“Alex! What do we do?” The frightened little fox shivering in shadows by his side screamed in his party interface, all of them too terrified to cry out, let alone move, as the monstrous Jade Juggernaut’s stony features widened into an inhuman grin and he began to plod forward, one titanic, earth-quake inducing step at a time.

Alex clenched the ground, for one awful moment feeling as if space itself was stretching in ways horrific and profound, and the two enormous hands smacking against each other with the boom of a dozen cannons was a gravity well from which there was no escape.

“Alex!”

Terrified kitsune eyes met Alex’s own as she began to slide across the ground, approaching the smirking Jade monster who had effortlessly shattered his formerly unbreachable barrier. A monster who held them with such contempt that his stride forward was a casual stroll, having mastered terrible arts Alex was just beginning to comprehend. Because if Water’s special properties allowed it to bend space, deflecting even the fiercest Qi attack, at least partially, it was clear that Earth, in the grip of a master, could manipulate gravity itself.

Quickness check made!

Willpower check successful! You remember who you are!

Alex gazed down at the monstrous gravity well glaring back at him with such malice, echoing perfectly the roaring laughter in the hall of the gods above as bloated monstrosities and arrogant titans slammed cards upon a game table the size of the Golden Realms itself, warping destiny to tell a tale that would favor only themselves and leave nothing but bitter folly for all those they despised.

As they had, countless times before.

Over countless lives, turning peaceful existences into eras of bitter hardship and misery, transforming sweet hard-fought victories and daily life triumphs to the shrieking horror of watching ones loved ones being enslaved, ravished, and slaughtered, again and again. Countless times with a vindictive spite that transcended mere hate.

And each and every incarnation with few exceptions would see Alex shrieking his fury, defiance, and pain, before his throat was slit, heart pierced, or head cleaved completely free, and he saw nothing at all.

Save the ice cold water of the river of souls and a final desperate cry of defiance, Shui Jun’s eyes forever meeting his own… before he’d awaken in foggy mists with no memory of tragedy or horror whatsoever.

Just a smiling god with the ears of a fox asking him the same question he had asked a thousand times before.

Alex clenched his hands desperately tight, his terrified gaze turning into a fierce glare for the scowling Jade monster who’s dark smirk turned to a twisted scowl when he realized his prey wasn’t falling in to his waiting hands.

The monster tilted his head in bemused curiosity. “I tasted your terror so sharp and bright, tool of the fox. Yet now your fear is gone. Do you truly think there can be any ending for this story other than the one we’ve written so many times before?”

Alex’s heart skipped a terrified beat as the monster’s smile grew.

He knew.

That hideous creature he now faced knew.

Dark laughter the perfect mirror of the spite-filled gods above roared through the sacred garden like a hurricane.

“Your death is inevitable, little worm, no matter what tricks of the fox you used to make it so far. For there is nowhere else for you to go, save in my maw when I devour you, body and soul!”

The hideous monster of a man flashed a terrifying grin of serrated shark-like teeth, and Alex felt the sudden sharp surge of terror every prey animal has before wolf about to make is kill.

“Alex!” Hao Chan screamed as they were suddenly overwhelmed by an impossible crushing surge of Qi.

Alex looked into desperate Silver eyes pleading for any escape, sensing to his horrified dismay that, once again, even as he thought himself a maverick doing the absolutely unexpected, he had been herded and corralled by foes who had played the hunter for countless centuries. And much to his horror, perhaps because the monster before him had shattered it so easily and his mind was still reeling in pain, he couldn’t even summon forth a single portal.

“Alex!” It was all he could do to brace a Terrified Yinzi, being torn completely free of the ground as the monstrous jade’s dreadful pull only increased, and Alex was struck by the horrific realization that the jade before him could only have one master.

