Zhong An grabbed at the fmes. The brazier on the other side of his secluded cultivation hall snapped back and forth. It transformed into a Long Dragon. Roaring to show its incredulous might. A shadow of who Zhong An had been.

  Being in seclusion for the past eighty years had not done good for his old bones. Body struggling to stay together in one single piece. He felt like an old puppet that had a forgetful puppet master. It took conscious effort just to keep his body from failing due to old age.

  Complex balls of Qi threads wrapped around and inside him. A facade of what had once been indomitable strength.

  If his enemies had known his state today. The conditions he lived in.

  Zhong An closed his eyes and grit his teeth. He could imagine the fmes they called their own burning them to the ground. Buildings colpsing as foes tore through them. Sughtering all his sons and daughters. Killing his elders and disciples.

  Vultures! Hyenas! All of them!

  Even his own kin and progeny would see him in a grave had they a choice on the matter. The majority wondered when he would finally keel over and die. He could see their scheming eyes and taunt forces ready for battle. Preparing for the day he died.

  Seeing their eagerness and unwillingness to hide their greed only drove him to struggle harder. Break through into the Heavenly Sage realm!

  Couldn’t they have the propriety and shame to hide their leaking killing intent in my presence?!

  How many would need to be sughtered for the coming Zhong civil war? Would his cn make it out of this dark tumultuous time? Did they not see Zhong enemies gathering their forces? Preparing their strength and armies to tear them limb from limb?

  Could they be any more blind?!

  Instead of providing for their brethren. Bettering the sect as a whole against the world that would see them destroyed. No. Each one wanted to be the patriarch. False leaders no one would ever respect. It wasn’t a title to be inherited. Passed down to the mightest Zhong of every generation. Not who could collect the most allies and strongest forces.

  Zhong An could feel his jaw chatter and creak.

  Those unfilial. Undeserving. Wretches!

  He coughed covering his mouth with a palm. Chest burning and lungs ached from century old injuries. He could feel hot liquid leak from the corners of his mouth. Looking down only showed him a palm covered in blood, pieces of his lungs torn to shreds.

  Time was disappearing faster than he could keep track of. Yet he was too close to the next rank to give up. Five hundred years he purified his core for this. Five hundred more he gathered strength and Qi to break through the mountainous peak of the next realm.

  Every moment he cultivated only brought him closer to his ultimate goal.

  Zhong An could only hope he had enough time to kick down that imperceptible wall. Never a question of power for him. It was always an issue of whether he had enough moments as he crawled to his destination.

  He felt the thick Qi in his Pinnacle Immortal Core circute. Liquid fmes surged in his gss core. The signature of his rank and cn. Fire was their oppressive domain. This Liquid core the ultimate strength he had ruled with. An iron fist among the righteous. Bane of their demonic ilk.

  Strength filled his limbs. Memories of the time he had been the very peak of the Liquid realm. A long time ago—

  Zhong An jumped in his meditation cushions. Startled. His head whipped to the right. Eyes searching the distance, piercing through the array formations and walls. All built to keep unwanted eyes out and aid his own secretive scrying.

  The fabric of the world shook. Space a thousand miles away shifted back and forth. The disturbance was so powerful he couldn’t pinpoint its epicenter accurately. Only a vague idea of where it was currently occurring.

  Had a true monstrosity from the void entered their pne? The st recorded instance had required the entire world to form a coalition. Every single righteous immortal, demonic cultivator, dragon, beast, and demented creature. All to fight a single tentacled entity that had come to destroy them.

  If the records were to be believed, said coalition had almost faltered in the end. Barely squeezing a pyrrhic victory in the end.

  He paled as the first cracks appeared. Shaking as he watched the sky rending phenomena happen before his eyes. A cw erupted into reality. Tearing a hole in the fabric of reality. Zhong An crawled backwards. A second cw wrapped around the jagged edges of the ripped space. Scaled fingers flexing as they widened the gap.

  It was then that he got a sense of scale. A maw that dwarfed a surrounding mountain forced its way into their world. Snout of red glistening scales and sharp teeth exposed due to a ck of lips. A dragon.

  Zhong An could not miss the stump of a leg. The look of hate and arrogance that dripped from its primal being. Its long body kept coming out of the rift. Growing longer and longer, wrapping above in the sky like a coil. Dark clouds followed its wake. Thunder ripped the nds asunder.

  It roared to the skies. A warning to any and all that dared listen to its terror.

  His grip on his Qi wavered. The pitiful, tiny fire dragon he had made over the furthest brazier flickered and disappeared with his grip on the Qi. Zhong An struggled to get a hold of himself and the threads that kept him in one piece. Alive—

  “God above. We are doomed,” Zhong An whispered as another dragon made its way out of the portal. Wrapping around a mountain in its entirety.

  Then a third appeared. Four. Five. Six.

  One void being was enough to nearly bring the world to its knees. Six? That was a guaranteed execution. It was merely a formality at this point. A question of when these beasts, all clearly affiliated, decided to stop the farce that was this world’s defiance and the existences on it.

  All six mythical creatures turned. Lowering their gargantuan heads low. Zhong An watched as clear emotions crossed their visages. Had he not been so old and mentally strained, Zhong An would have thought it was fear they felt.

  He forced himself to stand. Burning precious Qi that could have been used to push closer to the breakthrough. It was a mighty struggle of popping and buckling knees, snapping and cracking spine, and a final bout of dizziness. The st time he stood had been nearly a decade ago. Busy in his secluded mediation.

