn and introduced a system of government based on intelligence and merit to replace the blood dynasties of yesteryear and the rampant nepotism which went along with it. They even disseminated a standardized primer to teach others how to become Cultivators themselves in hopes of raising the health and standard of living for the people while eagerly awaiting to see who would be the next Nascent Immortal to join their ranks.

Then, in the hundred and thirty-seventh year of his reign, Ying Zheng’s great-grandsons rose up in revolt and denounced him as an oppressive God-Emperor who intended to rule humanity with an iron fist from now until the end of time.

A preposterous accusation without basis or fact, for Yin Zheng paid little mind to matters of governance and left the power in the hands of the scholars. He thought his days of conquest and bloodshed were long behind him, and cared only for his pursuit of the Dao, but his foolish scions coveted the title he’d earned and repeated the mistakes of kings past by seeking outside assistance in their bid to seize the throne.

The invaders came from the north, tribes upon tribes of nomadic Warriors, pseudo-cultivators with the strength of ten men wielding weapons of Honed steel that could cut through bronze, iron, and stone with laughable ease. These nomads were not a single unified force, but dozens of disparate tribes who’d received word of the Empire’s prosperity and sought to seize it for themselves, raiding and plundering to their dark heart’s content. The lands outside the Empire were habitable, but cold and harsh with little fertile ground to farm or raise livestock. To these struggling nomadic tribesmen, the Empire was akin to the fabled lands of milk and honey, and had they come in peace, he would have welcomed them with open arms. In fact, some of those tribesmen had settled peaceably within his borders, and their descendants still lived to this day, but the majority were a savage and bloodthirsty lot who were more beast than men. Even with Liang Bo to defend the North, two hands could not stop twelve spears as the tribal hordes rode roughshod through the north atop their strange and varied beasts. Garos, ursines, roosequins, and more, these foreign raiders killed and stole to their hearts content before retreating to their homes beyond the northern border, where they thought themselves safe from reprisal.

They were not, for Ying Zheng’s fury knew no bounds once word of the carnage reached his ears. For their crimes, he sentenced every last remaining member of his bloodline to death save for a single great-great-grandchild, a babe so young he still needed to be nursed on the teat. Once his house was in order, he set off to the north with his Great Generals in tow, and together, they wrought bloody vengeance upon the invaders, but even this was not enough to slake his thirst. In his rage, he travelled beyond the borders of his Empire and set to slaughtering every nomadic tribe he came across, but their numbers dwarfed even the population of his Empire and too many were able to escape reprisal. By the time his rage abated, the damage was already done, and he returned to the tattered northern province and set to rebuilding it once more, but this time with a mind towards defending his borders.

Alas, even a Nascent Immortal such as he was unable to stem the tide of opportunistic raiders, ones who came from the west and south now that the secret of his Empire’s prosperity was out. Time and time again his Empire was attacked, and each time Ying Zheng marvelled at how many powerful combatants these tiny countries could bring to bear, tens of thousands of pseudo-cultivators who were too strong for any commoner to stop. How was it possible for these outlanders to have such strength when their understanding of the Dao was fundamentally flawed? Rather than incorporate with the Heavens above and allow it to nourish their body, minds, and souls, they seized and consumed it to empower their bodies and minds alone, leaving them vulnerable to devils of the soul which often drove them to madness. Despite the flaws and the risks involved, some found far more success than others, for while none were a match for this Emperor or any of his Great Generals, he encountered hundreds of Warriors who came close over the next half-century.

Even though they were outmatched and outnumbered, the Empire’s saving grace was that no ships could make the journey across the endless oceans. There were only three points of egress to defend, so while Di Zi set to perfecting the formula for his liquid stone and building up the three Impenetrable Walls which still stood after long millennia of abuse, Ying Zheng tasked Xing Wushen with raising an army of cultivators to defend their borders. Thus, the Royal College came into existence, guiding new cultivators to the Dao each and every day, until finally the balance of power was restored and the Empire’s borders were safe once more.

During this time of turmoil, Ying Zheng had no choice but to plan for the worst and infuse a fragment of his soul into his sole remaining heir, the great-great-grandson he’d spared. The boy died of course, but his was a necessary sacrifice, for only then could Ying Zheng safeguard his own life in the event an even more powerful foreign cultivator should arrive.

