Chapter 5 #2
It was then that he felt a sudden pressure upon his psyche, realizing that there was indeed an end to his journey through the void.
Several endings he could choose from, in fact.
Yet as exciting as this revelation was, he was also filled with the sudden sense that if he didn’t take advantage of the faint tugging he now felt on his soul, he truly would be drifting in endless astral currents until he found himself slipping into a centuries-long doze within the River of Souls.
Rank 8 Qi Perception and extensive past experience have allowed your soul to sense MULTIPLE EXIT POINTS from Ruptured Portal Exit!
Alex’s eyes lit up with hope and sudden desperation in equal measure.
Feeling almost like he had fallen asleep in waters so warm and soothing that it would drown him effortlessly if he didn’t break free of the water and catch his breath NOW!
But it was like someone had covered the top of the water with a tarp.
Panicked, Alex immediately pressed the weight of his psyche against what he sensed were three distinct nearby exit points, but panic turned into surprised disbelief at the interface’s interpretation of each of those doors.
Congratulations! You have successfully found a rift exit resonating with the Path of Prosperity!
Exit this path and dive right into streams of good fortune and perfect serenity as you find yourself swept up in a lifetime filled with warm memories, warmer laughter, sweetest bliss, and the pristine joy of a peaceful life well lived.
If you’ve ever yearned for a path free of the desperate accrual for ever more power, a life free of all woes and regret, then this is the door for you!
(The first of seven pristine lives you have been promised.
For even Shui Jun recognizes the gift you gave her, with the understanding that you STILL owe her Shalu’s heart!
And you’ll be plucking it free of his suppurating body as soon as your 7 sweet lives have run their course, or you can expect nothing but eternal suffering from that moment on!)
What had started as a moment of awed wonder quickly transformed into dismay when it became painfully obvious that stepping through that door would mean starting a new life, putting an end to the wild adventure he had relished, as bittersweet as it had been.
And after coming so close to illumination, so close to remembering all that he had experienced in his most recent incarnations such that his cultivation had ascended at a furious pace with the forging of a pristine super cable that spun like an accretion disk around the singularity that would serve as the mantle for his future core—it would effectively have never been.
But still… to be able to taste sweet halcyon days of joyful innocence and tender moments in the arms of a woman who loved him, cherished him, and would never slip away to tragedy’s clinging embrace…
that alone was priceless. Yet after experiencing countless years wrapped in Shui Jun’s coils, he knew damn well the price of playing his seven-lives card now when a ledger balance still lay between them.
Because after everything he had endured in this life, he sure as hell doubted he’d ever have the strength to endure it again.
Especially not after seven sweet lives where he wasn’t being constantly forged in the crucible of pain and peril.
Which meant that after seven lifetimes to savor for eternity, he’d never ascend past an eternity of suffering.
With a shudder, he turned away from the door, his mind immediately sensing the shape and weight of the next.
Door of Bitter Triumph.
Ready to embrace a world RIPE for your righteous wrath? Then dare to tread past the crimson lintel and embrace your new life.
You will find no allies here.
No heartfelt friends to share your triumphs or mourn your woes.
Instead you will find overweening contempt and Machiavellian plots, intrigue, and treachery worthy of the most celebrated grimdark fantasies of the world you long left behind!
A game of kings and thrones like no other, where even the maidens you save from certain peril will have dirks kissed with blackest poison that are ready to strike, the second your back is turned!
For their cultivation is based on purity alone and absolute contempt for any who dare to look different, act different, speak out of turn, or walk any path other than their own.
Be reforged by their bitter cruelties and twisted cultivation practices and embrace your wrath like never before!
Feel justified in forging the darkest of all the Fox’s bittersweet tales once again and work to destroy not just a single city but an entire WORLD’S twisted tale as you give them ALL the gift of eternal oblivion!
For we all know how the darkest of tales starring the Fox’s Eternal Disciple ultimately end.
Only now, you’re not just claiming their bodies, are you, Alex Hammer Highblood?
