At the same time, in a different place, a different world.
A man sat curled up on the cracked and withered ground. His white robes were stained with blood and even though the blood had dried long ago, he did not notice… He tightly hugged a woman who was wearing snowy robes in his arms.
He tightly hugged the woman. His eyes were vacant and he did not move an inch. He resembled a lifeless statue, a bleak and sorrowful painting.
This world was desolate and silent, so no one would disturb them. Time silently flowed by and he did not know how much time had passed. Perhaps it had been a few hours, a few days, or perhaps it had been a few years...
This was until a dry wind started blowing, covering this bleak painting in layers and layers of sand and dust.
Suddenly an emerald green-haired woman appeared and gently knelt beside the man. She stretched out a hand, but the moment she was about to touch the corner of his robe, she slowly pulled it back instead.
"Master," she softly said, "let your master properly rest."
"..." the man did not give any response.
An ice-cold droplet of water fell and landed on her face, causing her to raise her head to look at the sky which had quietly dimmed at some point in time.
As more water droplets started falling, it suddenly started raining in this world which was normally dry and cracked. Furthermore, this rain was growing heavier and heavier, and it turned into a downpour in the blink of an eye.
The violent rain drenched the woman's snowy robes and soaked her long hair, hair which no longer possessed any of that icy light… The man still remained completely motionless, as if he was just a shell bereft of a soul and a sense of touch...
"Master," the green-haired woman's sobbing voice rang out amidst the pouring rain. "Your master has actually always been a very vain person, so she's never been willing to let her hair get messy… especially when she was in front of Master. So… so…"
"..." the man's dim and befuddled eyes started to faintly tremble as the hands which tightly grasped the woman started to silently quake. The woman's figure slowly started to appear in those eyes which had lost their color for the longest time.
The rain was growing more and more violent, crazier, and crazier. Sodden hair blocked his vision and it seemed as if he could not feel the temperature of the rain that was falling on his body. He knelt on the ground and bent his body forward as he very gently and slowly placed the woman's body into the Coffin of Eternity.
His hand trembled as it pressed down on her body and released pale white light cleansing her of all blood stains and dirt while also getting rid of all the rain and dampness on her body and clothes.
When he raised his hand again, the Coffin of Eternity slowly closed up with a gentle ring…
The man, no Yun Che slowly trudged forward as he welcomed the violent rain. His footsteps were stiff and slow.
With a small thud, the tip of his foot tripped over a protruding rock, sending him sprawling heavily to the ground.
His arm heavily smashed into the ground in a contorted position, smacking against the hard stone that had swung out on the cord around his neck…
"Daddy, Wuxin misses you."
"Ah… Wuuu…" It was as if someone was tightly gripping his throat as incomparably hoarse and painful noises leaked out from his mouth.
"Wuuu… Uwaaa…. Aahhh… AAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!"
He was like an evil spirit whose soul had been completely shattered and broken down. He wailed loudly as he screamed hoarsely in despair… He crazily smashed his head against the ground as his arms beat against his own skull in a frenzy...
"UWAAAAAAH!"
"Aaah… Aaaahhhhh…"
"AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH——"
Each wail was more shrill and mournful and it was as if his throat had been completely ripped apart. It was impossible for anyone to imagine what sort of pain would actually cause a person to let out a cry that was even more shrill and miserable than an evil spirit's. Large amounts of blood trailed down his head, arms, and body but he hardly felt any pain as he desperately smashed his head against the ground...
The tears that he thought were already dried up frantically flowed from his eyes like water from a burst dam, and even the pouring rain and splashing blood could not wash them away...
He Ling did not move forward or try to stop him, she merely closed her eyes and silently wept.
After an indeterminate amount of time had passed, his wailing finally stopped. His body lay flat on the ground and he did not move… for a very long time.
The rain continued to pour down, washing away the bloodstains on Yun Che's body.
Another long period of time passed but he still lay there unmoving.
His homeland, his family, his kinsmen, his wives, his daughter, his lovers, his sect, his friends, his fame, his status, his glory...
All of the most valuable and important things in his life… had been lost to him.
"Mas… ter?" She gave a soft cry. She was no longer able to hold herself back and she wanted to rush to his side.
But when she finally took a single step forward, she suddenly froze in place… After that, her legs started to move backward uncontrollably as an indescribable coldness, oppression, and terror assaulted her soul.
"Heh heh… Heh heh heh…"
An incomparably deep and hoarse laugh rang out in the air and it sounded like it came from the depths of an incomparably distant purgatory… Within that puddle of blood, the figure that had lain dormant for a long period of time slowly rose to its feet. It was accompanied by dense black energy that gradually built up… before it started to wildly surge.
"Heh heh… He he he… Hahahahahahahaha…"
Yun Che firmly gripped his own face with his spread fingers and even though his face was being obscured by his palm, the features that could be seen in between those five fingers were utterly sinister and terrifying. Black energy chaotically curled up around his body like countless wildly dancing, bloodthirsty evil spirits.
"No… I am not left with nothing…"
He spoke in an incomparably deep and gloomy voice. This voice had clearly come from a person that was most familiar to He Ling, but it sounded completely foreign and terrifying to her ears. "I still have my life… I… STILL… HAVE… THIS… HATRED… AAAAAHHH!!"
"Hehehe… Ah… HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!"
CRACK!!
A bolt of lightning suddenly fell to the ground without any warning. The deep purple glow of the lightning-caused a pitch-black shadow to appear behind Yun Che… The light generated by that bolt of lightning disappeared but that dark shadow still remained. Instead, it started to contort and twist sinisterly to the sound of his laughter.
[A/N: The Fan-Fic of this chapter starts from here]
The shadow started expanding and enveloped Yun Che till there was no sight of him, but the shadow still continued to expand till what it formed to like a black dome of darkness.
He-Ling was shocked to see what happened and tried to approach it.
But before she could see what happened she was assaulted by an enormous amount of pressure. And because of this, she couldn't take a single step and fell on her knees.
--------------------------------
Damien was floating in an endless sea of darkness. No, it wouldn't be right to call it darkness. Instead, it was the completely empty "void". There were no living beings, no dead beings, no sound, and there was even no time or space.
In this void, He could not sense the existence of anything else. In fact, he could not even sense his own existence.
Where is this place…?
It seemed as if this place only had eternal darkness, eternal emptiness, eternal silence, and he stood at the very center of this empty world. He did not know where he was, he did not know where he was going, and he did not know how he could leave.
But the good thing was that his will still remained and he could still think.
"[ Nothingness ]" Damien suddenly muttered.
It gave Damien a mysterious yet pleasant feeling. He tried to understand it, he tried to comprehend [ Nothingness ] and this bizarre 'feeling' within him.
'Nothingness...what is nothingness? a place where there is neither light nor darkness, neither life nor death, neither time nor space, it is a law from where everything is born and eventually everything turns to nothingness.....
Damien started to comprehend nothingness not knowing that this will be the turning point of his life.