At the peak of a cliff sat a weirdly dressed young women.
The young woman was so thin that she looked no different from skin plastered on top of a skeleton, but still she wore a monastic robe probably ten sizes too large for her. She looked like a child wearing her parent's clothes, but there was nothing humorous about her.
Although her comedic appearance would cause her to stand out, yet no one had dared to make fun of her for centuries, since she was a Great Devil. A powerhouse of the Nascent Soul realm, this young woman was one of the few loose cultivators to reach such a realm.
Loose cultivators were cultivators that lacked an organisation, most likely due to a lack of talent or a lone-wolf personality. For this reason, cultivation for loose cultivators was much more difficult. Without powerful seniors or bountiful resources to support them, making someone as powerful as this young woman one of the few exceptions.
The young woman took out a jade compass from within her robes, most likely a powerful Spiritual Artifact, activating it with her immortal Qi. In seconds the compass enlarged ten thousand times, covering the sky itself.
The hands of the composed spun crazily in all directions as if gone, creating a hurricane their speed. Clouds started to form around the skies as blasts of lightning started to strike the compass. After every strike the power of lightning continued to become more powerful, reaching such a level that the noise from the thunder alone would make a mortal go deaf.
Rather than dispersing, the lightning remained dormant on the compass until a sea lightning gather on top of the compass.
"Ctshhhhhhhhhh…", a shrill scream could be heard from the compass as a sea of lightning formed and dispersed. This was all until the sea of lightning morphed, forming a gigantic dragon formed of lightning.
The young woman seemed unphased as she presented the dragon made of lightning with a floating drop of blood. After ingesting the blood, the lightning dragons howled as if it had been burning from within.
"Haaaaaaah!" The lightning dragon's bolts turned red as it looked with great anticipation towards North, similar to a hound dog finding a scent.
Climbing on top of the lightning dragon, the young women and the dragon flew towards their prey, turning the cliff site into rubble. The young women was known by many by only one moniker, the Great Lightning Abyss Devil.
…
"Ahhhhhhh….End me of my misery! I beg of you!"
Great screams spread throughout the night. At the location of a seemingly barbaric tribe, filled with tribesman wearing beast-skin clothing and bone necklaces, a great celebration was commencing.
Children giggled as they played with their playmates, while elders passed on great stories of legendary heroes to huddled about families. The smell of juicy meat and decadent fruit permeated throughout the tribe. A large fire at the center of the village kept everyone warm, giving to them the greatest of gifts.
This celebration would be seen fondly by many, an event filled with joy and rest, but there was one thing that set this celebration apart from most others.
Inside the fire, the very source of peace for the village, was a man burning alive. With stakes piercing his arms and legs, all he could do was cry in pain.
Yet the entire tribe seemed to ignore his presence, going on with their celebration. It was almost as if they couldn't see him, but of course they could.
At the position of honour for the tribe, a seat left for the shaman of the tribe, sat a small boy with a blank expression. Through Spiritual Arts and Pills cultivators could change their appearance, but this wasn't the case for the boy. This was something far more sinister.
It was said that the great Shaman of this secular tribe was a legendary being, a god walking among men. He was capable of slaughtering even the most powerful of beasts that controlled the seas and skies, without even the hint of a scratch in injuries.
Except there was one weakness this mythical hero possessed, that every thirteen years his body would slowly rot. There were many theories about the reason for this, some said it was a curse by one of his wretchedly evil enemies or that his power was so great that no body could hold it. One thing was clear, that he had never commented on it himself and the villagers didn't dare to ask.
Whatever the reason may be, the only solution that the great shaman ever told his people was the possession of a young child after the destruction of his body. After the possession, the chosen child would eat the burned up corpses of his family members.
Although vile in nature, the tribesman of the obscure tribe saw it as more of an honor than a cruelty. That is unless there own family was to be chosen.
Sitting calmly in front of his tribe, the petit boy was presented with the charred bodies of his family members. The expression of cries and screams forever frozen on their burned up corpses, a symbol of their last moments.
The boy dug into the bodies, each bite larger than the other. It was as if he was having feast fit for kings. Every time he remembered who he was eating he would convulse, but each time he would swallow them even deeper down his throat. All until there were only two charred skeletons left.
