Cheng Hao felt the drops of cold sweat condensing on his forehead. He curled his hands into fists and gritted his teeth so hard they made a creaking sound. The fingernails bit into the flesh, blood trickled down the tightly shut lips.

His wide, red eyes focusing in the figure barely visible at the center of the calamity-like occurrence, Cheng Hao felt like a bomb had been set off in his mind as it went blank.

He… He’s here! Is this how I came to existence, why I am alive and breathing now? I was actually born from such a calamity? I was born from a spatial rift!

The massive rip in space was so large it blotted out the sky. Lightning crackled and the sky darkened, a powerful suction force pulling all the spiritual energy present in the air into the black hole that was the void beyond the spatial rift.

In the middle of the vortex of spiritual energy was the figure of a person. Around him swirled countless, radiant symbols, each glowing a flashy, colored light.

They seemed to act like some kind of barrier, cutting off the figure inside from the outside world, protecting him from any and all harm. At the same time however, they blocked the view, not allowing Cheng Hao to see what was inside. Not that he would need it, wouldn’t he?

However, the pressure emanated from this hole in space itself was such that he was frozen on the spot. Despite it all being an illusion, the fear that the spatial rift gave off was still clear and vivid in his mind! In his head, he couldn’t think of anything else other than escaping, running away!

Shit… to think it would be like this, I can’t even take a single step forward!

Glaring upwards, his lips contorted in a twisted grin, beads of sweat sliding down his face, all the way down to his chin, before falling on the ground, Cheng Hao cursed at his own impotency!

Ren Hei had also paled, blood trickling down from the sides of his mouth. Gritting his teeth, the burly man holding the earthen greatsword straightened his posture, screaming at the top of his lungs:

“”RUN! WE MUST ESCAPE NOW!””

Hearing those words, Ren Long and Ren Bai exchanged a quick glance and the woman nodded. She whistled and the black and golden feathered bird immediately let out a loud sqwak. He suddenly grew in size a hundredfold, flapped his wings, now spanning hundreds of feet in length, and grabbed the two lovers with its claws.

He retreated back a few hundred meters before dropping the two Divine Beasts down on the ground. It then turned and flashed, disappearing and reappearing in front of Ren Hei and Cheng Hao. Despite their grudge, the bird didn’t hesitate in grabbing the red skinned youth along with the burly man, immediately reappearing hundreds of feet away with a single flap of its powerful wings.

Cheng Hao snapped awake from the shock, induced by the terror instilled by the rift’s pressure. He turned around and noticed that the rip in space was slowly mending back together, as if the two end were being sewn together by some sort of invisible hand.

As it shrunk, the figure inside the tornado of swirling symbols also began to fall back into the void… the glowing characters had already been glowing faintly when the vortex had first appeared and had all but weakened in the short period of time following that.

Cheng Hao could only watch as, one after the other, the symbols began to shatter and disperse… the pressure was just too much for the weakened symbols to bear. Then, as the last few symbols were about to crack and fall apart as well…

BOOM!

Gathering the last of their power left, they suddenly exploded!

The bright light forced the red skinned youth, his three siblings and the Golden Sky Lord to look away as soon as the flash of the explosion reached their eyes. Even then, such a short exposure had been enough to blind them temporarily!

“Agh, my eyes!” Ren Long let out a loud cry as he felt as if swords had been stabbed in his pupils. Ren Bai and the golden bird also lamented out aloud. Only the older brother, Ren Hei, and Cheng Hao managed to choke their screams of pain in their throats and resist the urge to bend over and claw at their faces.

“”Kuh! To think that we would find ourselves in such a situation!”” The burly man had long since dissolved the weapon made out of earth; what use would it be against something that was not corporeal such as the spatial rift? He fell to his knees, incapable of withstanding the pressure any longer.

By that moment however, the rip was finally about to close: as of then, it was barely a hundredth of its original size, and shrinking rapidly!

His eyes dripping bloody tears from the pain, Cheng Hao gritted his teeth and immediately looked back over his shoulder, examining the situation of the figure that had now lost the protection from the swirling symbols.

At the moment, it was sinking back in the void. Fortunately, in some way or another, the explosion of those symbols had created some sort of protective membrane around the body of the person they had previously been protecting. It was a pure azure color and its glow blocked once more the view to the person’s appearance.

The barrier was however getting thinner and thinner, it was only a matter of time before it disappeared. The explosion had also created a huge path to the figure’s position. It was almost as if the explosion had been done exclusively to create that path, allowing a third party a chance to save the person that was about to fall into the vortex…

As the three Divine Beasts recovered from the sudden explosion, they all gathered in one spot, all with grim expressions on their faces.

“Right now… there is a slight chance we could make it. However…” Ren Bai gritted her teeth as she looked down at her trembling legs. She sighed and shed a single tear as she looked away: “Whoever you might have been... I’m sorry.”

“Aren’t we all?” Ren Long sighed and shook his head as he embraced the woman.

Ren Hei simply let out a loud grunt, however it was clear he would not take action. Not that he could not, however it was simply too dangerous! The path through the dimensional rip might seem stable then, however what about in the close future? What assured them that in a few instants it would not collapse? Why should they risk their lives for a stranger?

