“Brother Luo, you speak so casually about these apocalypses. Have you been through many?”

  “Ah yes, you don’t know about them?”

  He chuckled and Jiang shouldn’t have heard it over the wind.

  “They’ve been going on forever I guess. As long as I’ve been alive.”

  He paused, the scenery blurring stronger still, almost forming one continuous stripe of color.

  “I went into seclusion before the Third Before as I saw it coming. The so-called Son of Heaven was preparing to fight an up-and-comer and I didn’t want to be around to see the effects. I remained in seclusion until just after the Second Before, where Dread Scourge Threüs fought Dread Yildran over the thirteenth continent, razing it and destroying most of the landscape as it was. The dirt and ash they kicked up was apparently so great it caused a miniature ice age. That was eight thousand years ago and it ended in a stalemate.”

  Eight-thousand years ago?

  “It might have been different, but the fighting was so intense it disrupted Ancient Master Killdozer’s dimensional gate, escalating the battle to a dread vs dread three-way. Ultimately the collateral damage was so severe they agreed to end the fighting and partition the world, but as you might expect that didn’t last. In the spring when Ancient Master Killdozer ascended from dread to dread-scourge, he also claimed the title Son of Heaven, despite the fact Threüs had already claimed it some two and a half thousand years before. To make a long story short, Yildran is dead and the world has been cut in two. The fighting was relatively minimal this time, but it still scared three continents and killed billions of people.”

  Jiang let the sound of wind hang in the air for a moment, taking the information in.

  “So you’ve been through three or four so-called apocalypses in your lifetime?”

  “Yes.”

  “And we measure time by how long it’s been since the last apocalypse?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why are they called apocalypses if we’re still here?”

  “I don’t know what else you call something that scars a planet and kills a few billion people.”

  “Surely that’s a small percent of the world.”

  “It is, but there’s always a risk that someone ascends past dread-scourge and claims something that shouldn’t be claimed.”

  Jiang laughed and Luo was disturbed.

  “Why do you laugh? Do you take delight in our suffering?”

  “No, no, but I’m interested in why you say the tiers beyond dreaded scourge shouldn’t be claimed. I find that amusing. You finally ascend past the height of a worm and spy Mount Tai atop the tallest blade of grass, then swiftly claim it should never be reached.”

  “You would call “dread” “worm”?!”

  “Perhaps not to what I am now, but yes. I used to rule fifteen stars in this cluster, and I will claim them again.”

  “You jest.”

  “Perhaps. I still expect you to keep this secret.”

  “I could hardly mention it without sounding insane.”

  Jiang smiled, How meager their understanding of the world has come to be in my absence.

  “From the moment you met me sanity was left behind. I will show you what it means to ascend into the tiers beyond heaven. I will show you the meaning of tiers so far beyond archon and thearch that you will question how your understanding of dreads and scourges was anything greater than ants crawling on the ground. I will show you what it means to claim the thrones above the sky.”

  “...” Jiang paused.

  “What tier are you, Brother Luo?”

  “When I emerged from seclusion I was a nascent soul. In ten thousand years I am still a nascent soul.”

  Nascent soul? He’s been alive for ten-thousand years at nascent soul?

  “And what does it mean to be a nascent soul?”

  All at once the blurring color stopped and Jiang’s distracted mind finally realized it had been seeing blurs of gray for some time. They had arrived in a sprawling city of crumbling stone and patchwork ruins that stretched on for what seemed like eternity. It was dotted with smoldering craters where buildings should clearly have been.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  “It means I am profoundly aware of my own weakness.”

  I will promise him the sky if it means making my journey beyond it easier.

  “Behold the world of our creation,” Jiang proclaimed, right hand finally released to gesture at the sprawling complex of stone.

  “I will promise you everything under the sky if you promise me you won’t give up on taking it.”

  The buildings were five or ten or fifteen stories tall in places with no trees among them. There wasn’t any grass either, only desolation, ruins, living bodies, and concrete. All the plant life had been absorbed into the masses of humanity, and all the earth had been paved over in the basic necessities of their survival.

  “You speak of such lofty ambitions, great elder. I will keep the fading embers of my dream alive for you, but I place no faith in your ability to rekindle my fire.”

  They were slowly drifting forward and down, descending into the crumbling metropolis, moving toward a slightly more colorful plaza where a disorganized crowd had gathered. The nearest wreckage of some kind of blimp was maybe two or three or four blocks away.