“I have outsmarted your pathetic little pawn utterly and completely, WiFu! How does it feel, to know that annoying annoying little worm is about to be crushed for all time by my own flesh and blood!? A disciple who has mastered the art of consumption more utterly than your pawn could ever dream!” Shalu’s spite-filled words roared in Alex’s skull as spittle flew from the distant lips of a vindictive god radiating unspeakable fury, his grotesque countenance only heightened by the countless weeping wounds still covering his face and throat, hate-filled eyes promising Alex agony without end, consumed to fuel the fires of a dark Jade clearly determined to consume them all.

Alex wanted to howl with frustrated fury as his enemies chortled high above, knowing just how comic a farce it was that his companions were about to perish, and it was no one’s fault save his own.

But still, he had to try.

Even as he desperately grounded himself, balancing with Bullrush on what felt like a single blade of grass as a massive gravity well tore at arms that trembled with the weight of bracing Hao Chan and Yinzi both. His muscles were screaming with the strain, reinforced bones and joints all that kept his limbs intact, Hao Chan and Yinzi making full use of their own inhuman strength to lock their grips tightly to his own, the only reason why they hadn’t both been torn free already.

All he could do was hold on tight and pray that he could last a few seconds longer. Last until the hideous gravity well abruptly eased.

Just a heartbeat before the air cracked with superhuman speed…

But Alex was already Bullrushing to either salvation or their ultimate destruction, Hao Chan and Yinzi, who had ridden even Jade’s fierce stormy currents with fierce maverick grins were now screaming in mortal peril as they approached divine steps that were near blinding in their brilliance before Alex all but tossed them up the first step and joining them a heartbeat later.

“Alex, it’s too much!” A wild-eyed Yinzi screamed in his mind, every scrap of clothing torn from her form as furious divine currents tore at her very soul.

“I’ve got you!” Alex cried out, holding Yinzi and Hao Chan both tightly to him as they leaned in to the roaring storm, so tightly holding the cards he had claimed this round of existence, cards of fate depicting the faces of the girls he would do whatever it took to save, no matter that the strain was so great that his very soul was bleeding with the madness he dared.

All three of them howling with a struggle for existance that transcended mere pain, Hao Chan and Yiniz’s Silver cores now spinning at such impossible speeds that even the jade monster looking their way with wide eyed disbelief brought massive palms up to his ears, as if entranced by the same ringing pitch that now seemed to fill the entire world.

Saving throw versus oblivion made!

You have successfully stabilized Jade Queens upon Divine bridge of ascension with Avatar Card! (Note, your soul is currently suffering Extreme Strain! Your disciples are ascending like never before as they kiss the event horizon of ultimate destruction! And when they go, so will you!)

Alex groaned with the strain of supporting the weight of three souls upon this final pearlescent stairs soaring all the way to the heavenly realms.

And for all that a tiny corner of his mind felt a fiery hot satisfaction in hearing Zheng Yi, Long Wang, and Shalu roaring their outrage as two more once-mortals dared ascend steps they considered their province alone, what he mostly felt was horrific dread at the sheer malice he saw in the eyes of the steadily approaching Jade Juggernaut.

“You think to mock me, daring those steps, little fox? You think you can escape earth’s wrath that easily?”

The monster flashed a murderous smile as his entire body glowed with jade green killing intent so fearsome that the entire garden began to tremble and quake. Alex was filled with the sudden horrific certainty that, no matter that each step was nearly a world away from the next, if he didn’t scoot up a few more steps and do it damned soon, he and his girls were as good as dead.

“Alex, please! It hurts… it hurts so much!” Hao Chan sobbed, Alex’s groan matching her own as he forced her desperately compressed soul up yet another step as the laughing Jade continued to approach, massive hands clawing the air with horrific intensity, and Alex heard a sound that sent shivers of horror shivering down his soul.

Gazing upwards to see what looked to be one of the magnificent life-filled moons high above, blessed with tiny lakes, oceans, fecund forests and emerald green fields, be abruptly pulled from its orbit, and sent hurtling down towards the heavenly staircase.

