The Eternal Jester
Chapter 1: Amusing Ants
The Crimson Peak Sect had stood for three thousand years atop Mount Scarlet, which was considered an eternity by the standards of mortal cultivators. Its pagodas pierced the clouds, red-lacquered beams catching the dawn light like wounds in the sky. For a mid-tier sect in the Eastern Wasteland Region of the Azure Sky World, it was respectable—powerful enough to dominate a hundred thousand miles in any direction, yet insignificant enough that true powers wouldn't bother crushing it.
On this particular morning, the sect's outer disciples gathered in the Training Plaza, their young faces flushed with ambition and naivety. They wore the crimson and gold robes that marked their status, each one dreaming of the day they'd break through to Core Formation and become inner disciples, perhaps even elders if heaven smiled upon them.
What none of them knew—what none of them could know—was that heaven had already stopped smiling at this world approximately three hours ago.
Among the crowd of disciples stood a young man who appeared to be in his early twenties, though that assessment would have been off by approximately fifty-five trillion, nine hundred ninety-nine billion, nine hundred ninety-nine million, nine hundred ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and seventy-eight years. He wore the same outer disciple robes as the others, his appearance so perfectly unremarkable that eyes seemed to slide past him without purchase. Average height. Average build. A face that was neither handsome nor ugly, the kind you'd forget the moment you looked away.
His name, as far as the sect records showed, was Chen Feng.
His actual name hadn't been spoken aloud in forty-two trillion years, and the last person who'd uttered it had been erased from existence so thoroughly that reality itself had forgotten there was ever anything to forget.
Chen Feng—or rather, the entity wearing that name like an ill-fitting coat—stood with his hands clasped behind his back, his expression one of mild boredom as he watched an inner disciple drone on about the importance of morning cultivation exercises. His dark eyes, which contained depths that would shatter the sanity of anyone who truly looked into them, reflected nothing but vague disinterest.
"—and remember," the inner disciple was saying, his voice pitched with self-importance, "the path of cultivation is arduous! It requires dedication! Perseverance! Only one in ten thousand will reach Foundation Establishment! Only one in a million will touch Core Formation! You must—"
How quaint, the ancient being thought, suppressing what would have been a smile. They actually believe this is difficult.
He'd witnessed the birth and death of cultivation systems so complex that this world's entire power structure wouldn't qualify as a footnote. He'd seen universes where Foundation Establishment was achieved in the womb. He'd personally destroyed heavens where "immortals" outnumbered mortals a billion to one.
And yet here he was, standing in a mortal sect on a backwater planet in a forgotten corner of a dying realm, pretending to care about qi circulation techniques.
The sheer absurdity of it was delicious.
"Chen Feng!"
The shout cut through his musings. The ancient entity's eyes flickered toward the source without moving his head, an economy of motion that spoke of someone who'd long ago stopped wasting energy on unnecessary actions.
Zhao Ming, a fellow outer disciple, was glaring at him with the kind of righteous indignation that only the young and stupid could muster. The boy was perhaps eighteen, with a square jaw and the muscular build of someone who'd spent more time lifting weights than reading cultivation manuals. He stood at the peak of Qi Condensation Realm, seventh layer, which made him one of the more "talented" disciples of his generation.
"Are you even listening?" Zhao Ming demanded, taking a step forward. Several other disciples turned to watch, smelling drama the way sharks smelled blood. "Senior Brother Liu is gracing us with his wisdom, and you stand there like a wooden post! Do you think you're too good to pay attention?"
Chen Feng's gaze settled on Zhao Ming with all the interest one might give a particularly vocal insect. He didn't respond immediately, letting the silence stretch just long enough to become uncomfortable.
When he finally spoke, his voice was quiet, almost pleasant. "No."
That single word, delivered with perfect flatness, seemed to confuse Zhao Ming. "No? No what?"
"No, I don't think I'm too good to pay attention," Chen Feng clarified with the patience of someone explaining basic concepts to a child. "I know I'm too good to pay attention. There's a difference. Thinking implies uncertainty."
A few disciples gasped. Zhao Ming's face turned an interesting shade of purple.
"You—! You dare!" Zhao Ming sputtered, his qi flaring around him in an uncontrolled burst that made his robes whip dramatically. "You're only at the fourth layer of Qi Condensation! I could crush you with one hand! Show proper respect!"
