The third glimmer of light, carrying a trace of impatience and resolve, tore through the veil of Chaos and plunged into the material universe. Its destination was a planet in the Milky Way Galaxy named Colchis.
Colchis was a forgotten planet. Its sky was an eternal dusky yellow, its land an endless red desert. Fierce winds blew all year round, churning up billions of tons of sand and grit, burying and scouring away the traces of history and civilization again and again until only the most stubborn rocks and the most fanatical faith remained. This was a prison for exiles, a holy land for ascetics, a land steeped in despair.
The glimmer pierced the dense sandstorm and finally descended onto a barren dune. Its light faded, and it possessed a mortal body.
It was the body of a dying old man. He wore the tattered robes of an ascetic priest of the Holy Covenant Church, his body so emaciated that little remained but bones. His skin resembled parchment baked by the Sun for centuries, covered in deep wrinkles and black spots. His breathing was as faint as a candle guttering in the wind, and his life was rapidly slipping away.
Liu Zhipeng's consciousness awakened within this shell on the verge of death. He had no time to dwell on its pain, for a powerful life signal, mingled with the joy and bewilderment of birth, shone like a lighthouse in the depths of the nearby desert.
He struggled to his feet and grabbed a dead branch, long since polished smooth by windblown sand, to use as a walking stick. Following the signal, he trudged deeper into the desert, his feet sinking unevenly into the sand. He knew he had to find that child before the greedy vultures did.
Van Mogar,