That night, the heavens seemed still. The stars hung motionless, huge, in eerie quietness. Mortal world, below, the mountains leapt into the sky as silent sentinels - lost behind uncertain veils of climbing mists. But on the utmost sternest part of the land stood a figure in easy clothes, his coming announced by a flash that rent the night.
Li Tian stood at the edge of the cliff, looking out upon the mortal world for the first time in centuries. His golden armor glinted with celestial energy, reflecting the faint moonlight; in his hand, a spear - shaft imbued with divine power - pointed toward the earth below. As a celestial god, he had been chosen to keep order across the realms, but tonight, his mission was crystal clear—purge the world of the darkness festering beneath its surface.
His face was impassive, as always. The god had seen a thousand lifetimes, thousands of worlds born and gone, and had brought justice to the heavens with unflinching precision. But this mortal world, this forsaken world, was different. Corruption and forgotten promises seemed to suffocate it, its people lost in shadows of their own desires.
He had come here to end that.
The earth trembled beneath his feet, and the wind howled with an intensity as if the very realm resisted his presence. Yet Li Tian's eyes never shifted. He had come to do his duty, and no storm would stop him. His mission was clear: find the source of evil poisoning the land and eliminate it.
As he began to step down, his step was light, like the shadowy silhouette of a ghost, hardly touching ground. Every movement was effacing his presence like he was melting into the air itself. Lotus Blooming Steps, the ancient technique that made him move like a shadow through the night. A god of heavens, and to mortals he was no more than a whisper, a fugitive thought in the wind.
The first indication of trouble came when he arrived at the edge of a small village. There was an ominous heaviness in the air, stifling with fear. The people cowered within their homes, doors bolted, windows shut tight, as if the night itself might pierce them open. In the very heart of the village, one man stood, surveying all of them with a watchful eye—Wei Yan.
He had thought the man just another mortal, his aura masked by the layers of shadow around him. But as he drew closer, the faint pulse of darkness beneath his skin grew undeniable. It was the same aura that Li Tian had sensed earlier, in the very core of the land—a malignant energy that had spread like a poison, festering and corrupting everything in its wake.
Wei Yan stood upright, his shoulders stiffened, and his face hid in the folds of his cloak. His hands were clasped at his back; he seemed tranquil, as if such mayhem as surrounded him did not really exist. His eyes, however, buried under the fold of his hood, burned with a perilous intensity. The darkness was there; subtle and powerful and yet quiet, like the whispered seeds of a tempest waiting to break loose.
Li Tian looked at him a moment longer, feeling his bones telling him that there was something there, something that didn't just add up. No ordinary mortal this celestial god could sense that in his bones. He could feel it behind that man-a weight of something ancient, older than any human ought to carry.
Li Tian took a step forward, the air around him crackling with the force of his divine presence. In his mind was the gleam of heaven, his aura like a sun rising from beyond, where night was illuminated. Fateweaver's Fang lit bright in his mind as he thought of binding the man with willpower alone. He would discover the truth behind this stranger: if he were the source of the evil or merely the shell to hold a larger play.
But just before Li Tian could make his move, Wei Yan turned around. Those cold, obsidian eyes lighted up by some pale amber light. A wry smile curved his lips, the first sign of recognition. "I wondered when you'd show up."
Li Tian was motionless, stunned. The mortal felt him-at least he knew he existed. He shouldn't have been able to feel any kind of a celestial god. A mortal wasn't supposed to be able to have that kind of awareness.
Wei Yan strode forward, his wake rippling faintly in darkness. He was tall, and his movements flowed with smooth deliberation. "I take it that you are here to get rid of the universe of me, just as the heavens always do. You are wrong, divine one."
Such words a blow struck upon Li Tian. He knew of the evilness that clung to the man's aura, and so he hesitated to believe that this mortal would even dare challenge him, nor be so free to speak of his intentions, which set a flicker of irritation blazing in his chest.
"What are you?" Li Tian's voice was calm, cutting like a blade that could slice through the night. "A demon, a fallen god? Whatever you are, your existence soils this realm. I will purify it, whether you resist or not."
" And purify, eh? You celestial types love that word. But the truth, my divine friend, is that i am neither demon nor god. I am something. different." Wei Yan's smile grew a little deeper, but there was no malice in it, only a trace of sadness.
He rose and pulled back the cowl of his cloak, revealing a face which was cut out of the heavens and the underworld: sharp features, pale complexion, with the glow of faintly smoking stars in the eyes, such tracings of celestial fire left behind from another time.
Li Tian narrowed his eyes. This was no mere mortal. But what was he? An enemy, or merely a victim of the very evil he sought to destroy?
"I have come here," Wei Yan said quietly, "to die. Or to find redemption - whichever comes first."
Li Tian's mind was reeling, trying to comprehend this all. A fallen creature, a seeker of redemption, yet entrenched in darkness that cannot be denied. He is a man of contradictions, a creature of shadows wanting to step into the light.
"Think you can run from your past?" Li Tian sneered at him. His words were poisoned with disgust. "The shadows you bring can never be erased. No matter how many lives you take, no matter how much you wish to change, you will always be the monster you once were."
Wei Yan's eyes narrowed, and for the first time, the divine aura around him flared as if a wildfire was just waiting to surface. "Perhaps. But i am not going to die a monster. Not today."
The words hung in the air between them like a challenge, a defiance. Li Tian stared at him, his hand tightening around the spear. Was this man a threat, a real one at that, or was he more a lost soul trying to escape a past that would never leave him?
It was in this moment, as tension breathed an uncomfortable weight into the atmosphere, the air filled with the smell of battle and the scent of wavering fates, that Li Tian realized that this mortal before him was very, very much more than he could have ever imagined; he was a test to Li Tian, certainly, but maybe to the fabric of the world itself.
Wei Yan drew slowly back, his hand on the hilt of a sword sheathed at his side. "Then come then, divine one. If you are so sure of your foreordained fate, prove it."
Thus began the word-play—a struggle between light and shadow, redemption and destruction, to be waged across heaven and earth.
The celestial light gleamed in Li Tian's eyes, but across his chest, a small flame of doubt was kindled. This mortal was not just evil to be conquered. He embodied the question: can one understand and know the darkness by seeing through the light?
Perhaps with time the answer would come. But now, the war was inevitable.