The moment Han Yi had dissipated into nothingness, a young man clad in lightning armor was swirling around a vortex of lightning. His blue toga fluttered with the current as he flew on top of a lightning bolt.
The young man felt a jolt in his back it passed like a quick shiver but left a lingering fear. The lightning pool around his receded inside of him.
As the lightning receded, the forest became visible as it stretched to the ends of the horizon. At the center of all this was a buzzing metropolis above it was a 9 pointed sword star, the mark of Verulyim.
The young streak along the sky on a lightning bolt passing through every obstruction to the kingdom almost like a specter. The lightning bolt shot through the city dodging the black tower and other historical landmarks.
Then it crashed down at a palace at the very center of village atop a large stairwell. Everyone in the palace looked up as they saw a blue light flash in the sky.
"His Majesty has returned!" An older maid in a black dress said to two women who were cleaning up. They looked at each other frantically as they moved to tell everyone else.
At that moment the young man's body had already passed through layers of the palace, breaking through the stairwell and heading underground hundreds of meters.
He shot through a strange patch of dirt in the ground and stepped through into a cave. Inside of which was an old man with graying hair sitting atop a stone throne. He had a beard that stretched down to his chest and wore a white toga.
The young man's specter-like body passed through the air and entered into the old man's body. The originally motionless body started to shake heavily. An electrifying aura passed through the cave walls making the ground rumble and shine with blue light from the cracks.
His closed eyes opened revealed a blue glow that could extinguish all life. The body rose from the throne slowly as lightning crackled as his joints set into place.
His body had not risen in ages and this was the first time the Verulyim King awoke in ages. His body dissipated into blue light that shot out from the ground. When he reached the surface he went into the courtyard of the palace and stepped down onto the ground.
There were a few maids watering the plants but when they turned around they dropped their watering cans as they looked at the man with surprise.
"Your Majesty, you have awoken!" A person exclaimed from inside the palace, a woman emerged from the palace entering into the courtyard.
She wore a white gown with 9 different swords on the hem of the dress, her long flowing black hair was tied up in a bun. She wore a demure and genial expression as she approached the king.
"My child, Emily. What happened to your brother Han Yi?" The Verulyim king asked with a kind and fatherly tone.
Emily's brows furrowed with doubt as she hesitated on what to say.
"We just noticed it but...his soul lamp...it dissipated into nothingness." She decided to say but struggled to explain.
The king's face became ashen at that moment confusing Emily greatly. The King's eyes looked baffled with indecision at until he finally gritted his teeth.
"Do you remember the quest I gave out a while ago?" The king questioned with an amicable tone.
"Yes, father." Emily responded courteously.
"Good, then you'll know what you need to do." The king said praising his daughter. He was more than assured in her skills.
He reached into his white toga and removed a chart, it had on it various markings that pointed towards a spot. He handed the chart to Emily and spoke: "Assemble a group to find Han Yi at these coordinates."
"There's a high possibility that a demon will be there. Do not engage it, simply follow it and find out what it's doing." The king warned as his brows furrowed up in response.
"Don't engage it? Why not?" Emily said with a confused tone, she specialized in hunting demons and had assumed that was her father's goal with sending her out.
"It's not the demon we care about. It's the inheritance land that he controls." The Verulyim king said with a hint of greed passing through his eyes.
"What land?" Emily said unsure, she wondered what could stir her father so much. He was at the peak of the world with a profound cultivation that she couldn't even understand.
"The Land of a Bearer!" The Verulyim king said with a gleaming smile.
"What?!?" A shock traveled through Emily's body all at once making her shiver. The power of bearer stands at the very peak of all life, it was a power that even surpassed the king. By how much one couldn't calculate, as the bearers are known as completely invincible.
"There could only be two lands not maintained by a force, The Earth Bearer's or the Thunder Bearer's!" Emily said as she thought through all the forces in the west.
In the Western lands, there are two big sects the Verulyim Sect of Chivalry and the Shadow Sect of Exorcisms.