For an endless moment Alex’s horror transcended even his agony as he struggled to balance three precious souls on the precipice of oblivion, as an entire world, or perhaps its metaphor, came crashing down from the heavens.

Before a howling Alex forced all three of them up yet another step as eden’s paradise exploded in a titanic supernova of shattered stone and shredded worlds.

Yet no more than loose fragments bounced upon their skin, stinging with a Jade’s killing intent, but no worse… the remnants of furious retribution, now three steps distant, an impossible chasm that earned Alex the furious killing glare of a Jade standing upon the shattered and smoking ruins of what had been a perfect garden, eyes glaring with inhuman hate Alex’s way.

And the horror of it was, it did not stop.

The massive killing jade lifted one impossibly vast foot from the smoking ruins of what had once been a pristine garden, and ascended. One fateful step that threatened Alex’s very existence, for he already knew he could ascend no more than three, carrying two souls destined for eternal Jade… but not the heavens themselves.

Only then did the nightmare below deign to smile. “Worthy prey. Delightful! How does it feel to know that you’re going to die now?”

Alex locked gazes with the girls that in any other time and place he would have already sworn his heart to. Even if he had never expected to encounter two such wild angels in a single lifetime.

His final lifetime.

One that his enemy would end in seconds, unless he dared the absolutely insane, putting all their lives at risk in ways unimaginable, just minutes ago.

Hao Chan’s lips curled in an agonized rictus of a smile, now so attuned to him that she instantly understood.

“Do it, Alex. Let us taste the divine tears of our enemies.”

She flashed a desperate smile as the howling winds of spiritual energy tore through her like a purifying storm without end. “We now have absolutely nothing to lose.”

Alex locked gazes with the cold-eyed Juggernaut promising death with his glare, before summoning forth a prize like no other.

One he had never dared reveal to a single player, friend or foe, until now, three steps along a divine bridge between worlds, showcasing before the brilliant fiery orb that was the setting sun just how precious was the final card he had left to play that night.

A divine tier soul stone.

A prize he had kept in reserve for far too long.

But now?

Alex laughed at the stunned look the Jade gave him.

Because now it was definitely time.

“This is what you want, Shalu? When I was so ready to savor wondrous victory and wives won as sweetest revenge? So be it! A world’s evolution sacrificed for the bitter hate that will blaze forever between us! Come, Shalu! Let’s build the most glorious pyre of hate imaginable on the smoking remains of your bloated corpse, and upon your agony, I will eternally ascend!”

The air and the ether both filled with screams then. A Jade’s panicked fury propelling him up divine steps superimposed over a massive bloated god of sloth and consumption now gazing Alex’s way through the heavens with a look of horror so pristine, so sublime, that Alex would have savored it for eternity if he weren’t riding the most furious currents imaginable, honing himself on the metaphoric event horizon of existence itself.

Desperately juggling three precious souls as he forced himself up a fourth step, then a fifth, as a furious Jade looked on with growing outrage and despair while Alex’s ears bled with the screams of his girls, the shrieks of a writhing god spraying a crimson shower upon countless divine countenances, and his own agonized howl as he desperately fought to channel the hideous current of divine spiritual power into the massive super cable of his soul, its slow stately revolutions around where his core would one day be now finally beginning to speed up.

And it was still almost too late.

“Alex, my love, I’m sorry.” Hao Chan’s despairing eyes locked into his own. He could sense her feet beginning to slip through the divine pearlescent steps, having been pushed beyond what even the most illuminated soul could possibly endure.

“I will kill you, filth!” Roared the impossibly distant Jade, now daring yet another step up the stairs. Yet Alex had eyes only for the girl of his heart, who was about to fall.

Before he dared to channel the tiniest sliver of a divine soul stone through her own soul, and Yinzi’s as well, the pair screaming and howling as every cell of their body simultaneously erupted… and was reforged anew, even as their inner cores spun about so fast the air shrieked with the warbles of their spin.

