The Black Sun

The next day, sparrows in the courtyard clung to damp branches. The seal on the Ambrosial Arbor in the Scalegorge Waterscape had been reinforced, the wind and rain were gradually subsiding, and sunlight breaking through the clouds filtered through the gauze window onto the smoky-blue bed curtains.

"Master Jingliu, you're lying on my hair." Bai Heng had never imagined that he would be the one saying those words.

The two stared into each other's eyes at close range. After a brief silence—

"Hey, hey, stop! Master Jingliu, I really didn't do anything. I just held you all night... Uh, fine, I admit it, I also touched your hand and pinched your cheek... Ah, ow, ow! Don't hit my face..."

Two minutes later, Bai Heng pinned the still-weak Jingliu beneath him, flipped off the bed, and rushed out the door, leaving behind only one sentence:

"Master Jingliu, I'm going to brew your medicine!"

After Bai Heng vanished beyond the door, Jingliu, her hair disheveled, slowly turned her face away and gazed blankly at the gauzy bed curtains wrapped in gentle morning light.

After a long while, she extended her cold, slender hand, feeling the lingering warmth on the bed, and murmured:

"I gave you a chance... and you still couldn't make use of it..."

At twenty-one, the storm brewing within the dark clouds hanging over the Luofu seemed ready to descend at any moment.

As the number of undying abominations dying by your hand gradually increased, you began to dream frequently of one scene. It appeared in your dreams, shrouded in light, but in an instant, that light began to burn, piercing the clouds and turning into golden death. Towers collapsed, people fled, because the sun was about to fall, bringing savage devastation...

Like sand slipping through a golden hourglass, the day foretold by the Divination Commission drew ever closer. Time itself seemed to take on tangible form before your eyes.

At last, "it" came.

That day, Abundance Emanator Shuhu arrived at the Xianzhou with several demon stars and countless undying abominations. They wailed and sang, bearing burning mountains and earth as they surged toward everyone. People screamed in the streets, struggling and thrashing in the despair of an apocalyptic calamity, while golden vines ceaselessly grew through every person's mouth, nose, and throat.

That day, though they clearly knew the war's ending would be so tragic, the Cloud Knights of the Xianzhou Luofu formed ranks in the Sea of Stars Skiffs, swearing to become clouds blotting out the sky, shielding the Xianzhou and never falling to the ground. Even if their arrows were spent, their skiffs destroyed, and their Aurumatons halted, they would draw their swords against those inhuman undying abominations with their flesh and blood, with their own skill.

Above the sea of stars, a dark-brown dome enveloped the entire Xianzhou Luofu. Demon stars hid within mist that obscured the sun and sky. On the horizon connecting to the heavens, a beam of golden light spilled through a gap in the dark-brown fog, like light bestowed upon the world.

Everyone stared at that eerie gap.

Golden branches and vines stretched out from within, tearing open the dome as its form gradually revealed itself.

It was a grotesque tree of a thousand faces, formed from countless masses of flesh and blood. Faces of flesh coexisted with it, mimicking the same movements, eerie yet sacred.

It swung its branches, its trunk burrowing deep into the earth, and spoke:

"I am Shuhu. I am eternity. From me onward, you shall obtain true immortality."

The war between the Xianzhou Luofu and Calamity-Bringer Shuhu erupted at once. Tengxiao, the Luofu's general at the time, stood wreathed in golden lightning like an incarnation of the Reignbow Arbiter. Commanding the Divine General, he and his phantom tore through the enemy's war-beast formations, crushing them like rotten wood.

Dan Feng, the Vidhydara High Elder and Imbibitor Lunae, faced Calamity-Bringer Shuhu in battle. This was a direct clash between a descendant of the Unfading and an Emanator of Abundance.

Wherever the starskiffs pointed, Jingliu led alone, dancing with her blade and weaving through sword light. Her edge was too fierce; other than Bai Heng, none dared stand in the same line as her, and could only remain behind to provide support.

