Immortal Paladin

[Enlightened Scholar]

The Enlightened Scholar, known in this era as the Game Master, sat cross-legged beneath a canopy of artificial stars. Each point of light shimmered not with natural luminescence, but with information, data, and will. His gaze, unwavering and solemn, remained fixed on a floating mirage of script and shifting characters that danced across the air before him. They were not mere words, but names… epithets, really… each one a cipher for a mighty soul caught within the bounds of this fractured realm known as False Earth.

Ten names glowed faintly, suspended in illusion like spirits trapped in stasis. Seven of them he knew intimately; they were part of the pact. He had not expected any of them to make such a mad agreement, but desperation did strange things to ancient beings. In the end, they had all consented to participate in the so-called Ascension Games, a cruel design with one fragile hope: that through mutual slaughter, one of them might claw free from this illusory prison.

But now, there were three more. New names. Foreign variables. The mirage pulsed softly, and the ten titles floated in an ethereal wheel before him: Destiny-bound Seer, Heavenly Demon, Yama King, Dark Witch, Divine Physician, Game Master, Grand Exorcist, Immortal Paladin, Great Dreamer, and the most recent addition, Foolish King.

He studied the constellation of names, each one burning with the signature of its bearer. For beings such as these, an epithet was not merely an affectation; it became a second soul, a symbol deeply intertwined with their identity, philosophy, and fate. That was why it mattered when one disappeared.

His expression darkened as the name Yama King flickered, sputtered, and finally vanished into nothing. He leaned forward ever so slightly, lips tightening. The weight of that disappearance was immense. The Yama King had been strong… brutal, calculating, and cautious to a fault. That he had fallen meant only one thing.

“So, the veil he raised was not just for show,” the Enlightened Scholar muttered. His voice was soft, like parchment being turned in an empty hall. “He feared exposure more than defeat. Now we have neither his life nor the details of the battle that ended it. Pathetic.”

He clicked his tongue, a sharp, irritated sound. Though he hadn’t trusted the Yama King, the loss weakened their side. More troubling was the identity of the killer. Among the three newcomers, one had struck a blow capable of ending a being like the Yama King.

His eyes shifted to the unfamiliar names: Immortal Paladin, Great Dreamer, and Foolish King. He had only heard whispers of the Great Dreamer… a speculative entity half-remembered by mad prophets… but the other two were blank slates to him.

“Which of you is this… Da Wei?” he asked aloud, as though speaking the name might provoke a reaction from the mirage.

None came.

The silence deepened. Then, without warning, the name Destiny-bound Seer began to shimmer violently. A few moments later, it fractured and reformed into Immortal Paladin. The Scholar stood up. His robes, dark blue and etched with faintly glowing sigils, rustled like windless leaves.

“Two Immortal Paladins?” His voice was tinged with incredulity. “What is the meaning of this?”

He reached out with a hand, long fingers traced with calligraphy etched by time itself, and tapped the glowing name. It did not yield. The duplication was not a glitch in the mirage, nor a simple overlay. It was an actual metamorphosis… the Seer had become something else!

This was not how it was supposed to unfold.

Then came the third change. The name Grand Exorcist flickered, dimmed, and vanished just like the Yama King before him. Another casualty. Another loss! Now, three of the original Seven Sages were gone.

The Scholar’s hand slowly fell to his side. He exhaled through his nose, a deep, controlled breath honed through centuries of meditation and ruin. “This is escalating too quickly. We were meant to eliminate each other over decades… not days. Not months! Definitely not by a year so quickly!”

The mirage spun slowly before him, a wheel of ambition and fate. Nine lights now. Three names erased, three variables introduced, and too many unknowns hiding behind borrowed titles.

He returned to his seated position, folding himself back into the silence. “You’ve underestimated the players, Scholar,” he said to himself. “And perhaps this ‘Da Wei’ isn’t just some unpredictable anomaly. He might not even be an agent of a Supreme Being like we believed, but he is certainly a threat…”

…

..

.

[Grand Exorcist]

Tao Luoyang could not comprehend it.

He, who had earned the title of Grand Exorcist. He, who had banished the horrors of the outer realms, silenced malevolent ghosts with a flick of his wrist, and reduced demons to ash with chants etched from heaven’s own tongue… now lay in ruin. His body, severed from its own head, bled across a soil that was not real yet felt all too solid. His veil, once pristine and embroidered with sacred glyphs, was soaked in his blood and slipping from his face. And standing above his ruined form was something that did not belong.