Each celebration the sacrificial child would somehow eat even more meat than on his own body, yet no one questioned it, contributing it to the mystical power of the great shaman.
After a few moments of digesting, the boy looked back at his village. They all stared at him with eyes brimming with admiration, like he was the most important thing in their lives. He couldn't bask in their love though, since at that very moment a dark smoke started to cover his eyes.
The next thing the boy saw was a world full of darkness. He didn't see his tribe nor anything else mildly resembling life. That is except for a giant beast that slowly revealed itself in front of him.
The beast gave the boy a beastly grin, revealing a hundred layers of moon-white sharp teeth in its spine-chilling mouth. The beast was so vile that not even words could describe it. The last thing the boy ever saw was the beast open its mouth so wide that it seemed like it could take a bit out of the whole world.
From that moment the Great Shaman of that tribe was reborn. A being feared throughout the Corpse Dragon Continent, the Great Beast Devouring Devil.
…
There existed many Forbidden Lands throughout the Corpse Dragon Continent that only the most powerful or foolish dared to venture in. One of these was the Eternal Moon Graveyard, a land of night where a giant moon ruled the sky.
It is said that anyone that dares to enter this graveyard would turn mad from the whispering of Evil Gods. There existed no inherent threats in the graveyard like other Forbidden Areas, but rather mental foes.
There are legends of powerful Core Formation Experts leaving the graveyard with legendary materials like Blessed Star Grass or even Demon Crow Mushroom, only for them to go horribly mad. Scratching their own skin off until they becomes heaping gores of flesh and bone, sights only thought of in the most terrifying of children's nightmares.
At the center point of the Eternal Moon Graveyard sat a legendary Divine Tree, the False Moon Tree. The tree stood thousands of feet tall, with its branches piercing the sky itself. The leaves on the tree resembled ashes themselves, always appearing on the verge of breaking apart. At the head of the tree laid an enormous injured demonic eagle, its blood painting, no staining the tree a crimson red. The tree's branches were also under constant barrage by four mysterious stags, each constantly attempting to devour the seemingly indestructible tree with great madness in their eyes. The False Moon Tree had three main roots, each with tales surrounding their existence. As legend has it, all three of the roots were roads to legendary realms. The rightmost one to the stomach of a living True Divine Dragon, the leftmost one to the Heavens and the center root, the namesake of the tree, to a fake moon that housed the origins of pain itself.
Whether the legend of the roots are true is up to debate, but what is certain is that the tree is not something to be messed with.
Sitting at the bottom of the tree was a hunched up old man. Two long horns similar to that of a rams protruded from his head, bending slightly backwards. The old man seemed unaffected by the terrifying tree, as if he were a part of tree himself.
The old man just sat quietly under the tree, with his eyes closed and his head rested on the ground. Motionless, no different from a corpse. All seemed to be in place for the ancient man, but for a reason that was unclear he decided to open his eyes for the first time in a thousand years.
His pearly pupils contained the stars, with a voracious smile covering his face. As the man stood up, the scene in the tree became even more chaotic, with stags becoming even more maddened and the eagle bleeding even more profusely.
The Great Wicked Moon Devil had just awoken.
…
The red sky cried in it's sorrowful wake. Screams echoed in their blasphemy, running through a disastrous defeat. Beasts and demons, each lords of their own epoch contributed to the river of blood. A war zone filled with misery stood in the middle of nowhere.
Bodies as large as mountains laid decapitated in their former splendor, a stench of decay and shit rotting the nostrils of all who beheld the scene. Although some still possessed a few breaths of life, the corroding poison of war made their fates almost forsakened. Doomed to moan in their last moments, to withstand a final misery before their potential, no certain demise.
At the forefront of the battle, only one man remained standing. Haggard in his appearance, with a scabbing and near fatal appearance, this remaining warrior was the final victor of a battle that had cost many. Not just in the lives that were stolen from the world that day, but in the implications it would have for those in the present and future.
The haggard man cradled a baby within his bristle arms, the moans of war drowning out its cries.
"Quiet child, the night will soon be over."
That man would not live past the day, his name being Great Devil Liu.