The entity inhabiting Chen Feng's body considered this statement with the gravity it deserved, which was to say, none at all. In his long existence, he'd been threatened by primordial chaos beasts, by heavenly emperors, by abstract concepts that had gained sentience and murderous intent. Being threatened by Zhao Ming was roughly equivalent to being threatened by a particularly aggressive dust mote.
"You could try," Chen Feng said, his tone suggesting he was discussing something marginally more interesting than paint drying, but only marginally. "It would be amusing. Briefly."
Senior Brother Liu, the inner disciple who'd been lecturing, stepped forward with a frown creasing his thirty-year-old face. "Enough! Zhao Ming, Chen Feng, this behavior is—"
He never finished the sentence.
It happened too quickly for mortal eyes to follow. One moment, Zhao Ming was gathering his qi for what was probably meant to be an intimidating demonstration. The next moment, he was on the ground, gasping, his cultivation base sealed by a technique so subtle that even Senior Brother Liu—a Core Formation expert—hadn't detected its use.
Chen Feng hadn't moved. Hadn't even twitched. He stood in exactly the same position, hands clasped behind his back, expression unchanged.
"How strange," Chen Feng observed mildly, looking down at the writhing Zhao Ming. "It seems you've suffered a qi deviation. Perhaps you should be more careful when circulating your cultivation base. The fourth layer of Qi Condensation is such a... delicate stage." His lips quirked infinitesimally. "Oh wait, I meant seventh layer. They all look the same to me."
Senior Brother Liu's eyes narrowed. He examined Zhao Ming with his spiritual sense, finding nothing obviously wrong except for the sealed meridians. Natural qi deviation could do that, but something felt off. He looked at Chen Feng suspiciously, but the outer disciple's cultivation base read as solidly fourth layer, and there was no residual qi signature that would indicate he'd attacked.
"Someone take Zhao Ming to the Medical Hall," Liu ordered. Then he pointed at Chen Feng. "You. Come with me."
Chen Feng sighed internally—not with concern, but with the weary annoyance of someone being asked to explain himself to ants. Nevertheless, he followed Senior Brother Liu away from the Training Plaza, moving with an unhurried grace that somehow kept perfect pace with the Core Formation cultivator's "swift" walking without appearing to rush.
They ended up in one of the sect's meditation pavilions, a small structure overlooking a fishpond. Liu rounded on him immediately.
"What did you do?"
"I stood there," Chen Feng replied. "Quite still. I'm told I'm very good at standing."
"Don't play games with me!" Liu's qi pressure descended, the full weight of Core Formation attempting to crush the "weak" outer disciple before him. It was meant to be intimidating, overwhelming, a reminder of the vast gulf between their cultivation bases.
Chen Feng felt it the way an ocean might feel a raindrop.
He didn't react, didn't even blink, standing under the pressure as though it didn't exist. This, more than anything, made Senior Brother Liu's expression darken with genuine concern. No fourth-layer Qi Condensation cultivator should be able to withstand Core Formation pressure without even flinching.
"What are you?" Liu asked quietly, his hand moving to the sword at his waist.
For the first time, something like genuine interest flickered in Chen Feng's eyes. Not much—just the barest hint that his attention had been marginally captured. He tilted his head slightly, studying Liu the way a scientist might study a specimen.
"That," Chen Feng said softly, "is a much more interesting question than you realize. The fact that you asked 'what' instead of 'who' suggests you have better instincts than most. It won't save you, but it's worth noting."
Liu drew his sword in a fluid motion, the blade humming with qi. "I'm calling the elders—"
"No, you're not."
The words were spoken without emphasis, without threat, yet they carried a weight that made Liu freeze mid-turn. It wasn't qi pressure. It wasn't killing intent. It was something far more primal—the recognition, bone-deep and undeniable, that he was in the presence of something that could end his existence as easily as he might snuff out a candle.
Chen Feng took a single step forward, and the world seemed to contract around that motion. "You're not calling anyone, Senior Brother Liu, because you're going to forget this conversation ever happened. You're going to forget you were suspicious. You're going to remember that Zhao Ming suffered a perfectly ordinary qi deviation, and that Chen Feng is a perfectly ordinary outer disciple who shows up for his lessons and causes no trouble."
"I won't—" Liu began, but his voice was already becoming uncertain.
