"Why won't you die already!" the Emperor roared, his golden armor flaring like a dying sun as he surged skyward.
From ten meters above, he swung down with relentless finality, his sword bleeding gold light as he released a crescent-shaped golden aura that snapped through the air, shrieking like a banshee unleashed.
But general Zai didn't flinch.
He couldn't afford to.
He watched as the launched attack zoomed towards his direction, cutting through the air with a whistling hiss while unfolding an unbearable amount of pressure.
The air warped under the speed of it, a golden comet on a collision course with his very existence.
Then, he shifted. Left foot rooted. Hand out. Grip tight.
He swept his flaming ice sword outward and up in one fluid motion, an act not of defense, but defiance.
The blade released a milky, flaming arc, neither ice nor fire, but both.
It pulsed with a breathless, hungry stillness, the quiet fury of a blizzard wrapped around the soul of a star.
This was his cultivation signature technique. His life's greatest creation. His legacy. Something he had been perfecting ever since he abandoned his mother's breasts.
Aura met aura midair, forcing a silence in the air for a moment, as if time itself had been freezed, and then:
CRACK!!
The golden radiance shattered into thousands of pixels stardust, dissipating with the whispers of a failing god.
Zai's aura surged on, striking the Emperor square in the chest and lifting him to the air like a broken puppet.
He was flang backwards across the forest, breaking every single tree that he collided with; one... Two... Three... And more, and landing to nobody knows where.
But victory had a price.
Cough!
Spatter!
Zai dropped to one knee, the taste of metal sharp on his tongue as he coughed out a dark black blood full of toxic essence.
His sword trembled in his grip like it, too, felt the poison worming its way toward his core. They couldn't even dare to fight him fairly. How could they?
They perfectly understood general Zai's strength and thus use some cheap tricks of poisoning him, hoping to weaken his before sending his soul to deepest of the abyss.
"I'm... running out of time," he murmured while feeling his strength.
Inside his body, chaos echoed loudly. The toxin clawed through him, trying to peel soul from spirit as his cultivation root flickered in protest, unstable, fragments threatening to collapse at any moment.
He knew what it meant. He had to stop fighting or there'd be no rebirth for him if he fell. No godhood. No second breath beneath the celestial gates. After all, he was just an immortal, and reincarnation is only granted to the gods.
But then, if he surrenders, they would take it, his soulpath, his foundation, his truth, his hard work. Everything he'd nurtured, refined, and poured his spirit into. They'll take it, not to study, not to honor, but to consume.
This was the reason he had to keep fighting even with his energy depleting at a rapid rate. The poison had already inflicted too much damage, and if they'd they'd dare to take away his cultivation root, something deeply connected to his soul, then he'd should die, forever.
"Not... while I breathe." He struggled to speak between his heavy breaths, with life fading out of him at a really heaven breaking speed.
But before he could even have a chance to recuperate, the wind suddenly called to him with the faint hum of blades that were dashing towards his direction.
He twisted with a perfected reflexes and the instincts of survival, and from the corner of his eyes, seven icy daggers shimmered into view, hurtling toward him from the shadows like whispers of death.
Zai planted his sword into the earth and throw all of his weight on it,
Bang.
And like a spring, it vaulted him skyward, spinning; once, twice, again, narrowly slipping through their icy pursuit.
The trees behind him screamed and froze after being struck by the daggers, splintering into crystalline shards from just a mere simple contact with them..
His boots touched ground, and like any other skilled warrior, his Instinct screamed for him to counterstrike.
He raised his sword.
Then—
Clang.
It suddenly slipped from his hand, its weight overwhelming Zia's shaking hands.
The poison had took talk on him, forcing him to collapsed while coughing out more dark toxic blood
His lips parted with a ragged gasp. The poison had reached his cultivation root, and he felt it quaking beneath his ribs like a dying star.
From across the ruin, a voice of victory purred.
"Zai, Zai, Zai..."