Alex felt like he was going to explode.

He desperately held the fragile souls that meant so much to them as he whispered a divine serpent’s secrets into the ether, Shui Jun’s power forever becoming their own.

“No! You can’t do this! It is forbidden!” The jade gave a furious cry, legs scrambling for the third step, lips curling in satisfaction as Alex was now finally in reach.

Before Alex ascended another step, and yet another. And Alex could find no pleasure in the Jade’s despairing wail as he came so close to stumbling… or Shalu’s panicked shrieks that more and more sounded like the gurgling gasp of a man being devoured by unspeakable horrors.

All he could focus on was every steadying breath he took as he desperately strove to channel the impossibly furious maelstrom of a god’s power without destroying them all. The only counterbalance he could imagine to divine stairs eager to send Hao Chan and Yinzi both crashing straight down to oblivion, never to rise again.

And that Alex wasn’t letting happen, no matter the cost.

Even as his body shuddered with inhuman strength as he achieved Rank 3 Silver in what might have been a fraction of a second but felt like eternity when counted in the screaming angular momentum his girl’s silver cores were spinning at, his muscles bursting with Rank 5 Silver Vitality, and his ascension had just begun.

Even the fanatic Jade was gazing his way with a look of incredulity.

“Impossible,” he whispered. “Shalu himself has declared the sixth step now utterly beyond your reach!”

Horrific as it was to find that his nemesis had such a powerful pawn at his beck and call, Alex couldn’t deny that man and god were both correct.

Or would have been, had Alex not already claimed a prize that had earned him yet another god’s eternal enmity…

And assured that he could now rise his physique past the desperate struggles of Silver, and up to the Glorious heights of Gold.

Draconic Heritage allows you to purchase Strength and Vitality Ranks 1 full tier beyond normal limits, once minimum requirements are met! You have achieved Rank 4 Silver Cultivation! Strength has broken through to Gold Rank 1! Vitality is now Gold Rank 1!

Alex allowed the interface words to wash over him as he turned his focus to infusing his physique with as much of the furious storm of power roaring through him as he could, so much of it beyond even his rapidly spinning super cable to claim, the rest infusing and reinforcing his Prismatic Bones with a shocking amount of potency as his body was saturated to the point of rupturing with the hideous strength of a Gold.

So close to bursting, in fact, that his screams, and desperate struggles to hold himself together were near perfectly aligned to Shalu’s own panicked howls, WiFu alone tipping his hat and sipping deep of his chalice while the rest of his clan looked on in horrified shock at Shalu’s shriveling form.

“What did you do, you damned fox?” Zheng Yi roared so loud the heavens themselves began to buckle, glaring eyes filled with crackling hate for the calmly smirking kitsune wearing the same inspector’s uniform as he had countless millenia ago.

“Me, Grandfather? Why, I have done nothing at all. And if you’ll recall, it was I who counseled my dearest brother to hold off on playing the card he was so eager to display, the moment he sensed not one but nearly all of Royal Phoenix Academy’s bells ringing, a divine treasure trumping even Fog of War, for the fox foolish enough to make his presence known.”

“We knew where he was. That fool told the world where he was! Of course we will do everything we can to destroy him!” Long Wang roared.

WiFu sighed and shook his head. “Even when I informed you that my disciple, having finally realized what truly mattered, was ready to claim his prizes and retire from the board. But you, brother dearest, made it clear that he would be forced to play this round til the bitter end. No matter how steep a price our dear bloated sibling is now being forced to pay.”

WiFu gazed down with a sympathetic smirk and a dark twinkle in his eyes as Shalu’s screams grew in pitch and desperation, great splashes of fiery red blood splattering upon them all, even WiFu’s cup, which he immediately quaffed down with a beaming smile. “That’s one thing I can always count on, dear Long Wang. You’re just as dependable as the Northern Wind and summer storms.”