His caution proved unnecessary however, for he was Heaven’s Chosen Son, and would forever be the strongest existence under Heaven. Alas, the perpetual trials and tribulations of life knew no end as new adversity rose to replace the old. Decades passed in the blink of an eye, yet no one from this new generation of cultivators were able to Ascend to Divinity and stand alongside this Sovereign and his five brothers. Discontent with their own lacklustre progress, many of the more promising cultivators of the Empire were unable to accept their own inadequacy and accused Ying Zheng of keeping vital information secret in order to maintain power over them. Another baseless accusation without even a scrap of truth, but he was not entirely without fault. Back then, they had yet to comprehend just how vast and ineffable the Dao truly was, so their teachings were all tainted by the way he and his Great Generals perceived the truth. An understandable oversight, considering Ying Zheng had already ascended to become a Nascent Immortal before even becoming aware of the concept known as the Dao, while Di Zi had an entirely different perspective due to a life spent outside the Empire. As for their four brothers, before Ascending to Divinity themselves, they’d each stood at the pinnacle of their respective Paths, and thus were able to see past the fallacies rife in their shared discourse and Ascend to Nascent Immortality in spite of it, but how could one expect these greenhouse flowers to do the same?

It would be centuries before Ying Zheng realized his mistake, so at the time, he’d been at a loss on how to explain why none of the second-generation cultivators were able to Ascend to Nascent Immortality. This led to a growing divide in which many were convinced he was working to keep them weak, for he had no way to prove the absence of hidden secrets which he never thought to keep. This led to hundreds of powerful cultivators defecting to take positions of power among the outlanders, and in his foolish desire to maintain peace and prosperity, Ying Zheng refused to denounce them as traitors and kill them to keep the secrets of the Dao from spreading.

To this day, he still believed this was his greatest mistake, for it was only a matter of centuries before the first Divinity appeared. A false divinity unworthy of the name, these pretenders had harnessed a power they could no longer control, but they cared not for the damage they wrought. They fought amongst themselves in spite of Ying Zheng’s warnings and pleas, reducing the lands outside the Empire to an uninhabitable wasteland where few could survive, only to set their sights upon the Azure Sea and the bounty surrounding it. With no other choice, he led his brothers beyond the borders of his Empire to wage war against the pretenders, a war without a name for he made certain no one would ever learn of it.

Which was easy enough, considering he was the only one to emerge from the battle alive.

The loss of his brothers pained him so, but though he could not preserve their lives, he was able to safeguard their souls within his own and work towards finding new bodies for them to inhabit. All of them agreed, save for Di Zi whose morals would not allow him to take a life even to save his own, and they almost had a falling out when Ying Zheng presented his fifth brother with a soulless babe to inhabit guilt free. The weakness of emotion, one which he had long since divested himself of in the wake of his failures, but there was no arguing with Di Zi on this. Instead, fifth brother became a permanent fixture within Ying Zheng’s soul, which was fortunate since it led to the discovery of the Natal Palace, and eventually, the Natal Throne. Unfortunate as well, for it soon became clear that even though their goals were aligned, their methods were diametrically opposed. Di Zi wanted to find the flaw in his teachings and perfect them to discover a means with which any mortal could ascend to become a cultivator, but Ying Zheng disagreed. While he also wanted his people to grow strong, the calamitous struggle against the outlanders had taught him something he should have known all along. Whether you were a mortal or a Nascent Immortal, the same rules held true; Might makes right, and conflict breeds strength, so he set about empowering his people the quickest way he knew how.

By throwing them into conflict with one another.

Though he survived his battle against the outlanders, he did not make his return to the Empire in public. Instead, he had his duplicate take over in his absence, the Nascent Soul he’d implanted into his last surviving heir, though the passing of time meant he was already on his fifth host as he had yet to Ascend to Divinity in any previous life. Why, this Sovereign could not say, as it was clear that his Natal Soul was flawed in some way, but the entity that would one day call himself Zhen Shi was still useful yet. While this Sovereign fought the outlander Divinities, his Natal Soul rallied the Supreme families behind him to become the second Emperor of the Azure Sea, whereupon he began his reign with a massed purge of dissident cultivators and historians both before enshrining strict rules for succession in place. Every fifty years a new Emperor would take the throne, but not necessarily the son of the last Emperor. Might makes right, so the strongest cultivator of each generation would have a chance to wear the crown, but aside from the Second Emperor who was his Natal Soul, each subsequent Emperor was merely Ying Zheng inhabiting a new body. It was not easy to give up the body he’d been born in, but cruel as he was to his enemies, he was even more merciless towards himself. By continuing his reign in this roundabout manner, he provided the mortals and cultivators under him with the illusion of change and progress while everything remained firmly within his control, for even though he was a just and magnanimous ruler, his subjects would always find reason to resent him. The unfathomable hearts of man, to find conflict no matter the cost, for in spite of all their lofty ideals, humans were not creatures of Balance, but beasts driven by pure emotion.