"You will," Chen Feng interrupted gently. "Because the alternative is that I let you remember, and then I'd have to deal with the elders, and then I'd have to deal with the sect master, and then someone would inevitably try to 'subdue' me, and then I'd have to destroy the sect, and then the regional powers would investigate, and then..." He waved a hand dismissively. "It becomes tedious. I'm here for entertainment, not tedium."
He reached out and tapped Liu's forehead with one finger.
The Core Formation cultivator collapsed like a puppet with cut strings, unconscious before he hit the ground. When he woke up three minutes later, he would remember deciding to let Chen Feng off with a warning, nothing more.
Chen Feng looked down at the unconscious cultivator and felt nothing resembling guilt or satisfaction. It was simply done, a minor adjustment to ensure his peace continued undisturbed.
He walked back toward the outer disciple quarters, passing through courtyards where disciples practiced their sword forms and alchemists tended their furnaces and formation masters carved arrays into stone. All of them pursuing strength with desperate ambition, reaching for the heavens like children reaching for the moon.
Fifty-six trillion years, he thought, and mortals haven't changed at all. Still scrambling. Still striving. Still convinced that the next breakthrough will be the one that matters.
He'd been like them once, impossibly long ago. He'd cultivated with diligence, broken through realms, fought his way up the cosmic ladder step by bloody step. He'd reached the peak of immortality, become a Demon God, ruled over realities, and made the heavens themselves kneel.
And then he'd kept living.
And living.
And living.
Until the notion of "power" became meaningless. Until he'd seen every realm rise and fall a trillion times. Until he'd exhausted every ambition, fulfilled every desire, conquered every conquest, and was left with nothing but an eternity of existence and the horrifying realization that he couldn't die.
He'd tried, of course. Had thrown himself into cosmic voids, let other Demon Gods attack him with their full might, had even successfully erased his own cultivation once only to have it restore itself from nothing because his existence had become a fundamental constant woven into the fabric of reality.
So he'd done the only thing left that might provide even a sliver of novelty: he'd sealed ninety-nine point nine-nine-nine percent of his power, hidden his identity, and descended to random mortal worlds to live as a mortal.
Or at least, as close to mortal as something like him could manage.
This was his... he'd lost count... perhaps his trillion-and-third reincarnation? He tended not to keep track anymore. Each life was just a brief distraction, a way to pass a few years watching mortals scurry about their important little lives, their serious little dramas.
It was the only thing that made him feel anything remotely resembling amusement.
Chen Feng reached his quarters—a small room with a hard bed, a cultivation mat, and nothing else—and sat down cross-legged. He closed his eyes, not to cultivate, but simply to rest. His consciousness drifted across the sect, observing without effort.
In the Medical Hall, Zhao Ming was being treated for his "qi deviation," the healers clucking over his sealed meridians while he swore revenge on Chen Feng. How predictable, the ancient being thought. Young master syndrome. I give him three days before he tries something stupid.
In the Inner Sect, elders discussed politics and resources, plotting against rival factions within the sect while pretending unity. A tale as old as cultivation itself.
In the Sect Master's private cultivation chamber, Ye Tianlong—peak Nascent Soul Realm, three hundred years old, considered a prodigy in this region—worked desperately to break through to Soul Transformation. He'd been at this bottleneck for fifty years.
Chen Feng could have broken through that bottleneck in the time it took to blink. Could have pushed Ye Tianlong to Soul Transformation, to Dao Seeking, to True Immortal, to realms that didn't have names in this reality. Could have lifted the entire sect to godhood with a thought.
He wouldn't, of course.
That would ruin the entertainment.
The trick, he'd learned over his incomprehensible lifespan, is to do just enough to make things interesting, but not so much that you break the toy completely.
A knock on his door interrupted his observations.
"Chen Feng! Are you in there?"
He recognized the voice—Liu Mei, another outer disciple. She was nineteen, talented, pretty in that fresh-faced way that would fade in twenty years (or approximately 0.00000000000000000356% of his lifespan, but who was counting?). She'd been vaguely friendly to him since he'd "joined" the sect three months ago.
"I'm busy," he called back, not moving from his meditation position.
"The evening meal is starting! I thought maybe we could sit together? I've barely seen you these past weeks."
Because I've been avoiding social entanglements, he thought. They complicate things.
"I'm cultivating," he lied smoothly.
"Oh! I'm sorry to interrupt!" Her voice carried genuine concern. "I heard about what happened with Zhao Ming. Are you alright? Some people are saying he's going to challenge you officially once he recovers."
