"Boss, congratulations on completing the first objective! Reward tim—wait, boss, boss!" The system's voice thundered in Harun's mind, but though he'd regained control of his thoughts, it failed to reach him. Drifting in a whirlpool of black and white strands, Harun closed his eyes, reminiscing the last moments before he dove into the Reincarnation Cycle.
Again, though his body seemed to temporarily belong to another, Harun witnessed all that occurred. Or perhaps he just remembered it. But what he saw displeased him—leaving a sour taste in his mouth.
"Who am I, what am I? Is the course of my existence, the entirety of my struggles, written somewhere on an unalterable stone? My breaths, my encounters, my conflicts, my progress, my resolve, my survival, my emotions and desires, what are they worth?" Harun asked himself, but couldn't find an answer. He could tell himself that past lives and karma had no ties to the current him, but the recent events showed otherwise.
Yet, Harun refused the ties, refused this attachment to worlds, events, existences he had no care for. If the cycle of life and death went on with no end, all possessed a past, and unless destroyed in soul by their enemies, could look forward to a future. Pigs, worms, plants, men, all possessed souls and could exchange places throughout reincarnations—yet didn't have to think of anything but the present.
Perhaps, from the moment he laid eyes on the Life and Death Stele, from the moment he seized the light orb and peered into the Six Incarnations Bridge, all was set in stone. Harun remembered the fake prisoner in his cell, the black-robed youth in the stele, and wondered if the whole 10,000 Sect War wasn't just an excuse to get to him. But then his eyes opened, and his resolve burned anew.
"Be it the Severing or Unyielding Path, those who tread the Six Incarnations Bridge choose their Karmic Links. You cannot force attachment on me if I do not allow it. My name is Harun, and my destiny to complete the Breath of Toxic Realities—no one can take that away from me," Harun said, and closed his eyes. The Breath of Toxic Realities was his, his father and elder brother's dream, a bold yet unrealistic concept the three came up with through drunken talk. Before, Harun kept it buried in his heart. But now that he had the Six Incarnations Bridge to support him, he would see it to the end.
Clearing his mind of thoughts he deemed unnecessary, Harun spiraled down the reincarnation cycle, leaving the darkness above for the light below.
But in a distant land, sitting amidst rainbow-colored clouds, a black-robed youth watched a projection of Harun's last deeds with a lopsided smile, rewinding it to no end. From a distance, several people watched this incomprehensible scene, yet didn't dare butt it.
…
Meanwhile, the Highest Heaven had reached the end of its destiny. Regaining their wits, the Beast Emperors assumed that the peerless expert and Extreme Yin Sir possessed deep connections. Perhaps they were one and the same. In any case, he came to tip the scales in their favor, or so they thought. Without hesitation, they launched a combined assault at Nakula, aggravating his injuries, and forcing him to escape the collapsing Highest Heaven.
The remnants of the Divine Army followed suit, leaving the Highest Heaven's survivors at the mercy of the Monstrous Beasts. Silav and his clan elders split off the Serpent Domain from the Highest Heaven, while Dilnaz did the same to the Divine Palace.
"I don't understand. This used to be a nice place. Get a God-level cultivation and official rank, oppress men and take their women, enjoy glory, splendor, wealth and rank. Rinse, repeat. Wasn't that a good arrangement? Why did our generation have to produce so many psychopaths?"
"First there was Dilnaz. On one disagreement, she directly slaughtered an ancient clan, not even sparing her own elders. Then there was that Son of Heaven, so young yet so devious—directly frying 10,000 people just to protect his eyes, and who knows what he did to the rest!"
"They treat people's lives like dog piss!"
"I just want to bully the weak! Why did they have to make my life so difficult!"
The Highest Heaven's remaining Gods wept in bitterness, yet couldn't escape the fate of becoming Monstrous Beast food. The Serpent Domain and Divine Palace aside, none survived the calamity. With a clan formation set up and reinforced by the succeeding God-Emperors, and a peak Demi-Emperor such as Dilnaz to control it, the Divine Palace stood in an impregnable position.
Likewise, the Serpent Domain didn't fear any assault. In fact, should they choose to meddle with their full force, they could force the Beast Emperors into an immediate retreat. However, they didn't. And so the ancient capital of the Empyrean Dynasty collapsed into ruins and gore.
"How refreshing! In the future, if we have the opportunity, we must thank Extreme Yin Sir," said the World Beast Demi-Emperor, hovering in the cosmos alongside his peers and beast horde.
"That is only natural, and this...is merely the beginning," the White Fox Emperor approved, but at that time, red vortexes formed above the beast horde—announcing Heaven's punishment. Unfazed, the Beast Emperors burst into laughter.
"You have already rejected us. Bereft of support, do you think we still care for your wrath? Brothers, I will restrain this tribulation. Together, let's lead it to the remaining Heavens and ransack all in our path!" The World Beast Demi-Emperor chortled, and raised his right hand, summoning his race's Divine Power: Heaven Smiting.
In pure destructive strength, Heaven Smiting ranked second among Divine Powers, but its true worth lay in its ability to dominate Heavenly Tribulations. Relying on that Divine Power, World Beasts ran amok until the Serpent Emperor's rise drove them into submission. Later on, their weakened state enabled the First and Second Emperors to gradually erase them from the 33 Heavens' history.