And so they must be treated as such, for should these beasts one day slip his leash, their foolish struggles might well destroy what little was left of the habitable world.

That was the role Ying Zheng took on, the protector of humanity who safeguarded them from themselves, a role Di Zi was thoroughly displeased by. Despite being an entity of pure spirit and nothing more, he somehow managed to unite his brothers against Ying Zheng without his notice. That was another clash for the ages, but one which took place within the landscape of his soul, and when he emerged victorious once again, he left the souls of his brothers intact. Not out of some misguided sense of compassion or hope for the future, no, the moment they turned on him was the moment they ceased to be his brothers. Instead, he kept them because he had long since discovered that he could siphon knowledge and strength from the souls chained within his Natal Palace, slowly but surely allowing him to perceive the Dao from different perspectives and perhaps one day even enabling him to observe it in its entirety.

Of course, keeping so many souls within his Natal Palace would foster an imbalance with his body and mind, one which would slowly correct itself over time to empower his body and mind even further. Eventually, the imbalance grew so great that his hosts' mortal bodies were unable to wholly contain the entirety of his presence, with his presence draining away at their Life Force as their bodies struggled to sustain him, but it mattered little considering he switched bodies every fifty years, and freed him from the effort of having to puppet the former Emperor whenever a new one took the throne. The deaths were explained away as the inherited mantle of power being too much for a mere mortal to bear, the secrets of the second Emperor passed down to ensure each successive generation would have strength enough to hold onto the throne. Fools one and all, and Ying Zheng looked forward to the time when he would cleanse himself of the red of dust of the mortal world and create a new body to inhabit, one which would be the match of his flourishing soul and mind.

So the years passed as he guided humanity down not one dead end Path, but two. One Path for the outer provinces, namely the Path used by the outlanders, and a second for the Imperial Clan, which was more powerful and more complete, but flawed all the same. This was his solution, to keep humanity in conflict with itself with minimal actual conflict, and one day give rise to a cultivator strong enough to see past all the lies. Though he encountered some setbacks along the way, like the murder of the ‘fourteenth’ Emperor by a rebel Grand Marshal, he improved upon the foundation he built in hopes that his Empire would one day give rise to another talent worthy of consideration. Yes, the humans of this era were disadvantaged by flawed teachings, but the greater the challenge, the greater the reward. Before Ying Zheng came along, humanity had never given rise to a Nascent Immortal, and even his brothers whom he guided to the Dao were not as powerful as he, for their comprehension was lacking and their foundations flawed due to having been built in accordance with this Sovereign’s perspective rather than their own. Thus, he was willing to wait thousands of millennia if need be while trying a whole host of other ideas, yet it wasn’t long before his efforts bore fruit.

For when the first Ancestral Beast took form, this proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that the concentration of Heavenly Energy was growing stronger as time passed, which was a theory he came up with long ago. How else to explain the lack of Martial Warriors and Nascent Immortals before his time? It wasn’t that their comprehension was lacking, but rather they never had the opportunity to reach these same heights. Now however, the ambient Heavenly Energy lingering throughout the world was enough so that even animals could make use of it. Perhaps this was part of a natural cycle of wax and wane, though it was more likely due to the fact that nine-tenths of all life in the entire world had only recently been wiped out. Regardless of the reason behind it, the overabundance of Heavenly Energy was the only explanation for this unprecedented advent of flawed Divinities in the form of Ancestral Beasts. Much like the primal humans of old, these creatures had stumbled across the same flawed Path in their pursuit of the Dao, and Ying Zheng soon discovered the root cause.

Or more accurately, Zhen Shi discovered the cause, namely Ying Zheng himself.

By leading all of humanity down this flawed Martial Dao, he’d somehow manifested a cycle of Creation and Destruction in the Energy of the Heavens themselves, wherein it was trapped in the process of manifesting Spectres and Demons, entities which did not exist before his time. These entities still required sustenance to grow and survive, but the by-product of their consumption was something Heavenly Energy needed to grow. All of this formed a delicate budding ecosystem which Ying Zheng had long since set into motion, and as such, he left Zhen Shi to his own devices and hoped he would see his Path through to completion. Only then would Ying Zheng have a peer to discuss the Dao with again, for if he were to wait for the Heavens to produce another Chosen Son like him, he might well be waiting for all eternity.