And who can blame you?
What idealistic fool would stop with a little bit of blood when you can claim their very SOULS!
All of them.
And a new God of Death shall be forged.
A desperate Alex couldn’t pull himself free of that terrible, awful door fast enough.
Yet much to his dismay, unlike the almost ephemeral door leading to a Path of Prosperity that was so alien to his nature that it would have been a struggle to finally slip through that wondrous portal, the pulsating crimson lintel overshadowing a door of black bitterness and regret drew him in like the event horizon of oblivion itself.
Calling out to a soul that understood it so well.
For all that Alex desperately struggled against the pull, the remembered roars of defiance and shouts of despair echoing and resonating over countless lives pulled him inexorably toward the door that was now as inevitable as slipping past the event horizon of any black hole.
The arrows for time and space had flipped.
Now all directions aimed toward the event horizon of the blackest of ascensions, time itself the inevitable singularity event of a howling Alex crashing into the bitter black destiny that desperate hope and self-delusion had kept at bay for far, far too long.
“Ancient disciple! Please… I know there isn’t a chance in hell you can save us.
I know that boy hiding in plain sight and daring to live yet another one of his wild tales can’t possibly be you.
But if you can hear this message, please save this foolish fox, if you dare.
Or at least protect my kits from the depredations of a Gold monster who would torture and kill us all. ”
Alex felt such a surge of relief and fierce resolve as he latched onto Nili’s voice echoing through the darkness with her desperate prayer, having already formed a connection with the beautiful kitsune woman who now looked far closer to twenty than the hundreds of years she probably was.
A woman with children who needed her. A woman now wearing the weight of a black iron collar around her neck.
As were all her companions, including her husband, if the flash of terror and despair he saw in the kitsune’s haunted gaze was anything to go by.
He struggled for all he was worth to dart his soul along this unexpected tributary, so damn close to the falls that promised a dark ascension he absolutely refused to embrace.
He could almost imagine a dark voice howling in furious dismay…
before realizing it was his own voice. His own darkness hungry for validation, bittersweet mourning, and the destruction of his foes for all time.
Then, between one moment and the next, the terror of that space-warping singularity about to consume him was replaced with a blinding flash of light as Alex collapsed and wheezed desperately for breath.
Tears sprang to his eyes and he gasped as if he had run countless sprints… or just narrowly avoided drowning.
“That was too close,” he whispered to himself, taking a quick look at his character sheet, grateful as all hell to find that the glorious ascension he had dreamed was, in fact, his actual status, and that it hadn’t faded to the memory of a life lived long ago.
Only then did he open his eyes and take in his surroundings, surprised by how comfortable he was before feeling the soft itch of sandy grit against his bare skin, his ears catching the mournful sigh of desert winds as the air smelled of salt and sand and distant sobs and orders roared.
His eyes widened with unmistakable wonder.
Was he really back? Did he actually make it back to the desert before countless years or lifetimes had passed?
Fearing grogginess or trouble, he carefully eyed his surroundings before slowly getting back to his feet. He saw endless desert dunes and a handful of individuals in the distance wearing either black leather armor or underclothes.
His brow furrowed, noting the hunched posture of those stripped of robes, armor, and outer garments, making it painfully clear the nature of the group.
Slaves, and those who would dare to collar them.
Alex’s jaw tightened, feeling like he was waking up after recovering from a bad illness, sweaty and just slightly out of sorts, haunted by fever dreams that he was forced to acknowledge at that moment might have become all too real, had he dared any path save this one.
Saved by a kitsune’s desperate plea.
His nose twitched at the scents of terror, fury, and sacrifice.
He clenched his jaw, summoning his fangtian ji as he carefully eyed what he just knew would be his distant opponents.
Of course that was when the limitations of what was now his favorite movement technique of all time became apparent.
He might be a god of maneuverability in lush jungle canopy, but here in the desert, he was reduced to striding across the sands same as the figures in the distance.
Whatever his strengths, they certainly didn’t include mastery over sand.