If not for Harun recommending that they avoid antagonizing Dilnaz from the get-go to use her strength against Nakula and increase their odds, they would have smashed the Divine Palace first. Still, as he witnessed the ruins and debris drifting in the Cosmos, the World Beast Demi-Emperor felt satisfied.
Bright-red asteroids, each about 150 meters wide, dropped from the vortexes in the thousands, all aiming for the seven Demi-Emperors.
"Heaven Smiting Domain!" The World Beast sheltered his group with a formation of 18, gargantuan white-light blades that sliced off all asteroids in range. Assured of his trustworthiness, the remaining Demi-Emperors led the horde and descended on the Second Heaven. Once ruled by the Dragon clan and robbed of all key resources by Dilnaz, the Second Heaven didn't have any hegemonic force to shelter it, and under the combined assault of the Beast Demi-Emperors and Heaven's punishment, soon turned into a pile of rubble.
Knowing that too much was as bad as not enough, the Monstrous Beasts joined their forces to destroy the Tribulation, then dropped on the Third Heaven's Great Roc clan. A swift battle ensued, ending with the Great Roc clan's destruction. The Monstrous Beasts made the Third Heaven their home-base—bringing the Grand Cataclysm came to an end—at least on the surface.
In the meantime, a youth wandered through the reincarnation cycle. His consciousness fell into torpor, and at some point in time, his face became a mask of white light. His body and limbs followed suit, and after drifting for an unknown amount of time, that light reached the end of the cycle and emerged on the other side.
…
Across the Mortal Realm's 10,000 worlds, in prestige, one stood far above the rest, for the simple reason that it beat the Heavens in one area: mountain size. Known as the Mountain-Edge World, its tallest peak reached 100.25 km, while its mountain ranges could cover other worlds' continents. Needless to say, it also ranked among the largest worlds.
An uncanny place, the Mountain Edge world wasn't divided into continents. More accurately, all the water ran across and around a single supercontinent, never splitting it into several landmasses. However, six mountain ranges separated that supercontinent in isolated domains. Each several times taller than the other, those mountain ranges weren't something anyone could cross because they wanted to. The Mountain Edge World thus took the shape of a pyramid, with the six ranges representing the stairs to the next level. And in the first range's northernmost corner, an outwardly unremarkable swamp drove a small village into near-extinction.
Citizens of the Dark Stone country, the people of the Evergreen village enjoyed a simple and ripple-free life, until a swamp formed in the outskirts, colonizing their forests. How that swamp formed was a mystery. But from it grew eerie blood lotuses that paralyzed and drained the blood of all those unfortunate enough to breathe its pollen. Trees withered, animals grieved, and within three days, the Wailing Swamps, as the villagers came to name it, had decimated all prey in the vicinity—preventing the villagers from hunting meat or harvesting fruits.
Worse, the pollen spread to their herds, nearly destroying their farms and cattle. Forced to relocate, and with taxes to pay at the end of the year, the villagers fell into depression—cursing the heavens for playing such a cruel joke on them. But as their grief reached its peak, a bright column of light descended from the sky, hitting the very middle of the Wailing Swamps.
The light dispersed, revealing a newborn baby whose silent breathing siphoned the toxic pollen, ridding the air of its impurities. As if animated with a mind of their own, the blood lotuses shivered, yet couldn't fight the baby's breathing. Soon, the villagers heard loud wheezing sounds come from the swamps, and while confusion spread among them, their surviving herd rushed into the cursed swamps, forcing the bravest to rush after them.
Realizing that the destructive pollen was gone, the villagers sought the source of this miracle, and found the baby that absorbed all this poisonous essence to save them from calamity. Glowing in golden light, the baby made no sound, but had his hands joined in a prayer sign. Moved, the villagers dropped on their knees and kowtowed in worship. The trees' withering halted. Green leaves grew anew. And as the forest regained its life, a wailing sound came from the retreating swamps—revealing a dark-red, massive toad-shaped beast that seemed to be the source of this disaster.
Infuriated, the demonic toad leaped toward the baby, its elongated tongue lashing out like a whip to strike the miracle down. But as the villagers feared the worst, a serpentine form took shape around the child, becoming a clawed serpent that hurled at the toad, and devoured it with one bite.
"A guardian spirit!" The villagers screamed in tandem, now certain that this child was the incarnation of a spiritual god entering the mortal world. A light column shot toward the sky, and the baby turned into a four-year-old child that sat crossed-legged amidst the forest.
The clawed serpent shrunk to a palm-sized snake, and merged with his back, leaving a clawed-serpent tattoo behind.
The child opened his eyes, and the villagers bowed in complete reverence.
"Greetings, oh Spiritual Lord!"
"Spiritual Lord, thank you for saving us!"
"Lord, our lives belong to you!"
Henceforth, the villagers took the child as their lord and totem, providing him with tributes, devotion and worship—he rejected the first, and 'reluctantly' accepted the rest. Little did they know that behind his holy exterior, he cursed this unexpected twist, "When your rebirth is so overpowered that it actually gives you headaches! How am I supposed to deal with this?!"
Harun thus completed his reincarnation, reaching the natal-stage of the Human Realm in a...disturbingly inhuman fashion.