Records of the Nine Heavens

Sixth Excerpt: "Xū Líng"

Other moniker/s: "The Youth Born Of Space", "Child of Prophecy", "Evil Saint", "Great Sage", "The Fifth Divine King", "Tamperer of Heaven", "Childe of the Qi", "Bane of Ran", "Ancestral Protector of Xiao", [...]

Hundreds of years passed peacefully: although the seal had been broken, the remnant power of the first 'God' was no joke. Especially for those that had been under its light for so long, it would take a lot more than a couple of laughable centuries for their essence to be cleansed of such burden. Only newcomers, newborns in a world free of the Seal, had any hope to fully display their true capabilities when rebelling against the Nine Heavens: even then, whatever traces of the seal inlaid in the karma of their ancestors would occasionally prevent them from acting too out of place.

The era of the olden Primordial and Heavenly Beasts was almost officially over by then. With their might virtually maimed, only the newer generations could persist on the path of cultivation unscathed. All others were left helpless as they witnessed their cultivation atrophy.

If only to find a speck of light in the darkness, it would not be easy for Tian to craft a second seal in the short term.

Not only would he have to dedicate himself to it fully, but he also had to recover the might of the Jade Emperor which he had expended in a vain attempt to defend the seal. He could only focus on either one and with signs of revolts plaguing his reign after the shattering of the seal, the latter took priority.

But even then, it all looked bleak to those who had animosity towards the usurper and who yearned for freedom. Jinhuang's sacrifice had opened up a path, but to traverse it, it would require almost as extraordinary of an effort.

But then, a certain human, the Heavenly Beast referred to her as the Prophet, foretold of a person that shall bring chaos and destruction to the Nine Heavens, destroy the Tyrant and take the Throne as the Lord of Heaven!

This person would be not from the Earth, not from the Heavens, not from the Underworld: unlike all other beings whom, in a way or another, descended from the Heavens and Earths, he would herald from beyond the lands encompassed in the Triangle, Square, and Circle.

As a being free of any seal, he would be the sign of a calamity that shall befall the Nine Heavens!

Mortal humans yet to achieve a higher Realm of cultivation couldn't even acknowledge the existence of Heavenly, Divine, and Primordial Beasts. Even more so for the Primordial and Divine, but even the lowest Heavenly Beast would appear indescribably blurry to a common farmer. He'd be none the wiser unless the Beast were to strike him on the head.

Still, the Prophet was a mortal, blind old human who, for some twist of fate, had been able to interact with Heavenly Beasts and peer into their path regardless of the worldly laws. She was the one who gave many Beasts, the Divine Kings and the Primordial Emperors first among them, proper names beyond titles and sobriquets, introducing normal humans to the world they couldn't see, beyond that of a cultivator-next-door that "could lift a cow with his bare hands".

Furthermore, in her long history of almost a hundred thousand years and two different regimes of Heavenly Realms, an extreme lifespan fruit of the joint efforts of the many Primordial Beasts wishing to keep her alive, she had prevented many catastrophes from falling onto the Heavens and Earth alike thanks to her ability to glimpse into the future.

Sources have it that, when he had first heard of her prophecy, perhaps due to the long time in power having corroded away at his characteristic wariness, Tian shrugged it off and didn't offer the notion too much importance.

In hindsight, that might have been a better course of action, given how ultimately the Seer's warning turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

However, as the suppressed Heavenly and Primordial Beasts began to squirm about more and more menacingly, showing signs of rebellion and clamouring for the liberator, Tian couldn't help but move [...]

Thus, he ended his search of the Nine Heavens, the Earth and even visited the Underworld, where he had once cheated Yama, King of Hell, of three favours thanks to his sharp tongue and mellifluous words.

He used the second of them there (the first famously used to have Yama bow to reenact the scene of submission to the Jade Emperor and help him bring all beings under the Seal), to search the mysterious Underworld for the foretold child that would one day cut at his throat.

Even then though, he didn't find any trace of this potential threat. As such, the precarious state that the Nine Heavens were in after Lady Jin Fenghuang's actions would persist... and for the centuries to come, the Prophecy would be like a beacon in the night, a light of hope for those who wished to rebel that only served to further incense their desire to act up to Tian.

And like so, the years passed. And eventually, that hope appeared in the form of a child with blue eyes more beautiful than any gemstone, more starry than any night sky, deeper than any ocean: Xu Ling, the child holding the revolving galaxies in his gaze, appeared before the Four Divine Kings.

Excerpts from the work: Records of the Nine Heavens

Author: Unknown