More words were said then, screams and threats and a bemused inspector suddenly glaring at them all like death’s specter himself, the tension so hideously thick, that a tiny sliver of Alex’s mind thought it a miracle they hadn’t abandoned their game and their world entirely for pure slaughter, so great was their killing hate for one another. Yet most of his focus was on channeling as much of the furious onslaught of power flooding his soul as he could. Channeling and enduring and going the best he could to balance the hideous burden of assuring his disciple’s survival along steps that should have killed them both, by infusing them with power so hideous that it too would have spelled their end… if not so perfectly balanced by the crushing pressure of those pearlescent steps.

All to avoid the monstrous fury a Jade behemoth so mighty that a moon had been torn free of it’s orbit, and a near divine tier garden sanctuary utterly destroyed.

A Jade monster he could sense no longer, lost as he was in the vision of the massive divine-tier super cable that was his own, still spinning faster and faster, the joyride of power as he ascended the mountain of cultivation becoming a roaring roller coaster with his belt had just snapped open. And now he was hanging on for dear life, excited screams now howls of terror as he and the girls beside him were just a heartbeat from being flung completely free.

And even if Shalu was now shrieking and begging within the magnificent bejeweled gaming room covered with so many divine masterworks that any museum curator would happily surrender his soul to haunt those halls for eternity, a bloated monstrosity crumpling in on itself as his body began to shrivel, sores full of blackness and corruption erupting all over pockmarked flesh, Alex was himself in too much agony to appreciate how closely he and his nemesis mirrored each other’s pain.

Yet as one howled with the agony of corruption, the other shrieked with potency so overwhelming his flesh was in danger of erupting altogether as a dragon’s blessing infused his muscles with what were now two Golden ranks of might, and the brilliantly blazing divine soul stone that Alex was consuming like a black hole devouring a star was now flaring brighter than ever, it’s fate just as inevitable as his own super cable began spinning at space-warping speeds… a low drone relative to his girls own shriekingly fast cores, Hao Chan and Yinzi blazing like white-hot stars as they shot up Silver ranks far beyond what should have been possible, as impossible power turned to momentum since his disciples were not yet ready for Gold.

And what an awful price they were forced to pay for that lack. Even as they achieved a foundation no mortal Silver had dreamed of before.

The Pearlescent Path they walked went from promising Light Gold Sheen to a Jade so deep that it now bordered on divine midnight black, fueled by a divine core, forged in the crucible of the steps leading to the heavens above.

Alex wanted to howl his defiance and furious triumph even as he approached his inevitable demise. For the furiously blazing divine core was a prize he had been a fool to dare think any mortal could consume in a single endless night, exactly what he was now being forced to do. And what was worse, far worse, was that the potency of his boon was being magnified 6-fold by the foe he hated above all others, the bloody pyre of his ascension quite possibly assuring the utter doom of them both.

“At least I did it, WiFu!” Alex screamed at the heavens as the air filled with the hideous crack of Shalu’s splintering bones. “I found a path beyond all others, and this time, at least, I’m finally making those asshole pay!”

WiFu flashed a smile filled with warmth and regret, saluting Alex with his chalice. “That you did, disciple. That you did.”

Even in his agony, Alex heard Lord Zheng Yi’s furious roars and howling threats to flood the world entire, to wash away the whole damned board, the neighboring pantheon’s cries of surprised dismay when they found they couldn’t even leave their divine seats making it clear that countless gambits and bitter rebuttals had been planned that had nothing to do with him at all.

But there could be no mistaking the handful of blood-red calamity cards that was all that WiFu now held as Alex flashed a bitter smile. “I guess we’re closing this game with a bang?”

WiFu flashed a wild, wicked grin as the howling storms above the divine staircase roared with thunder and lightning. “Like you wouldn’t believe, disciple. When your turn comes to an end, when Shalu’s delightful screams have finally run their course, the final round will be at hand.”

