Destiny in Cinders

The spring of the first year of the Yanping Era marked an eventful start for the Northblack Sacrifice Continent. In the snow-ravaged north, the forces of the Irondawn Dustdawners (what the northern barbarians called themselves) of the Hundred Tribes of Dustdawn went down south and breached Greenjade Pass.

As a result, a grand ritual was conducted in the city of Cloudmidst at North Han Circuit to awaken the ancient, slumbering earthbound spirits that had coexisted with their people for nearly a hundred thousand years. They proved to be quite the formidable force against the forces of Grand Chen stationed at North Han Circuit.

In the east, internal conflict sparked within the only upper sect in Floatdawn, Abyssdragon Ocean. Its leader, Chao Boyang, fought his most beloved son and young master of the sect, Chao Beiyu, in an epic battle at Floatdawn Ocean, which ended with Chao Beiyu escaping Floatdawn into the depths of the Celestial Ocean with three tribes of dragonfolk.

In the south, the many fey sacred domains oppressed by Grand Chen, upper-sect territories and even the remnants of the fallen Lucent Light Nation seemed to act up again. The empire’s South Pacification Martial King, King Chu, Xuan Guangzong, who was stationed at the former capital of the Lucent Light Nation, ignored all of those signs.

In the west where the ancient Land of Judgment was located, the shattered sky shook the heavens and earth, causing it to rumble like a bell’s toll. A mysterious immortal ruin that had laid dormant for the past three hundred thousand years rumbled with activity, seemingly heralding the return of an ancient glory.

At the very center of the Northblack Sacrifice Continent where the divine capital was located, the daughter of the former North Pacification Martial King, Xuan Guangyun, had betrayed Grand Chen for reasons unknown and escaped to the borders of Xishan. This incident drew the two northwestern sentinel kings of Grand Chen into a standoff against the five Dustdawn Sects.

Rumor was that King Jing had died under suspicious circumstances, so it was no wonder his daughter, Princess Mingjing, betrayed the empire. According to usual protocol, Grand Chen’s reaction wouldn’t be considered drastic. Some others speculated that the unremarkable commanderial princess of imperial blood was given such undue attention due to the activation key she had been given by her father. It was said to be the key to one of the Eight Celestial Armaments, Southdipper Liferuler, that King Jing had wielded in his time, which he had plunged into the depths of the terrestrial veins prior to his death.

Others speculated that King Jing, being the young emperor’s most trusted sentinel king and one of the key figures that supported his ascension to the throne, was secretly a traitorous minister that merely feigned loyalty. They said that he had powers and connections that were a threat to the young emperor and tried to rule using the young ruler as a figurehead, an act that resulted in the imperial decree that called for his death. That they paid so much attention to Princess Mingjing whose cultivation would never reach the Void Divine Treasures Realm after leaving the empire was no doubt due to the crucial information she possessed.

Though there were many wild speculations, they all shared one thing in common: Nobody believed for the slightest moment that Grand Chen would be weakened by these incidents. That notion was nothing but a joke. The empire’s institution of mandated officials and the imperial court, which governed all things related to imperial blood, was firm and steadfast. The betrayal of a single member of the imperial bloodline or the death of a single sentinel king wouldn’t do much to change anything.

While other sects stagnated for centuries if they lost a single core successor, Grand Chen had more than enough candidates to replace those that perished. As long as they had enough talent to draw from, the ”sect” would never perish. There would always be people to promote to mandated officialdom or sentinel kingship.

As the tense negotiations between the five Dustdawn Sects and Grand Chen went on, yet another incident transpired at the border between Grand Chen and Dustdawn. Two sages from the Seated Mirage and Poolsea Sects respectively conspired with the demonic cult’s Lord Inspector of the West and another sage from an unknown faction in an attempt to kill Sage Mystic Mirror and his disciple out of personal grudges.