Both sects had cultivators of the three big cultivation paths but each had their own focus. The Verulyim school focused on chivalry with the most manuals and complete chivalrous inheritance directly from the sword bearer.
In the Eastern lands, there was only one sect and that was the Vermillion Country. They specialized in bloodline and had many different powerful inheritances.
The depths of their power has always been completely unknown as they rarely acted. But they stood as the figureheads of the noble path since time immemorial.
"The Earth Bearer's inheritance land was long ago found and left unclaimed but Thunder Bearer's inheritance land has never been found!" The king said as he shook his head thinking of all matters.
"So it could only be the Thunder Bearer's land!" Emily said finishing the king's thoughts.
"Exactly! For this mission, I would like you to with your Cousin Chen." The king said as Emily nodded her head in response.
"You can pick 4 other people and as many vassals as you need. I will leave the rest up to you." The Verulyim king said as his eyes turned into the sky. A layer of lightning started to crackle over his white toga.
"Where are you going, father?" Emily asked out of curiosity as lightning auras gathered around the king.
"I have matters to attend to with the Song Clan." The Verulyim king said with a solemn expression, his body faded into a lightning bolt that shot past the horizon.
The king's body blasted past the skies parting clouds as it struck towards the Empyrean mountain. The distance from the Verulyim kingdom to the Empyrean was only 2000 kilometers away.
For a normal person that would take months to travel but for an expert at the Verulyim king's level, it was a mere thought away.
When he was at the precipice of the mountain, the lightning bolt shook as his body returned back into existence. It was commonly agreed for experts to not use their aspects when nearing the Empyrean mountain.
Many legends of its importance had propagated since ancient times, no one was too sure of what it was they just knew that strange things can happen to experts atop it.
The Verulyim king flew down from the sky and saw at the precipice of the mountain a bygone cottage. Seated in the garden was a beautiful woman with flowing white hair, blue eyes, and a frilly white dress.
She was watering a plant when suddenly she looked up at the Verulyim king. Her gaze sent the king flying instantly, his body spun through the air unable to move. Suddenly a young man in a blue toga appeared behind the king and stopped him.
The Verulyim king's body recovered as the specter in the blue toga shot blue light into the Verulyim king's body. This specter was the aspect that the king condensed down when he reached rank 4.
Aspects are the combination of the essences, totem, and the self. It is the key to comprehending the mysteries of heaven and earth. They often take the form of the user at their peak of power, in this case, the king's young adulthood.
"Noble Qian, you must have realized what happened to Song Yue. For that, I must apologize profusely. But why must you terrorize a junior like me?" The Verulyim king said as his voice echoed throughout the mountain.
"As long as you do not approach this cottage you will be fine." She coldly said as her voice traveled like the wind passing through the king's ears.
"What of Song Yue?" The Verulyim king couldn't help but ask confused about her lack of response.
"What about her? She can take care of herself." Noble Qian said dismissively, and instead, a devious grin spread across her lips.
"Instead you are the one who'd best be careful." She enunciated slowly building dread in the Verulyim king.
"Why?" He couldn't help but ask as he felt his mouth dry up.
"Now that you failed to claim the inheritance land, the other clans have become aware of it. The shadow sect failed to hold them back and I can't hold back the Vermillion Country. They'll all want a slice of the pie." She said with the anger obvious from her tone
"Damn it. Can't you dissuade them with your status?" The Verulyim king cursed as he felt his brows furrow with stress.
"I've already tried, Mercer. Your time is up now. I'll have to pick a new candidate." She sighed as she closed her eyes to think.
"But..." Before he could finish his sentence he felt her cold gaze fall upon him again.
"Now scram for me." She said with a voice that sounded as if it came from the nine nether hells. Suddenly the Verulyim king's body was forcibly fused with his aspect and flung off into the distance.
The no longer disturbed Noble Qian went back to tending to plants in peace as she looked off into the horizon.
'You've already reincarnated. Haven't you beloved?' She thought as a sly smile blossomed from her lips. She walked over to a tiny pond near a tree and tapped onto the water surface. At the center of the pool was a revolving white lotus that hummed to the tunes of the great dao.