"Fascinating," Chen Feng said flatly.
There was a pause. "Um... is that sarcasm?"
"Yes."
"Oh." Another pause. "Well, be careful, okay? Zhao Ming's cousin is an inner disciple, and his uncle is an elder. He has backing."
"I'll take it under advisement."
He could feel her lingering outside, wanting to say more, then thinking better of it. Finally, her footsteps retreated down the corridor.
Chen Feng opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling of his small room, carved from ordinary stone that wouldn't even qualify as a crafting material in most realms. This was his life now—avoiding meal times, deflecting concern, pretending that the politics of this tiny sect mattered even slightly.
And yet, despite the absurdity, despite the crushing weight of his own existence, there was something almost peaceful about it. In this small room, with his power sealed and his identity hidden, he was free from the expectations of his station. No demon armies to command. No cosmic threats to annihilate. No reality-ending disasters to prevent or cause, depending on his mood.
Just Chen Feng, unremarkable outer disciple, trying very hard not to accidentally destroy everything by breathing wrong.
Three months down, he thought. Perhaps I'll make it a full year this time before something forces me to move on.
That night, as the sect slept, Chen Feng remained awake—not because he needed to, but because sleep had become optional sometime around the six trillion year mark. He sat in his room, awareness expanded across the entire planet, observing a hundred million tiny dramas playing out in the darkness.
A merchant betraying his partner in the city below. Two disciples from rival sects dueling to the death over an insult. A mother crying over her sick child, praying to gods who'd never answer because those particular gods had died approximately four trillion years ago and Chen Feng had personally erased their afterlives for annoying him during a bad millennium.
The universe turned, and Chen Feng watched, and felt nothing except the faintest spark of amusement at how seriously everyone took everything.
His meditation was interrupted by a disturbance at the sect's outer boundary. His consciousness, which had been passively observing, sharpened slightly.
Interesting.
Three figures had landed at the base of Mount Scarlet, their arrival masked by stealth techniques that would have fooled any cultivator below Dao Seeking Realm. They wore black robes with silver trim, and each emanated the aura of Soul Transformation—major powers in this region.
"The Crimson Peak Sect," one of them murmured. "Are you certain the information was accurate?"
"Certain," another replied. "Three months ago, our sect's divination elder detected a massive disturbance in this region—a descending pressure that lasted only an instant before vanishing completely. The epicenter was this sect. Something powerful arrived here."
"Or someone," the third figure added. "The sect master is only Nascent Soul. If a Soul Transformation or Dao Seeking expert has taken refuge here, we need to know. Could be an opportunity... or a threat."
Chen Feng listened to this with mild interest. Apparently, even his most careful descent hadn't been completely unnoticed. That "massive disturbance" they'd detected was his true body's aura leaking through his seals for a fraction of a nanosecond when he'd reincarnated.
Careless, he chided himself. I'm getting sloppy in my old age. Only checked my seals seven hundred times instead of the usual eight hundred.
The three Soul Transformation experts began ascending the mountain, clearly intending to investigate.
Chen Feng considered his options.
He could ignore them. They'd find nothing, question some people, eventually leave. Simple.
But Zhao Ming's cousin was an inner disciple, and he'd be looking for information about Chen Feng. If these three started asking questions, drawing attention to him, it might complicate his peaceful existence here.
Alternatively, he could kill them. Easy. Quick. Permanent solution.
But that might draw even more attention. Three Soul Transformation experts going missing would spark a regional war.
Annoying, he thought, feeling a spark of genuine irritation. I just wanted to observe mortal cultivation drama in peace. Why must everyone make everything complicated?
He stood, stretched, and made a decision.
Perhaps it was time to add a little... chaos to this world. Just enough to redirect attention away from himself. A distraction, perfectly calibrated to be interesting without being catastrophic.
Chen Feng smiled for the first time since arriving at the Crimson Peak Sect. It was not a pleasant expression. It was the smile of an ancient predator who'd just remembered he was hungry, and there were a great many things in this world that might qualify as snacks if he squinted hard enough at the definition of "edible."
Yes, he thought, walking toward his door. Let's see how entertaining we can make this.
After all, he had eternity to kill, and only so many mortal realms left to visit before boredom became truly unbearable.
And an unbored Demon God was merely dormant.
A bored one... well, that's how universes ended up erased.
To be continued...