Or so he thought, until he discovered one Falling Rain.

This was a dragon who showed promise aplenty, one so promising Liang Wu Di had hoped to turn him into a weapon to use against Ying Zheng. True Divine Warrior though he might be, he underestimated the resolve of a true cultivator of the Dao, for what riches could a crane possibly offer to tempt a dragon? Long had Ying Zheng waited for so promising a talent, and together, they could lead humanity to a new era of prosperity and solve the riddle that had been plaguing him for so long.

How might a Nascent Immortal traverse the Void to Shatter the barrier beyond the Heavens? This was the true meaning of Void Shattering, not merely to shatter the Void, but to shatter what lay beyond it. Everything else was irrelevant, whether it be the transient bindings of family and friends or the inherent human dependence on emotion at the expense of logic and rationale. Shed yourself of all these mortal trappings, of your fear and love both, and take the next step which you have deferred for so long to become a Nascent Immortal in truth.

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Tearing his attention away from the memories of his distant past, this Sovereign struggled to rein in the emotions he’d long since left behind, but his forced merger with his Natal Soul had brought emotions back to the forefront of his attention and made it difficult to ignore them out of hand. A minor inconvenience in the grand scheme of things, for though he possessed an incessant and illogical urge to imprison Falling Rain’s soul and torment him for the next millennia, this Sovereign had strength of Will enough to resist it. The boy was too promising to do away with out of hand, and even though he expected this petulant child to reject this most gracious of offers, this exchange would set the foundation for the next time this Sovereign made the offer again. Not until some time had passed and the boy had learned his place, to both lessen the sting of his loved ones’ deaths and become acclimated to his new lot in life. He had pride and arrogance aplenty, else he would have taken Wu Di’s generous offer, but this Sovereign knew things would work out in his favour once again, for he was a true son of Heaven.

That being said, he’d not survived this long by allowing himself to become complacent. While the boy immersed himself in the memories this Sovereign left for him, most of which were even true, albeit with the more disconcerting details glossed over, he set to work breaking through the defenses of Falling Rain’s Natal Palace. A formidable fortress of solitude and isolation, one which repelled this Sovereign with remarkable strength even without the boy to empower it. It was so formidable that it took a full two seconds to break through, which may not seem like much time in reality, but was comparable to several days worth of exhausting mental effort. Once inside, he took another quick glance around at the unfamiliar settings and marvelled at how strange it all was once more, but such were the eccentricities of a mind as brilliant as Falling Rain’s, one which might well be comparable to fifth brother Di’s.

One problematic issue was the fact that the Predator was currently occupying the boy’s Natal Throne, though how Falling Rain could trust another sentient being in his seat of power was baffling to behold. Then again, this Sovereign wasn’t entirely sure if the Predator counted as sentient, because while it behaved like a dog, there was no telling how complete the transformation truly was. Perhaps it was only mimicking the behavior of a dog, which would explain its strange mannerisms, not even growling at this Sovereign as he plucked its shivering furry form from the chair and tossed it aside to the bed.

Then, without any further ado, This Sovereign lowered himself down into the odd chair and adjusted his posture to account for the wheels underneath, only to furrow his brow in befuddled astonishment as he discovered he was unable to take control of the Natal Palace. This wasn’t possible, for this seat was most certainly the boy’s Natal Throne, the symbolic seat of power from which he controlled everything within. The desk, dark glass panels, sound emanating boxes, and glass case with the spinning disks emanating multi-coloured lights, lights which had inexplicably gone dark, these were all also a part of the boy’s Natal Throne, but the seat itself should have been the most significant, only apparently this was not the case. Going back in memory, he saw how the boy took a seat in this very same chair, but the difference was that the panels before him lit up as well, and this Sovereign was at a loss on how to explain the discrepancy, nor was he able to identify how the boy made the panels go dark again, and the spinning, multicoloured discs along with them. Perhaps it had something to do with the flat, rectangular device bearing all manner of buttons with foreign markings, or the oval object next to it which the boy pressed and moved about, but even though this Sovereign emulated the exact same movements and pressed the same symbols, the screens before him remained black and dull, though still shiny enough to show his reflection.

How odd. In all his years as Emperor of the Azure Sea, never before had he seen a Natal Throne as unresponsive as this, and for a time, he was at a loss on how to proceed.

Chapter Meme 1

Chapter Meme 2

Chapter Meme 3