  Fmes surged from the floor. Zhong An stepped through them, reappearing in the sky above the nds and city of his people. He waved his hands. Large sigils appeared in the sky around him, activating ancient arrays and even rger barriers. Each one he had built with meticulous precision and intent.

  Made to st an apocalypse.

  The progeny of his loins appeared behind him. With them appeared all his elders too.

  “Father?” His first born son approached him. Cautious. “Is everything fine?”

  Zhong An ignored him. He dared not let his eyes roam from the rift thousands of miles away. Something was coming and he wanted to see what the hell had six mythical dragons shivering like berated children. Whatever it was, it could not have been good.

  “—old man finally senile—“ His fifth son whispered to his confidants.

  The first continued to press for information. “Father?”

  “Silence!” The first Elder of the Zhong Cn appeared. “You all are too weak to see!”

  Elder Zhong Ping was the closest to Zhong An in power. And was the primary perpetrator of this whole war for dominance. Whispering promises and oaths to his children. Riling them up for battle and to prepare for a fight for his seat as Patriarch.

  They all shut their mouths after his decration. One more worried than the st.

  Zhong An would kill his first Elder the moment he surpassed the Pinnacle Immortal Realm. He could not allow this man to sow chaos among his children. Allow this situation to happen once again. A great purge would eliminate the evil air that permeated their sect; primed for much bloodshed.

  If needed, he would spawn a new generation of children. He only needed to get to work.

  That had been the pn—

  Zhong Ping gasped. Floating next to Zhong An.

  “Oh heaven. Have mercy on your sinful child!” Zhong An prayed for the first time in his life. His pursuit had always been to defy his fate. Reach heights he was not destined for. And now he had nowhere to go except to heaven for prayer.

  Bck lightning cracked around the rift. Scorching the air and tearing the nds around it apart. Both Zhong An and Ping reeled back as they were hit by a force of pure unadulterated Great Dao.

  The dragons bowed. Trembling before a shadow that descended upon mortal nds. Static interference and the sheer pressure the dragons exuded by merely existing made it impossible to y eyes on the figure. But he could say it was human. Hands holding onto a mighty spear.

  Hair stretched behind and above it. Three times its height. Robes that fluttered in the air. A sleeping form in a meditative pose. Power rippled from the figure, pulsing from the unconscious body. The dragons flinched with every wave that passed them. All six struggled to keep their heads up.

  It opened its eyes. Releasing a powerful bst of Qi that ravished Zhong An’s senses. For a moment, he floated in nothingness. The next he was being held by his elders. Body limp, eyes and meridians burned, his cultivation struggling not to colpse.

  I’m not worthy to see… I…

  The dragons and figure disappeared. The world returned to normal. The scarred nds would heal, rift had already disappeared, clouds moving away and breaking apart. No figure remained to herald their doom. As if it had all been a nasty nightmare that he would wake up from. Something harkening back to his mortal days.

  His eyes drifted back to Zhong Ping who was being held up by his fifth son and entourage. His ruined eye twitched uncontrolbly.

  “Zhong Ping,” An said, pushing away the help. They had the same look of terror on their faces. “There will be no Zhong Cn to fight for if I don't reach the Heavenly Sage realm. There will be no Zhong Cn if you do not follow me right after."

  The man nodded. “I saved elixirs,” he coughed blood into his hands. Wiping it on his robe. “Elixirs, heavenly spirit pnts, and pills for my eventual breakthrough. You will need them urgently.”

  Slimy bastard! I could have used them half a century ago!

  “Zhong Ping!” His fifth son shouted. His entourage threw Ping from their arms. “You dare renege on your Oath! What happened to the virtues of the Ancient Dao—”

  Zhong An disappeared from his spot. Reappearing in front of his unfilial child. He smacked him. Even in his old and decrypt state, he had more than enough power to ruin this pitiful and insolent child. Only his undying love and devotion to his te mother kept him from it.

  “Know your pce.” He said.

  All the princes and elders stared in shock. None of his spawn had ever been reprimanded much less beaten or scolded harshly. For Zhong An to sp his most beloved child had them gulping in fear. Anyone of them could have been blood paste on the ground, dead, rather than the simple sp the fifth received.

  The fifth prince bit his lip. Tears bubbled at the edges of his eyes. But he did not cry. The idiot was at least a hundred and fifty years old and was still a child. Immature and negligent. Irresponsible. His blind followers rushed to his side crying in his stead. Pulling him away to their private sectors and residences.

  “Martial w will be in pce henceforth!” Zhong An’s voice echoed on the entire mountain. Every single Zhong cnsman heard his words in their ears as though he was next to them. An array he was quite proud of. “No one is to leave the seclusion of our mountain. None shall leave without explicit permission. No one is to contact the outside world. If you fall behind in cultivation… You only have yourselves to bme for my harshness.”

  Every prince rushed away to their own residences. New pns and plots Zhong An was determined to crush with impunity. There was no more space for patience and the hope he would make it to the next greater realm. Only two choices remained for them.

  Get in line. Or die outside of it.

  His elders all gathered around his First Elder. Questioning what had happened, hoping to gain an understanding. Zhong An could see how they paled. The tremble in their limbs. Any time Zhong Ping and An had started working together, it meant the destruction of their cn was close. A critical point that forced them to put away their differences.

  Zhong An nodded.

  Good. We will need every bit of help we can get. Even if it means my insufferable first cousin would survive for another day.

  Zer0n1gh7s