Time passed quickly. Days became weeks, weeks became months, months became years. Before long, ten thousand years went by.
The first yuanhui since Pangu opened the Primitive World drew ever closer to its finally. A yuanhui lasted for a total of a hundred and twenty nine thousand six hundred years. During the fourth percentile of the first yuanhui, Shenni's true offense finally began.
To the public, Shenni wanted to take the whole newborn universe for himself. For a world with so many untapped recourses, it was a grand act of selfishness that many could not stand. Dozens upon dozens of godfiends opposed what they perceived to be Shenni's goals and resisted his influence.
But Shenni despite his past histories with fellow godfiends did not feel charitable to resistance at all. Beyond all expectations, he began mercilessly executing disagreeing godfiends left and right. Huofei, Leijun, Shaozu, Tutian and dozens of others were killed before their time.
Shenni had unexpectedly rose into the ranks of Great Principle Chaos Immortals already. With the four evils in toe, he was practically invincible. Majority of the other godfiends had only returned to the Great Unity Golden Immortal realm.
Little by little, territory after territory was taken. the North Continent consolidated under Beast Emperor Shenni and the northern areas of the west and east as well. Shenni's approach towards the Central Continent however was halted slightly.
This was as many had realized what a goldmine Mt Buzhou had been as a treasure hunting grand as well as a cultivation environment. As such, many godfiends of differing alignments were willing to visit and stay to protect it. Shenni's forces were in the minority to begin with, he had to expend time and resources to combat these individuals.
Especially so as other Chaos Immortals began becoming annoyed with him. The mighty emperor of the four seas Si Hai chief among them. Things became bloodier and bloodier as time went on. The Primitive World was slowly transitioning from a land of predator and prey to a land of warring gods.
But throughout all this time, within the relatively quiet East Sea. A gargantuan white lotus flower sat at the bottom of the ocean. It possessed twelve peals each laying out flat. These petals resembled islands in and of themselves and when no innate creature could accurately perceive their full appearance. Every time they tried, they'd experience a disorientating feeling telling them to, 'go away'.
Tian Hai lay in his true form curled up within the heart of the white lotus. Each of his heads were tucked onto each other. His reptilian eyes were only half open and he didn't appear to be able to focus on anything. His spongy yellow mane floated aimlessly in the water and was the only kind of movement coming from his body.
Tian Hai remained motionless for a very very long time. To him, it was the only way for him to find peace. No thought, no interruption, no nothing. Truthfully Tian Hai found such a way of living to be worthless. Yet it was the only way he was able to remain at comfortably peace. He didn't even refer to himself as Tian Hai anymore.
Throughout the years, despite his best efforts Tian Hai still had yet to surpass the Golden Immortal realm. No matter what he tried, no matter how deeply he reached within himself he still could not form the great unity. The important platform needed for the cosmic tree to sprout just would not come to him.
'Even after all these years, I am still failing.' Tian Hai's feelings on the matter could only be described as depressed. He failed time and time again unable to live up to Huoyun's expectations. Just dwelling on his brother and former caretaker made him feel even more horrible about himself.
Tian Hai felt so lost. He wasn't even aware of much of the ongoings in the wider world having taken Huoyun's advice to keep out of it. At least it was something he could do right. Not even the purifying affects of the white lotus could help him much with his issues.
Movements of water continuously brushed past the eight headed snake's scales. They felt soothing to his scales. Today, they felt especially chilly. Not in a bad way, in fact they felt compatible to his aquatic nature. Tian Hai's eyes slowly trailed upwards.
'It's night time.' He starred through millions of kilometres worth of seawater towards the night sky. He'd always found the image of the Starry Skies beautiful. But he didn't dwell on them for they were just so far away.
'Stars. They're useless in this era. It's not until many yuanhui later that the Heavenly Courts could take full advantage of them.' Tian Hai closed his eyes and tried to meditate. What he thought was most important now was resolving the issues of finding harmony within himself. Something was keeping him from forming the perfect great unity, he just knew it.
Days passed.
Each night Tian Hai felt the strange chill of the water. Each night, Tian Hai felt more and more annoyed by the bothering feeling. So after the sixth day, he finally perked up.
The stars were out again tonight with not a cloud in the sky. The full moon made its appearance showcasing the radiant light of the most high Lunar Star.