This alone wasn’t anything too noteworthy. Even though the Dustdawn Sects were allies in name, there wasn’t a ban on disputes between individual members of those sects. The act of ganging up on the few didn’t raise any eyebrows either. If they won, they would be praised for preparing well for the conflict. But if they lost, they would end up dead anyway, so why would they care about how others remembered them?

The truly shocking thing was how An Jing, Ming Guangchen’s disciple, managed to kill the three adepts that had tried to take his life as a mere Fortification martialist, with one of them even being the Lord Inspector of the West’s arcane corpus!

Typically, when martialists reached a certain threshold, they experienced a transformative boost in power, represented by the distinct realms of the martial path, which represented a qualitative improvement from one to the next. Yet, An Jing had taken out adepts of the Clearing Realm despite only being at the Fortification Realm, three of them at that, with one of them being a clone body operated by a sage! This was nothing short of a bad joke. Even though An Jing must’ve received secret trump cards from his master and also had homeground advantage, it shouldn’t have been enough to deal with three adepts.

When news of this first spread, even the loudest drunk boasts in the taverns shook their heads in laughter and disbelief. They insisted that either the Brightmirror Sect had a hidden adept that jumped into the fray to help An Jing, or the three adepts fought among themselves and gave An Jing the upper hand.

The truth, however, frequently had a way of appearing stranger than fiction. An Jing proclaimed to be the bearer of the divine arc. If true, his lifearc would be the first divine arc to manifest in the entire ten continents of Void Embrace since the previous world calamity. Divine-arc bearers were said to inherit the abilities of their immortal or godly counterparts as well as their talents and achievements. They were beings that defied common sense to begin with, so surely one defeating three adepts wasn’t a stretch.

It was only after a mythical being like a divine-arc bearer incarnated that it dawned on everyone that a new era was upon the Northblack Sacrifice Continent. Though they hadn’t felt the moment of its arrival, their fates would ultimately be subject to the whimsical storms that came with it. All of a sudden, the once-in-ten-millennia upheaval of Void Embrace that the mad storytellers warned of no longer sounded like a fanciful joke.

The stunning revelation stole all the limelight from the scandalous attack on Ming Guangchen by the Seated Mirage and Poolsea Sects. While he ended up thrown into the chaotic void and might never return, he was still alive as his lifelight still burned. Not to mention, he emerged victorious from the attack, so it would be bad form for the Brightmirror Sect to throw a fit over the matter.

After all, it was quite common for people to kill each other over personal grudges in Void Embrace due to the invisible hand of karma. Most of the people believed in a form of morality that completely excused deaths in exchange for the redress of a grudge.

He Wuchang, on the other hand, first had his arcane corpus defeated by the disciple An Jing and got killed in an instant by the master, Ming Guangchen. At the end of the day, he had been nothing more than a stepping stone for a rising legend. Ironically, his name would be recorded as a footnote in this legend’s chronicles as a result, not that a dead person would have anything to say against it.

The death of He Wuchang was greatly celebrated by the denizens of Xishan. The demonic cult’s sage who had feasted on many people deserved nothing less. Little did the people know that the Olden Heavenly Father they worshiped was the very same divinity worshiped by the man for whose death they felt grateful.

It was due to the Lord Inspector of the West’s involvement that the Seated Mirage and Poolsea Sects were able to excuse the misdeeds of their own members. They blamed the demonic cult for corrupting their members and were willing to offer recompense to the victims.

The Brightmirror Sect, on the other hand, were willing to deescalate as well because the way things ended up weren’t that dire, not to mention the alliance of the five Dustdawn Sects had to hold if they were to pose any real resistance against Grand Chen. Internal conflicts would have to be sorted out at another time. Additionally, some of the elders in the Brightmirror Sect, Transcendent Rising Light and Venerated Shrouded Dust in particular, were well aware that the matter Grand Chen came to give them grief over was actually the result of Ming Guangchen’s actions.