She walked with grace wrapped in sin; snow-white hair, blood-red lips, and eyes like frozen skies. The Empress, coming from the opposite direction of the fallen Emperor.
"If only you had accepted my daughter's hand," she cooed, tilting her head.
The Empress possessed a beauty so extraordinary, legends whispered that it could incite wars among empires.
Her skin was a flawless alabaster, luminous in the light, its glow amplified by the cascade of silver hair tumbling like moonlit silk to the small of her back. Her eyes, piercing and pale, shimmered with the brilliance of a polished aquamarines, as if carved from the heart of a glacier.
She wore a snow-white one-piece dress that embraced her form like a second skin, accentuating every graceful curve.
The fabric shimmered subtly with her every movement, baring her slender arms and revealing long, elegant legs that could test the devotion of even the most pious soul.
"None of this would have happened. We wouldn't have... escalated this much." She spoke, voice so beautiful, a perfect melody of a mocking a bird.
This only forced Zai to laugh; guttural, bitter, beautiful in its finality.
"You think I didn't see through you?" He smirked with blood running down his chin like ink. "You didn't want a son-in-law. You wanted a trophy god. My root. My name. Glory stolen and shackled to your bloodline."
The glory of his name and rumours of how Zai was quickly breaking through the ranks of strength had long spread all across the immortal empire. It was only a matter of when he breaks through the seventh star rank and officially become a god.
All this thanks to his flaming ice sword spirit weapon and the legendary ranked cultivation root.
Of course there were those who wished to grasp such a fate, the likes of the immortal Emperor and Empress who tricked him into taking a poison, and leading to the current situation.
But even then, after hearing him speaking, the Empress offered just but a cold smile.
"And I would've taken it. Gladly." She Mockingly spoke while leaning forward. "But don't have high hopes. I could never have allowed my daughter to marry a low life dog like you. The wedding was a trap. Poison on the vows. Blame painted on your sect, and killing all them since they are the only cultivators of the flaming ice technique. But you saw everything ruined my plan.."
Her voice softened to a whisper.
"Now, I'll just kill you and accuse you of treason, and since you are their master, the same fate follows hem."
Zai's hands curled into fists after hearing Empress Emma's words. And was untill just now that he realized how ambitious and vicious this woman could be when it comes to power. The number of line she wished to cross to grasp his cultivation root and the spirit weapon.
But, at this moment, what could he really do?
"Leave... my people... out of this." He muttered between his teeth with his eyes flushing, full of murderous intent.
"Oh, Zai." She crouched beside him. "What if they start investigating. What if they dig out at the right spot and find the truth? Wouldn't they come for vengeance?" She leaned even more closer to his ear. " I won't allow that. I can't let sentiment stall my ascent. Nothing can stop me from becoming a god."
Then, she thrust her hand into his chest, not stabbing, just passing through flesh as if it were water, forcing Zai to scream in agony, despair and full of an overwhelming pain.
It was worse than torture.
It was removal.
A tearing sensation of his cultivation root and spirit weapon from his soul. The pain, as if being plucked by cosmic forceps.
When she pulled away, she held it.
A snowflake, blazing white and flickering flame, and a small icy flaming sword the size of a pencil; hid soulpath, the mark of the god he was meant to be.
Zai choked on breath. The poison had ravaged him enough. And now this? He just couldn't survive.
His heart slowed. His vision dimmed as his eyelids pulled together and shut.
But...
If he had just blinked....
[Reincarnation 101 trial successfully]
[Evolution path calculated]
[From the ashes rose the Phoenix]
[Congratulations! You have been granted The Phoenix System]
[Congratulations! You have been granted a Mythborne rank cultivation root.]
{Cultivate your signature cultivation technique to grant your cultivation root a form and name.}
[Congratulations! A signature Cultivation Technique has been triggered]
[System Sync will officially commence]
A dark black background computerized screen with a crimson writings suddenly materialized in front of his beautiful piercing blue eyes.