"This feeling. It's the pure essence of the Lunar Star. Has it leaked through to the Great Wilderness?" Tian Hai was alarmed. Such an event shouldn't be possible. The barrier separating the Starry Skies and the Great Wilderness had blocked such passages for ages now. That was unless reality was becoming weaker.
Tian Hai tilted his head and reached out with his divine sense. His nascent soul surged with power and his three flower crowns spun above his head. His senses reached to the peak of what he could manage and Tian Hai tried to process the information he analyzed from the environment.
"Aftershocks," he murmured. In that moment he realized that more battles had been going on in his absence from the Great Wilderness. Continuous fighting that had weakened the Great Wilderness' dimensional barriers bit by bit.
Tian Hai forced his body to rise out of the water. The 12 Petals White Lotus closed up beneath him and shrunk before entering his pocket dimension. with wriggling movements, Tian Hai swam through the ocean and out to the surface.
THOOM!
Water splashed all over the place as Tian Hai emerged. All eight of his heads starred up at the same time towards the blinding Lunar Star.
"It's just like looking at the sun. Well Solar Star as its known as. It's not like the rocky ball of earth's moon at all. It's an entire star in and of itself of equal size and power to the Solar Star."
Like a helium balloon, Tian Hai floated out of the water. "Wait a sec, why am I?" Tian Hai closed his eyes and communed with the world around him in an attempt at divination.
His sudden motion shocked him but he already had an inkling to what was going on. In many novels he'd read, the protagonist would be described as sensing items or places with cause and effect with them. This was karma at work and leads the protagonist to major encounters.
Was it possibly he'd sensed some relation with the essence of the moon and unconsciously moved? It was possible, Tian Hai did not understand many things about himself even now. But with more concentration, Tian Hai did identify a premonition.
"There's potentially an encounter for me in the Starry Skies," Tian Hai concluded. "A fortuitous one or…no I can't be too negative." His heads tilted to the side and he groaned. His headaches were no longer dulled and even that little decision making sent a few dizzying waves through his mind.
After al while it passed. Tian Hai took a few breaths before casting his qi. He rose quickly though the sky until his tail was out of the water and transformed. Gone was his serpentine form and out came his humanoid Dao body.
He still resembled a child but he was a bit older then before. Now he resembled a boy just on the into of his teens. Tian Hai starred upwards at the sky contemplating wether he should or not.
On one hand, Huoyun told him to hide and stay safe. But on the other, this nagging feeling that he'd encounter an opportunity in the stars made it tempting for him to visit the world above the Great Wilderness.
"It should be fine right? In this way, I could discover something to help in my cultivation."
Tian Hai stepped through the air and rose even higher. With a burst of speed, he ripped through the air millions of kilometres into the air. Tian Hai moved around searching for places where reality was especially weak.
It took another three months but Tian Hai finally gave up on searching for weak spots. The far east was ultimately very far away from major conflicts and as such the strength of dimensional walls here was still stronger then the rest.
Despite that, Tian Hai punched into reality itself. His strikes was both quick and powerful carrying the full might of a Golden Immortal. In several strikes, Tian Hai managed to create punctures through reality.
CRACKLE!
CRACKLE!
CRACKLE!
Tian Hai raised his fingers and dragged them through the small cracks he made. Splinters of reality broke off like glass pieces. Was he did so, Tian Hai expanded the rift he made. The air from the void between realms blew across his face and entered the Great Wilderness. However this time it was not as violent as Tian Hai had encountered before in the west.
"Here goes nothing," Tian Hai said as a portal was created before him. It wasn't very stable but it'll manage. Tian Hai entered the void and began traveling towards the Starry Skies.
Traveling through a void that was relatively calm was very much different from when it was violent. No spatial tides were attempting to tear him apart. The only rough movements of void currents were the ones Tian Hai made from his own movements.
In roughly twelve years, Tian Hai crossed the borders and made it to the Starry Skies' edges. The dimensional barriers that held the realm in one piece was directly above the Great Wilderness. In fact, far off in the distance Tian Hai could vaguely perceive Mt Buzhou's peak acting as a stand for the world of stars.
Nevertheless, Tian Hai followed through with his instincts. He punctured the barrier and entered the Starry Skies. And he was immediately assaulted by copious amounts of rich primordial qi of the stellar variety.