The man who knelt to lift the veil possessed a strange presence. He bore no spiritual pressure that Luoyang could feel, no demonic miasma, no ghostly chill… only a dissonance in the world’s law that made the air shudder. The stranger lifted the bloodied fabric delicately, almost reverently, then smiled in amusement.

“Wow,” he said. “You sure are handsome. And that’s some awesome ink on your face… I imagine it’s part of your Immortal Art, huh?”

His tone was too casual and conversational for someone standing over a corpse.

“The ability to inscribe laws onto the world through calligraphy,” the man continued, admiring the marks along Luoyang’s skin, “that’s a hell of a power. Writing truths into existence? I gotta say, I respect it. But unfortunately…” His expression darkened, twisting into something smug. “You met me.”

The Grand Exorcist’s lips moved, or tried to. His soul was slow to detach, still anchored by the sheer force of his cultivation, but his body no longer obeyed him. He forced out the words, blood spilling with every syllable. “Who… are you…?”

The man leaned in closer, his breath warm and mocking. “Name’s Jue Bu… or at least, that’s the name I remember. Been a long time since I had a body to myself. Oh, and don’t take it personally… this was a tricky fight.”

He tapped his temple. “I was lucky I managed to take full control of Da Wei’s body in the last second. Your inscription was clever, by the way… trying to bind my soul mid-strike? But Da Wei would have foreseen that. I had to act before his consciousness takes over Wen Yuhan in full. He’s... well, he’s a pain to outmaneuver.”

Jue Bu stood, brushing his hands free of dust and blood.

“I should go. Don’t want to stay too long in the open. I’ll enjoy this little moment of freedom while I can. Sorry about the whole... soul-crushing defeat thing. I feel bad for you and the others, really. But if it makes you feel better, Da Wei is going to dominate this little game of yours. Probably tear the rest of you apart. Yeah, that should console you, right? Anyway... I’ll deal with him as I see fit, I guess... He’s a good guy, so I don’t want to be harsh on him.”

He waved flippantly as his body shimmered, light breaking across his figure like glass catching a sunrise. And then, he was gone, leaving nothing but blood and silence.

Just like that, the Grand Exorcist’s plan to ambush the Yama King from his battle backfired miserably.

“This… This can’t be… I will die?”

Tao Luoyang’s fading soul lingered, hovering above his fallen corpse. The world dulled. Pain receded. What came instead was memory or fragments of it. Images flared in his mind like burning paper, edges curling before he could read them.

He saw again the mortal world, a time before exile. Cities crumbling under demonic siege. Children screaming. His own family, faces now blotted out and torn apart by specters and beasts that the heavens refused to answer for. He remembered rage. He remembered a choice: to forsake weakness, to become something that even ghosts feared.

And he had succeeded. He became the Grand Exorcist, the man who could slay a god.

And yet, at the end of that long road, he was betrayed. The Supreme Being had caught him unaware and without trial or explanation, cast him into this false world. A punishment? A test? He could not remember. Something had been taken. Something more than freedom.

Tears slid from his disembodied eyes, dropping into a pool of blood that no longer pulsed.

“I… forgot something,” he whispered to no one. “Why can’t I remember what it is it?”

The gaps in his soul widened until only formless grief remained. His name was still Tao Luoyang, but that title ‘Grand Exorcist’ felt hollow now. As the last of his essence faded, drifting into a sky that was not real, he hoped dimly that someone, somewhere, would write the truth of him back into the world.

And then he perished, the light of his spirit snuffed out like the ink that once reshaped reality.

…

..

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[Great Dreamer]

Da Ji felt something inside her snap… not cleanly like a twig, but jagged, like a crack forming deep beneath the earth. It happened the moment Chen Enlai fell, body twisting through open air, a scream caught between defiance and disbelief. Her parents followed, slipping from the platform like lifeless puppets, and the world, once framed in clarity and resolve, collapsed into chaos.

She was alone again.

The roar of the crowd struck her ears like blades. There was joy, mockery, and celebration… monuments of noise that seemed grotesque in light of what had just occurred. Her heart clenched. She raised her pistol with mechanical precision, not out of panic but with dreadful certainty, and fired. One in the crowd fell, a smear of red bursting from their chest as the cheering turned to screams.