Cheng Hao looked at the three of them with contempt. After all, that had also happened in his own world: it had been Ren Hong who had acted back then, not his brothers. And here, in this world, fruit of his imagination, it looked like they would also not lift a finger.

Does this mean… that it is up to me?

Cheng Hao felt a prickle at the back of his head: after all, the person who was about to die was another him, what’s more, one that was going through the same hardships he had gone through as well. However, in the end, Cheng Hao sighed and spared one last glance at the disappearing figure before looking away, an apologetic look on his face:

Sorry, it is too dangerous, I cannot help you! I hope you will forgive me…

However, in the very next moment, his eyes widened as his brain processed the information that his eyes had sent it... Cheng Hao’s face fell and he immediately turned back around.

Wait... this is! No, how could it truly be like this!

Surprise.

Incredulity.

Rage.

Absolute and utter shock.

His expression was a mixture of these and then some as his eyes finally landed on the figure in the middle of the swirling symbols within the dissipating vortex.

All of a sudden, behind him, out of thin air, appeared the illusory figure of a massive, winged beast; its wings, spanning countless miles in length, its figure blotting out the sky!

With four shocked pair of eyes glued on his back, Cheng Hao kicked off the air, dashing madly towards the path, leading to the figure surrounded by the faint barrier.

Before anyone could react, his figure had flashed away, appearing miles away in the sky, headed straight for the center of the vortex!

“Ren Hong!”

“Brother!”

“”Ren Hong! Come back here!“”

“Sqwak!”

The three siblings were astonished, even the black and golden-feathered bird had let out a loud sqwak due to the shock and terror. However, most shocked and terrified of them all was none other than Cheng Hao himself!

SHITSHITSHIT!

“RAAAAH!” He roared, venting out his feelings of confusion, anger and rage

GOD! FUCKING! DAMNIT! WHY IS THIS HAPPENING TO ME! WHY, WHY, WHY DID IT HAVE TO BE THIS WAY!!! FUCK, IF THAT IS TRULY IT, I HAVE TO SAVE THAT PERSON NOW!

As he sped forward madly, wind currents suddenly rose, battering everything in a radius of hundreds of miles! Everything, be it the plain grass, legendary medicinal plants or millenary trees, all bent under the fierce attack of the wind!

“Aaaagh!” Ren Bai yelled as the irresistible air currents crashed into her body!

“Ren Bai!!! Kuh, damnit!” Ren Long also could not resist the strength of the howling tempest and was thrown off his feet. The Divine Sea King and the Divine Beast King had both been sent flying!

“Kuh!” Ren Hei, despite hailed as amongst the strongest beasts beneath the Heavens when it came to physical strength, also slid back for more than a few hundred feet before he recovered.

“”Kah! KkkrrrRHAAAAAA!”” Facing the oncoming storm, Ren Hei let out a large howl as he finally managed to keep his feet on the ground. He gritted his teeth, biting his tongue as lightning crackled around him! Four eyes suddenly lit up, eclipsing all other light.

“”ENOUGH”” In a split second, his true form was revealed! Wildlife, waterfalls, lakes, forests… it was like a real-size mountain, except it was located on the shell of a majestic turtle, around which a gigantic snake coiled, hissing menacingly at the wind currents battering its body.

“”WIND WON’T TAME THE EARTH AS LONG WE ARE HERE!”” The gigantic turtle stomped on the ground with its powerful front limbs: the wind was from that moment on unable to even slightly approach the Divine Earth King’s body!

“”Golden Sky Lord! Grab Ren Bai and bring her to Ren Long!”” After shouting that, he closed his eyes and suddenly stopped moving altogether, resembling a gigantic stone statue, countless miles tall.

With that, a particular gigantic lake, at the very top of the Turtle’s shell, suddenly rippled once before growing completely still: after that initial one, the water surface had become devoid of any ripple!

Meanwhile, the Golden Sky Lord flapped his wings to counter the vicious winds. The black and golden-feathered bird let out a loud sqwak as he carried out the task he had been given by the oldest of the Divine Beasts.

It grabbed the woman with its talons and immediately headed towards the bald youth’s whereabouts.

Ren Long, in the meantime, had already understood what his older brother’s intention was. An eerie green light was emitted from his Evergreen Coral Sandals: as soon as the Golden Sky Lord got to him, he grabbed on to his body.

The figure of the two Divine Kings and of the majestic bird fell apart and turned into water, which in turn got scattered by the winds.

Above the large lack on top of the gargantuan turtle, the three appeared once again in a flash of green light. Panting as they recovered from the shock, their expressions fell as they noticed that Ren Hong was not there with them!

Ren Hei reopened his four eyes as he moved forward, his eyes full of alarm as they searched for his little brother’s figure within the storm. When he found him however, already halfway up the collapsing path, his two pairs of eyes widened beyond measure:

“”REN HONG! WHAT THE HELL ARE-”” Hei started...

“SKRAAAAAAA!”, only to be interrupted mid way by the loud cry of a bird that silenced any and all other sounds.

Whoosh!

Cheng Hao gritted his teeth as the distance beween him and his target shrunk at inhumane speed…

Creak… creak… creak…

And the path shrunk in size even faster as cracks appeared all over its length!