Alex flashed a fierce bitter smile even as his eyes bled for the screams of the girls trembling by his side, as transcendent epiphany was replaced by growing pain and unspeakable horror as the surge of power and insights would not stop. Would never stop, as they were crushed by hideous pressure that would obliviate them all.

Alex snarled and took in all the pain and potency that he could. Refusing to surrender til the final moment. Refusing to surrender until the hideous broken pile of putrid flesh and shattered bone still glaring Alex’s way with hate filled eyes was finally DEAD!

Before he gasped and shivered with a revelation that changed absolutely everything, realizing that there just might be another way.

In an eyeblink he was connected to two other souls, who understood all he seen and done in the blink of an eye.

Aiko Tanaka’s gaze filled with a mother’s heartfelt sympathy, as Seneschal Dong Xiao, the caretaker of Alex’s world, bowed his head. “This one greets and gives eternal gratitude to the Child of the Heavens,” Dong Xiao said in a tone that conveyed a lifetimes worth of honor and reverence.

If nothing else, Alex knew there’d be at least one tiny pocket of humanity that would survive. And would remember. He would not be forgotten.

The only problem was with a circumference closer to mars than Earth, it would never equal the glory of the Golden Realms.

So why not make it bigger?

World Seed Interface Sheet successfully accessed!

He visualized his beautiful little world as not being small, so much as distant, finding that he could ease the horrific pain of his forced ascension through visualization, imagining himself gently falling to his humble little world blessed with lush forests and fields, deep blue oceans and billowy white clouds. A fairytale realm that turned out not to be quite so tiny as he had first thought as he continued to fall from the heavens, a laughing Yinzi and a gasping Hao Chan now plummeting by his side, all of them holding hands so tightly as they gazed down upon the magnificent world below.

“Is this how we’re going to die, Alex?” Yinzi breathlessly asked.

“Forging our world with the dreams of our lives,” Hao Chan whispered.

Alex held them both, kissing them fiercely, caring nothing for strain that mattered not at all as they were all soon to perish. “Yes,” he said, swallowing the lump in his throat. “I think this is probably the end. WiFu’s pantheon are threatening to destroy their entire world out of spite, so it’s up to us to make a better one.”

“One filled with questing heroes and mysterious cultivation schools!” Yinzi squeeled.

“And mysterious lost cities filled with ancient tomes and wondrous treasures!” Hao Chan said with a smile.

Alex grinned. “Done and done. What else should we add?”

Yinzi laughed. “Let’s make it big! Big and grand so that all my father’s in-laws will be absolutely green with envy.”

Alex nodded. “Wonderful idea. And look, our fall will last a lot longer now because it turns out we now have that much further to fall.”

“Good! Now lets include guardian spirits who care about noble cultivators who care about ideals more than greed, and will lead worthy heroes along wondrous adventures that will lead to magnificent breakthroughs.”

Alex laughed. “I love it! And Aiko approves. As the goddess of knowledge, she’ll best direct all the spirit guardians.” He frowned thoughtfully. “But it can’t be an effortless cakewalk. My palace is enough of a cheat. For the rest of the world… honest effort and no free rides. But unlike the shithole we left, virtue and integrity will mean something here. Honor and effort matters.”

“Ooh! And magical flying unicorns!” Yinzi gushed. “Just like that herd of golden haired beauties we saw on the mountainside below!”

“And perhaps some livestock and fields of rice and wheat for whatever Golden Realm refugees might eventually find their way here, and whatever noble spirit beast wants to be a part of your world, Alex,” Hoa Chan quickly added, before frowning at the rapidly approaching ground. She squeezed Yinzi’s hand and kissed Alex’s cheek as they prepared for death.

“I love you both so much! I hope during our next life we—“

“Alex! They’re coming for you! Get off the steps and flee while you can!”