Yet even when they killed those undying abominations again and again, Calamity-Bringer Shuhu needed only to wave one branch among its many hands to make flesh regrow over bones and petals return from dust to their stamens.

It seemed to possess limitless power of rebirth. Golden vines were severed without cease, yet restored without cease. Just as the divination had foretold, the Xianzhou Luofu had indeed fallen into a clear disadvantage in this war.

As Cloud Knight soldiers continued to fall, familiar figures gradually appeared upon Calamity-Bringer Shuhu's vines. Those Cloud Knights whose flesh had been devoured became insignificant fruits upon Shuhu's body.

Yet those fruits could speak, endlessly beguiling the Cloud Knights fighting in blood-soaked desperation.

After Tengxiao, an Emanator of The Hunt, and Dan Feng, a descendant of the Unfading, dealt Calamity-Bringer Shuhu a devastating blow, the Abundance Emanator Shuhu was reborn once more. Upon the scorched earth of blood and fire, it constructed the impregnable prison known as the Bloodstained Prison Realm, trapping Jingliu, Dan Feng, and several thousand Cloud Knight elites within.

Shuhu's branches cackled, making every head on its vines speak one word on its behalf, stringing them together into a sentence:

"Followers of The Hunt, what do you intend to use to kill me this time? I'm looking forward to it."

With nearly half their elite forces trapped, the situation had almost completely tipped in favor of the abominations. The Luofu desperately needed a way to break the deadlock, and the foremost prerequisite was shattering the Bloodstained Prison Realm. At that moment, Bai Heng suddenly recalled an experience from many years ago on the Xianzhou Zhuming.

Back then, during his first visit to the Artisanship Commission of Zhuming, he had seen the young Yingxing. He had also seen a black sun. In a daze, he saw that sun devour and destroy everything in a war... Perhaps that was the key to breaking the deadlock.

To seize this final straw of hope, Bai Heng decided to pilot a starskiff to the Xianzhou Zhuming and retrieve that black sun. You, as his guard, would help him break through the abominations' blockade around the Xianzhou and travel with him to Zhuming.

With the Divine General clearing the way, a golden phantom thrust a massive blade down from the heavens, driving it straight into the earth and tearing open a breach in the dark-brown dome.

Seizing the opportunity, Bai Heng piloted a starskiff out of the Xianzhou Luofu through the breach and raced toward Zhuming at top speed.

Along the way, undying abominations pursued the two without end.

However, Bai Heng's swordsmanship was now already on par with Jingliu, the Luofu's foremost swordmaster.

To him, these abominations were not enough to impede their progress.

After two days and nights of relentless travel, the two arrived at the Artisanship Commission where General Huaiyan resided. General Huaiyan personally led them to the Flame-Wheel Forging Palace.

There, they saw the black sun Bai Heng had spoken of.

It was a dazzling sphere of light like a star. The entire Flame-Wheel Forging Palace was like a meteorite, and they seemed to cling to that meteorite, slowly revolving along its celestial orbit as it floated above this "sun."

But just as they approached the "sun"—

Bai Heng saw the scene from his dreams once more: the light began to burn, pierced through the clouds, and became golden death. Towers collapsed, people fled, because the sun was about to fall...

Every ray of light from the "sun" pulsed like rushing rapids, like fury suppressed since ancient times finally bursting forth. It tore and snarled as it drilled into Bai Heng's consciousness.

This time, it seemed to have chosen you.

In an instant, countless scenes swept wildly past like pages blown from a book and scattered across the ground, flooding into your sea of consciousness.

A familiar scene appeared before you. It was still a prison constructed upon scorched earth stained by blood and fire. The sky was a deep crimson, torrential rain pouring down, every droplet scarlet red. The rain fell onto the scorched ground, sending up rolling white smoke. Within the prison beyond that smoke was an Ancient Dragon covered from head to toe in black scales.

It looked down upon everything in the scorched wasteland, its crimson-gold eyes turning toward you.

It did not speak, yet a voice resounded beside your ear:

"Welcome to my kingdom."