In the huge palace buried deep underground, there is no light. The air does not flow, time does not pass, and even the rocks have given up breathing in the long years.
There is only silence here, only forgetfulness, and only a body that has been sealed for countless epochs, decaying and reborn slowly, continuously, and endlessly in the darkness.
The red and black light began to flicker. It was not from the dome of the palace, not from the runes on the wall, but from the depths - from the inside of the body, from the bones and torn muscles that were crushed by the power of the seal, and from the blood vessels and meridians that had been dry for an unknown period of time.
The rhythm of the light was very slow, like a heart that was about to stop beating in its final struggle. Then it sped up, and the light flashed faster and denser, changing from a slow pulse to a rapid drumbeat.
Red and black are intertwined, like two different bloods mixing, rolling and boiling in the same wound.
Boom--
The whole palace shook violently.
The stalactites on the dome that had existed for countless thousands of years were broken from their roots, like broken ribs, falling from a height of hundreds of meters, hitting the ground, hitting the walls, and hitting the still struggling body.
Debris flew, dust filled the air, and cracks climbed from the ground to the walls and from the walls to the dome, like countless black snakes with teeth and claws.
Boom--Boom--Boom--
The palace continued to collapse. The pillars tilted, the vaults shattered, and the stone slabs that were once engraved with sealing runes peeled off piece by piece, revealing the gray-black, ordinary rocks without any lines underneath.
The seal was disintegrating, not because of attacks, but because of natural wear and tear. No one came to reinforce it, no one came to guard it. It had endured alone in the darkness for countless thousands of years, and finally broke under the weight of time.
A crimson light lit up from the head of the body, and a crack opened from the center of the forehead and extended to both sides. What gushes out of the crack is not blood, but light - red, thick, liquid-like light.
One eye suddenly opened.
The eyes turned, not the kind of confusion that just woke up, but the kind of movement that had been sleeping in the darkness for too long and finally waited for the light, with a hint of greed and hunger.
Its gaze swept over the collapsed domes, broken stone pillars, and mountains of rubble. The rubbles were reflected in its pupils one by one, and then slipped through the pupils.
It is confirming, confirming whether this world is still what it remembers. It is also searching, searching for whether the enemies who sealed it here are still there.
Boom boom boom - it was like something was digging deep underground. The speed was so fast that the gravel was caught by the rock formations above before it even fell.
The sound was not the slow, dull roar of a shield machine, but the sound of a crazy beast that had been locked up for too long and finally broke out of its cage, using everything that could be used to hit it, and forcefully sprinting upward from the depths of the earth.
It's almost too much.
The ground was cracked. Instead of light seeping out of the cracks, the entire ground was suddenly pushed up from below, like a manhole cover that had been lifted.
Debris flew in all directions, and the soil and rock formations were thrown hundreds of meters into the sky by the huge impact, forming a gray-black columnar cloud that shot straight into the sky.
A huge, snake-like figure rushed out from the ground.
It's not a snake. Snakes don't have claws.
Its body is thicker and more ferocious than a snake. Dark red scales cover its whole body, and the edges of the scales are burnt black, as if it had been burned repeatedly by magma and left traces after cooling.
Dark red light flows in the gaps between the scales, like blood vessels that are still beating under the skin.
Its head is snake-shaped but covered with thorn-like bone spurs. The bone spurs grow out of every inch of the bones and extend in different directions.
At the very front of its head is a huge mouth, split to the base of its ears, with three rows of jagged, inward-curving, barb-like teeth.
It has four pairs of eight eyes. They are distributed on both sides of the head. The two pairs in the front are larger, the two pairs in the middle are medium, and the two pairs in the back are smaller.
All eight eyes are of the same color - scarlet, and the pupils are of the same shape - vertical lines. They rotate in their eye sockets and look in different directions.
After its body burst out of the ground, it twisted in the air, as if it was moving its joints that had been stiff in the dark for too long.
Its claws - one pair after another - stretch out from the side. There are two pairs in the front, three pairs in the middle, and two pairs in the back. Each claw has five curved, sickle-like hooks.
One of Wolunxius, Demon God of Shattered Remolding, Thirteen Demon Gods.
Several epochs after the end of the Age of Gods, the world experienced a long and dark period. The gods fell, their corpses turned into mountains and rivers, their blood soaked the earth, and their dreams gave birth to new monsters in the darkness.
The monsters crawled out of the wreckage of the gods, emerged from the nightmares of the gods, and grew from the rotting corpses of the gods.
They do not have the power of the gods, but they have something that the gods do not have - hunger, an insatiable hunger for life, flesh and blood, and souls.
Thirteen Demon Gods are the thirteen most powerful among these monsters.
They had no names, at least not at first. Names were given to them by humans later in order to distinguish them and to have a symbol to call them when telling those horrific stories.