Three hundred and sixty five gargantuan celestial bodies littered throughout this cosmos. Though these seemed few in number, each of these stars were billions of kilometres in radius alone. They were not just massive, they also carried incredible amounts of qi within their spiritual roots making each star a holy land for cultivation.
Cultivating by absorbing qi was useless to Tian Hai but he wagered mortal creatures whenever they appear in the future will find these places extremely valuable. Looking around, Tian Hai began wondering the stars chasing the threads of karma leading him to his opportunity.
The Starry Skies was very different from the Great Wilderness. It was not a singular landmass but rather resembled space as humans knew it. All things within the dimensional barrier was submerged in a type of water. This stellar water was both heavy but also extremely powerful.
But one would not be able to identify they were within liquid within the Starry Skies. It was another quality of the stable ocean which held the stars.
Tian Hai as a water based deity could feel the rich essence littered throughout his surroundings even as he traveled from location to location. Though he appeared to by flying through the depths of space, in reality he was more or less swimming through an ocean of stellar water.
The threads of karma guiding him to opportunity were getting easier and easier to sense. Even Tian Hai had long realized his destination. It was one of the minor stars littered around the orbit of the great Lunar Star. A celestial body covered in ice and sat within the moon's shadow.
Strangely though, Tian Hai encountered no living beings. Unlike the Great Wilderness which was littered with life, the environment of the Starry Skies had yet to produce any living creatures. It could be the qi dense nature of the Starry Skies, or simply that time wasn't right. But frankly, the darkness of space was disturbingly silent. For all Tian Hai knew, he was the only living being currently in the stars.
"It's so quiet," Tian Hai mused as he descended towards his designated star. The ice far below him encased the true might of the star. But even from a distance millions of kilometres away, Tian Hai knew that if he punctured the ice and entered its core, he'll die painfully.
These stars easily surpassed Golden Immortals. The amount of raw power in them was staggeringly high. Tian Hai could only loiter around the surface for the sake of his own health. He desperately wished his opportunity wasn't to actually dive into the star.
What Tian Hai didn't know what that another silvery shadow had noticed him and began trailing behind him.
…
Walking on the surface of what was essentially a planet wasn't much different from walking the flat earth that was the Great Wilderness. Though he called it a star, that was only its name as designated by their grouping. Tian Hai didn't think much of it, to ancient societies stars and planets were the same thing. In the cultivation world it was similar enough as well.
The innate god was unaffected by the chill in the air. His robes however began gathering bits of frost as he walked through the land. Tall mountains of ice surrounded him and the floor was rough and uneven. There was little to break the monogamous dull blue that was this environment.
Tian Hai found no beauty within this star. It was more like a dead husk then a living breathing environment. He decided he wouldn't like living here.
That was the thing, the Starry Skies was cold. Not in a literal sense but in the sense that it was such a barren lonely land. Nothing existed beyond slowly moving stars and the surfaces of these stars were all monogamous. It was such a dull existence.
Tian Hai kept searching. After several more days of walking, he encountered a strange sight he'd never expected to find before. A pool of clear water. So clear in fact that it blended in with the ice and Tian Hai would've been non the wiser if he had not noticed the discrepancies in energy readings.
His eyes widened as he squatted down and dipped his palm in. The water was gentle on his skin and carried with it the raw essence of life. It was so great in fact that Tian Hai thought it superior than the life giving aura that was a side affect of Huoyun's cultivation.
It was a pool of water that had destiny with Tian Hai and he wouldn't be one to say no to that. But
"Who would've expect that such a lonely place."
"Found what you were looking for?"
'FUCK!' Tian Hai whirled around and fell back. He would've tripped into the water if a slender hand had not gripped his own.
The voice who'd startled him, was feminine. The the person had him in their grasp and Tian Hai released a gasp at seeing another person in the stars. This woman was extremely beautiful with long flowing black hair that seemed to dance in the air. Atop her head was an ornate phoenix crown with beads handing off to the side of her head.
She wore a long ornate set of robes that looked more fitting for a ruler then just another run of the mill immortal. Despite her beauty, Tian Hai only felt fear. Because the aura he was sensing did not belong to that of a Golden Immortal, it was a Great Unity Golden Immortal at least.
"Well I wouldn't dispute lonely, that does not mean my Starry Skies are devoid of wealth," she said with a cheeky smirk. "Speaking of, what do you think you're doing robbing from my Starry Skies?"