On the levitating platform overlooking the ruins of New Willow, Da Ji moved to shoot another. Her hands trembled, not from fear, but from rage she couldn’t contain. Just as her finger pulled the trigger, another hand snapped her wrist aside. The shot rang out and struck nothing. Da Ji turned, ready to lash out, but met the steady gaze of Ding Shan.

“Stop!” Ding Shan said, his voice firm but breaking. “This isn’t what your brother would want!”

Da Ji wanted to scream that she didn’t care, that her brother wasn’t here. That all he had left behind was silence and blood. But before she could speak, the whisper returned… soft as silk, cold as knives.

“Kill them all… they’re not people, they’re rot. The root of this poison is right beside you… It’s him. Slaughter him.”

Da Ji flinched, her knees buckling. The voice coiled at the back of her skull, too intimate, and too familiar. But a warmth reached her hand, steadying her. Wen Yuhan had stepped forward and gently clasped Da Ji’s trembling wrist with both of her delicate hands.

“Enough,” Wen Yuhan said, voice low and calm. “This isn’t you.”

It was so easy to believe her. But the voice, the shadow in her mind, howled its protest. “It’s her. She’s the cause. She will destroy you. Let me out. Let me out!”

But Da Ji gritted her teeth and stared through the haze of her spiraling thoughts. She would not surrender. Not yet.

Then Wen Yuhan turned and raised one slender hand toward the corpse Da Ji had just made. The fallen man stirred. Bones knit, skin healed, breath returned. Gasps rang from the crowd as the man groaned and rose to his feet… alive once more.

Da Ji’s eyes widened, but the ones who reacted more viscerally were the 112th Bronze Unit. Hardened veterans, men and women who had followed her brother into hell, now stared in open fear and confusion. Their loyalty fractured, and their faith was shaken.

“The Da Family has done nothing wrong,” Wen Yuhan spoke, voice carrying over the platform like a healing wind. “A greater enemy lies beyond our borders. Da Wei marches not to abandon us, but to confront what none of you can even comprehend. The power I wield now, this gift of resurrection, exists only because of Da Wei.”

She turned, her dark eyes sweeping over the silenced crowd. “There is only shame in persecuting the Da Family. Look at yourselves. You’ve lost your dignity in your desperation. You must be better. We all must.”

The people flinched from her gaze. There were no more cheers. No more taunts. Just guilt, and perhaps, a fragile sliver of reflection.

With a wave of Wen Yuhan’s hand, space twisted. Da Ji’s parents, bruised but alive, floated onto the platform. Da Ji rushed to them, only sparing a glance at Chen Enlai, who grinned weakly through broken teeth.

“Hahaha… Looks like I tried to act cool for nothing,” he wheezed.

Da Ji answered with a swift kick to his knee. “Shut up, idiot.”

As Enlai collapsed with a yelp, she fell into the arms of her father and mother, her voice caught in a single breath of relief. She hadn’t realized how hollow her chest had become until their warmth filled it again.

Wen Yuhan turned back to the crowd. “This is a time for rebuilding,” she declared, “not for oppressing your own. Evil preys on your worst instincts. It whispers, manipulates, and drives you to hatred. Don’t fall for it again.”

But Da Ji barely heard her now. Her head had begun to ache.

“They will betray you again.”

The voice returned, coaxing instead of commanding. Her mother embraced her, and for a moment, it weakened. But not entirely.

Wen Yuhan turned to her, eyes filled with something Da Ji couldn’t place. There was no triumph in that gaze… only a strange mixture of tenderness and sorrow, as if she were watching someone she loved slowly vanish before her eyes.

Da Ji opened her mouth, but words escaped her. Instead, she saw something impossible.

Wen Yuhan’s face shimmered for a heartbeat. Just a flicker. But Da Ji saw it. Da Wei’s face.

‘Why…?’ her mind whispered. ‘Why does she look like—’

“Sleep now,” the voice whispered one last time, gentle, almost kind. “Sleep, Great Dreamer… let me take over. Be at peace.”

She struggled. She clenched her fists. She bit her tongue and tasted blood… but reality folded.

Visions danced around her. A thousand Da Weis fighting across a thousand fields. A thousand timelines collapsing into one. A sea of stars blinking into new constellations. Time split, reformed, and then all went still.

Da Ji fell to her knees, gasping. The platform remained. The world remained.

But her eyes no longer looked quite like her own.

Instead, her eyes had become more.

“What am I?”