  “Place your faith in me, disciple Luo, and I will show you what it means for an immortal flame to burn brighter than the strongest star.”

  They were at the tops of the tallest buildings now. Jiang could begin seeing the individual faces of the masses. Most were old, gaunt, and tired. Some were young but still thin. Most were dressed in rags and thousand-times-sewn shirts of Theseus passed down for a hundred generations, but a scattered few were adorned in the same powder-blue robes and green-gold silk sash that Jiang wore proudly.

  “It does not mean sparking with towers of embers shooting off into heaven as a raging bonfire.”

  At the far edge of the plaza was a raised pavilion where a number of well-dressed soldiers stood. They were emblazoned with the same blue-gold robes as Luo, but neatly wrapped in black-gold belts of cloth around the waist and elbows and shoulders. At the center of the chest was a logo of swirling gold, black, gray, and cyan— a mass of smearing dots and lines and gore strewn across the ground, a clear sky, and a rising tower shining through it all, bridging the gap between heaven and earth, tearing itself apart from all the rest.

  It looks like a dick, Jiang mused, “rising to heaven” indeed.

  “It does not mean burning the world down and rising from the ashes.”

  They were descending deeper into the plaza now, and it became clear Luo was aiming for the center-back, directly in front of the raised pavilion but perhaps two-thirds of the way towards the other edge of the stones.

  “It does not mean power, glory, or success.”

  The crowd parted where it seemed Luo would land, perhaps out of respect for his attire. There didn’t seem to be any other flying cultivators bringing elders into the court at the time, so it was, at least, the only such sight to be had.

  “Being an immortal flame means exactly one thing:”

  Luo’s feet touched the heavily-cracked concrete. Jiang hopped down.

  Jiang did not raise his voice to overcome the murmurs of the crowd, instead he brought his mouth to Luo’s left ear to speak the words softly, “...it means burning forever. The obstacles will fall away in their own due time.”

  He took his mouth away.

  Luo stepped away and turned his head back, but did not meet Jiang’s eyes, “I hope what you say is true, great master. If it is, I will await your arrival at my gate. I hope to see you there in due time.”

  He did not turn back as he kicked off the ground, flying away.

  Jiang shouted, “I will greet you there inside the year! I swear it on the sun, the stars, and the Eternal Dao!”

  Luo did not answer Jiang’s promise, but Jiang could hear him faintly whispering a handful of final words.

  “Maybe when you do we can restore our connection to Azafir.”

  The crowd erupted into shouting around him. Jiang could only make out a smattering of words over the general commotion and noise. They were shocked and appalled that he would swear something so impossible on his cultivation. If he failed it would cripple him, they knew.

  The children seem to think I am also a child.

  I had thought to keep a low profile, but with a high-level backer already waiting there’s no longer any reason to delay myself. This appears to be a training-ground for newly awakened elders; they will quickly see my potential and it will become impossible for me to hide among them without crippling my progress. The fastest way forward is to acquire a potion, as raw qi is the only thing delaying me. If this training-ground provides resources, the fastest way forward is to demonstrate my potential skill.

  I’m not sure I’d be able to hide with my void-body so easily spotted, anyway.

  Luo flew to the front stage and appeared to speak with the soldiers there briefly before flying up and out of sight. One of them gestured with an arm towards Jiang, and then an announcement began.

  Three floating monitors appeared in the air in the center of the crowd. They were blue-tinted and partially transparent, rotating past each other in a somewhat disorienting way. On the screen a man wearing forest-green robes and an opulent gold crown (though unadorned with any jewels) appeared, dominating the bluish gray frame behind him. He was white and generally plain with green eyes and a somewhat crooked smile, but still on the more beautiful side of things and around thirty biological years old.

  “My name isn’t important.” he began, yellowish teeth peeking out.

  “Who I am isn’t important, and who you are isn’t important either.”

  He paused and smiled.

  “Most of you will be dead by tomorrow morning.”

  I see. Jiang thought.

  “This is a death game where only the strongest are allowed to live. There are no rules and there is no foul play. There’s a line around this courtyard and if you cross it we’ll kill you. The last fifty living bodies get to leave. That is all. You may begin.”

  The screens disappeared.

  Jiang smiled and laughed. It was just his kind of game.

  「I will live」

  「I will conquer」

  That was his entire scripture. They wouldn’t be killing him now.