Wolunxius is one of them, which means "Shattered Remolder"-because it likes to tear its prey into pieces and then put the pieces back together into the shape it likes.
Not out of art, out of a twisted, perverted instinct that only it can understand.
The group of beings that defeated it and sealed it here were not gods, but some kind of being that appeared later, between mortals and gods.
Their names and deeds have long been erased by time, and not even the legends remain, only some broken inscriptions and vague murals that even experts cannot understand.
Wolunxius doesn't know how long it has been sleeping in the darkness. It only knows that the beings that sealed it no longer exist - it cannot feel their breath.
The faint resonance that woke it up from a deep sleep, like someone gently plucking the strings from a far away place, it didn't know what it was, but it didn't matter.
The seal is loose.
It woke up.
It's out.
"Ha--haha--hahaha--"
Wolunxius's voice was squeezed out from the mouth that was cracked to the base of the ears. It was sharp, harsh, and filled with a kind of madness that had been suppressed for too long and could finally be released.
Its sound vibrates in the air, forming a circle of sound wave ripples visible to the naked eye, pushing the surrounding gravel and dust farther away.
"Finally--back--me! Demon God of Shattered Remolding--Wolunxius!"
Its eight eyes lit up at the same time, and the scarlet light dyed the entire gray sky an ominous dark red.
Its body stretched out in the air, changing from a curled up posture to an extended posture, its length dragged from the ground to the ground, and stretched from the ground to the sky.
Those claws danced wildly in the air, like a ferocious blooming flower made of sharp blades.
"Back again!!" There was a kind of ecstasy in its voice that was almost crying.
It recalled the scene when it was sealed. Those beings joined forces to tear it off the earth, wrapped its body with chains, used the seal to suppress its power, and then threw it into this bottomless tomb that had been dug in advance.
It kept struggling, roaring, and cursing as it fell. Its voice came up from the ground, getting farther and farther, getting smaller and smaller, and was finally completely drowned by the falling rocks and soil.
Then there was a long darkness, endless darkness. It rotted in the darkness, was reborn in the darkness, and chewed the taste of hatred over and over again in the darkness.
It hates those beings that sealed it, hates the ants it slaughtered when it rampaged across the continent, hates the world itself - hates why it can accommodate those creatures weaker than it, but cannot accommodate its strength.
Now it's out.
"Go out - return to the world - kill all humans - all!" Its body twisted violently in the air, its head turned in the direction of the nearest human settlement, and its eight eyes locked on the same target at the same time.
A dark red breath with a strong sulfur smell came out of its mouth, as if it was preheating for the coming massacre. "All cities - completely destroyed! Then wake up other guys - the rest of the Thirteen Demon Godss! Then - slaughter all the creatures on the entire continent!!"
Its voice echoed across the wilderness, startling a group of crows perched on a dead tree in the distance.
The crow's cry was shrill and harsh, as if it was also an ominous prelude to the demon's declaration.
"Celebrate our new life with flesh and blood--!"
Wolunxius opened its mouth that was split to the base of its ears toward the sky, and let out a roar that could paralyze creatures dozens of miles around. It began to move.
Its body was completely pulled out of the hole in the ground, segment by segment, like a giant snake waking up from hibernation, rushing towards the direction of the sun and the direction of the breath of life.
Boom - it finally rushed to the ground. A huge hole appeared on the ground like an explosion, with the edges rolling outward in a radial shape, like a wound torn open from the inside.
Broken smoke and dust poured out from the pit. The gray-black, thick, and billowing smoke was like a blooming mushroom cloud with no color but the smell of death. In the sky full of smoke and dust, a huge, ferocious snake-shaped head stuck out.
Wolunxius's body was bigger than its head, after it completely crawled out of the ground.
"No matter human beings or other living things, they will--"
Its words stopped in mid-air.
Its eight eyes turn in the same direction at the same time.
The skyline in the distance - a black spot, was rapidly enlarging. It was not a bird, not a wyvern, or any flying creature it knew.
The speed of that black spot was so fast that it was contrary to common sense, so fast that the air was torn in front of it, emitting a sharp sonic boom that sounded like something was crying.
Wolunxius's eight eyes narrowed at the same time.
The black spot grew larger and larger in its field of vision, turning from a blur into a discernible outline - a black, winged shape with horns on its head.
Dragon.
No, not the kind of dragon it knew. The dragons it knew were not this big.
The speed of that thing did not slow down, but became faster.
It is accelerating, heading in the direction of Wolunxius, straight and without any hesitation, like a shot, black arrow that can adjust its direction by itself.
No.
Wolunxius made a decision at that moment that would have severely damaged its self-esteem later, but saved its life at the time.
It turned and crawled back.