Prelude

A plain—an endless plain.

A round sun hung in the sky, shining down upon barren earth that stretched to the horizon, devoid of life.

Xiao Yan was like a single grain of sand within this vast plain.

Standing amid the wasteland, he could not see a single living creature no matter where he looked. Confusion and fear filled his heart, and he could only press onward without purpose.

After an unknown amount of time, an ancient stone hall appeared upon the boundless plain.

The stone hall stood silently upon the vast, endless plain. An ancient aura rippled outward, echoing between heaven and earth.

This plaza was incomparably vast. As Xiao Yan walked through it, he was like an ant crossing a desert, unable to glimpse its end.

As he walked, Xiao Yan suddenly halted. He turned his head and looked toward the top of a stone pillar not far ahead. There, a dark yellow flame was rising.

"This place... feels so familiar."

For some reason, once he entered the stone hall, the confusion and unease in Xiao Yan's heart gradually faded away.

He continued onward. After traveling less than a hundred zhang, another pillar that reached the heavens appeared before him. A flame burned atop it as well—a crimson flame that vaguely took the shape of countless beasts as it rose.

After traveling another hundred zhang, more stone pillars appeared, each topped with a different strange flame.

His pace quickened, and one heaven-reaching stone pillar after another emerged. Strange flames rose from every one of them.

Some of these Heavenly Flames were dark blue, appearing profoundly mysterious. As they rose, they slowly spread like clear seawater, their faint ripples resembling waves.

Some were silver-white. Nine tiny fire dragons darted through the gently burning flames as though they possessed intelligence. A faint dragon's might spread from within, causing one's Soul Power to feel somewhat suppressed.

Gradually, Xiao Yan reached the end.

A stone statue over ten thousand zhang tall abruptly entered his sight!

The statue resembled an old man. It stood between heaven and earth, radiating an overwhelmingly powerful aura as though it towered above all creation. Its hands formed a strange seal.

Somehow, Xiao Yan felt that the statue was drawing him toward it. He slowly approached, but upon closer inspection, he found nothing special about it apart from the faint earthy-yellow glow on its surface.

He slowly raised his hand and pressed it against the statue. The instant his palm touched it, ripples spread across the statue's surface like waves on water. Then the statue blazed with light, while the stone pillars crowned with strange flames transformed into towering pillars of fire. Yet compared to this heaven and earth, those fire pillars appeared tiny, like threads of flame.

"My Soul Clan plotted for a thousand years, only to be ruined by your hand, Xiao Yan! I refuse to accept this! I refuse!"

Xiao Yan looked toward the voice and saw a blood-haired man with a savage expression appear high in the sky.

"Xiao Yan? Is he calling me?"

The man was in terrible condition. His hair was disheveled, his upper body bare save for several vicious wounds, and the blood-red long blade in his hand flickered in and out of existence.

The pillars of light reaching into the sky transformed into countless fiery threads and wrapped around the man. The blood-haired man's body began to melt away in a bizarre manner, finally turning into a ball of light. Even so, the shrill roar emitted by that ball of light still thundered through heaven and earth.

The instant the ball of light appeared, the fiery threads formed a massive cocoon. Once it took shape, the giant cocoon slowly descended into the plaza and gradually sank into its depths. The fiery threads crisscrossed one another, densely covering the plaza and forming a profound, mysterious pattern. The entire space returned to tranquility once more.

Just as Xiao Yan recovered from the world-destroying scene before him, the scenery in front of his eyes rapidly twisted, and everything instantly turned to nothingness.

Xiao Yan's vision became a boundless expanse of white. He could only continue forward without purpose. As time passed, agitation and unease once again filled his heart.

After an unknown amount of time, he discovered a gigantic phantom ahead. Even so, it appeared somewhat thin. Its face was nothing but a haze that he could not see through, while the flame mark between its brows—identical to his own—was especially conspicuous.

When Xiao Yan tried to approach the phantom and see its face clearly, it immediately exploded, turning into countless specks of light that dyed the space in brilliant colors, as though it had become filled with life.

Then, as if drawn by some force, the countless specks of light crazily rushed into the flame mark between Xiao Yan's brows.

"Flame Mantra... Eight Extremes Collapse... Flame Splitting Wave Ruler..." An enormous amount of information flooded into his mind. Xiao Yan felt as though his head had suffered a heavy blow, and the pain immediately drove him to the ground. He curled up while clutching his head like a cooked shrimp. Yet the countless specks of light did not stop; instead, they grew even more frenzied. In an instant, a dazzling vortex formed within the space.

Pain surged over him like a tide, continuously washing over his soul and making him wish he were dead. As the pain intensified, more and more sweat poured from Xiao Yan's head. In the end, he simply fainted.

The vortex of light scattered apart at the instant he lost consciousness, and this space was once again dyed in brilliant colors by the specks of light.