Reborn as an Immortal in a Martial World

Chapter 2: Prologue II: Chaotic Immortal Light

In an instant, the endless cloud sea churned with storm winds, and killing intent smothered the sky from every direction.

"DIE!" Aiden's eyes blazed. He roared, and his immortal sword split into ten thousand streaks of light, sweeping outward like lightning from the heavens.

The crowd scrambled backward, terror in their eyes and cold sweat running down their spines. There were so many of them, and still they trembled.

Damien Frost had fallen to him in a single strike. What chance did they have? Unless a miracle happened, Aiden would break through and flee today.

This place is no longer safe. Seraphina wouldn't dare plot against me alone. Aldric Vale must be standing behind her. I have to get out of here.

Aiden swept a scornful glance over the cowering crowd and prepared a secret escape technique.

Then a melody drifted into his ears, ethereal as smoke.

He turned toward the sound. Above the sea of mist, a forest of crimson maple leaves had appeared out of nowhere. Within it sat a woman in white, playing a harp. Ribbons of many colors drifted around her graceful arms, and she looked like a spirit from a dream.

The stars blazed above. Red leaves carpeted the ground below.

The music was delicate and haunting, like a mountain stream running over stones, deep and lingering.

Aiden's heart sank. He stepped forward and stopped ten paces behind her.

The music broke off.

The woman rested her fingers on the strings, her red lips glistening. "You don't seem surprised at all."

A gentle wind stirred the maple branches.

Something rustled in the trees.

"Unexpected, yet not unexpected," Aiden said, his voice calm. But his knuckles were white on the hilt of his sword. "I doubt the City Lord came alone. Call out the rest of them."

The City Lord of the White Robes, Lady Elowen Gray, gave a small nod and said nothing. Six colossal celestial pillars rose above them, blazing with array light. Chains as thick as a man's arm poured down from six directions like waterfalls.

Aiden's eyes flashed. His fingers curled into claws and clamped down on empty air, and space around him began to boil.

Whoosh!

A divine blade slashed out of the void, cutting between Aiden and Lady Elowen. It sliced through the spatial power he had gathered, and its sword intent formed a wall that blocked his next attack.

A Half-Step Immortal Venerable. The Overlord Blade. Aiden knew then that this was likely his last day alive.

He also saw that the chains from the six pillars carried no killing power. They were made only to bind and seal. But the space around him was locked tight.

"Why waste time on him?" a woman's voice purred from behind. "Just suppress him. I'm dying to see how mysterious that Emerald Bloom really is."

Aiden spun around. A beautiful woman glided out of the clouds, seductive and unhurried. She wore a rose-pink bodice that bared a daring line of cleavage, and her skirt trailed for yards behind her. Her aura was crushing, and her eyes glowed blood-red.

A Half-Step Immortal Venerable. Lady Scarlett Rowan, Crimson Eyes of the Bloodwood.

The onlookers gasped. To kill Aiden, Damien Frost had come first. Now that he had fallen, three more Half-Step Venerables had appeared. This was a trap with no way out.

Scarlett walked toward him one slow step at a time, a cloud of blood mist gathering at her feet. She dressed like a temptress, but her voice was ice. "Give us the Emerald Bloom, and I'll leave you a whole corpse."

Aiden smiled. His fighting spirit roared to life. Even against three Half-Step Venerables, he felt no fear. If he was going to die today, he would still never surrender the Bloom.

Blue light flared over his hands. A pair of azure gauntlets materialized on them. If I'm going to die, I'll make it a battle they will never forget.

He poured his immortal energy into the gauntlets, unleashed the full power of the artifact, and slammed his fist into the Overlord Blade's strike.

Sir Garrick Thorne, the Overlord Blade, had been itching to fight. He drew his sword at once, gathered the power of heaven and earth, and slashed diagonally.

BOOM!

Red leaves scattered across the sky, and the cloud sea split in two.

Garrick staggered back several steps, every sword technique he had thrown shattered by a single punch.

Aiden had planned exactly this. For a blade cultivator, momentum is everything. The stronger the momentum, the deadlier the strike. On the first clash, the Overlord Blade would surely underestimate him. That gave Aiden the chance to break his invincible aura.

Retreat a single step, and your momentum dies.

Fist against sword, artifact against artifact, they clashed until the heavens shook and the clouds dispersed.

The longer Garrick fought, the more alarmed he grew. This Great Perfection Immortal King was a genius who came once in dozens of ages. If they stood at the same level, Garrick knew he would lose.

Scarlett had been watching from the side. She could not help but call out, "Show your true strength soon, or he'll beat you!"

Garrick snorted. He leapt a hundred feet into the air, gripped his sword with both hands, and a divine sun rose behind him.

It burned purplish-red, wreathed in raging flames. Its heat could melt through space in an instant.

"The Immortal Sun Knows No Law!"

The Overlord Blade poured the entire burning sun into his sword and cleaved downward with a domineering force that seemed to split heaven and earth.

Aiden's face changed. He fed all his boundless immortal energy into the gauntlets, gripped his immortal sword with both hands, and slashed upward with everything he had.

A phantom of a primordial world bloomed and met the peerless strike head-on.

The primordial world was cut in two by the blade light. Then sword met sword in a savage, evenly matched clash. An Immortal King was standing toe to toe with a Half-Step Venerable!

Scarlett frowned. She knew Garrick alone could not crush him. She stepped forward, and a dazzling gate of light appeared behind her, shining down on Aiden and pressing on his power.

BOOM!

Blinding celestial light erupted between Aiden and Garrick. In that instant, Scarlett shot forward, crossing endless space to appear right before him.

She struck like a ghost. Her palm slammed into his chest with an eerie, unstoppable force, shattering the flesh and bone beneath.

Streams of red blood energy burst from Aiden and became chains of divine order that locked him in midair. Endless laws pressed down on him, and the essence of the Eternal Law began to erode his body and his soul.

The world shifted. The six pillars vanished. The chains disappeared. Only a sea of blood remained, wind howling across it and waves surging high.

Above it hung the purplish-red sun.

The blood sea below and the burning sun above squeezed him with terrible force. Space shrank. Time seemed to fade. Illusions crawled through his mind.

Scarlett and Garrick stood over the blood sea with their robes billowing, one elegant and one overwhelmingly domineering.

Aiden stood drenched in blood, sword still raised, his cold eyes fixed on the two of them. He knew that even the greatest genius was only invincible among his equals.

Defeating two Half-Step Venerables was impossible. And Lady Elowen, who had yet to make a move, sat nearby with her harp. She looked gentle and lovely, but she had already locked onto him and could kill him at any moment.

If I die today, I'll drag every one of you down to the Netherworld with me!

His face turned solemn. He formed an ancient, profound hand seal, and the phantom of a blue lotus rose behind him.

"Ancient Celestial Light! Chaos, descend upon the world!"

Rays of chaotic light shot out in shimmering arcs, and from them poured millions of cold beams. They carried the oldest desolation in the world.

He had comprehended this world-destroying light when he obtained the Emerald Bloom. Chaos can give birth to all things, and it can dissolve them too.

The Chaos Sea was said to be the very end of the Immortal Realm, filled with endless chaos. Aiden had passed through countless brushes with death to pull the Bloom from its depths.

The immortals watching from tens of thousands of miles away knew this light was no ordinary power. They all unleashed their strongest defenses. Their bodies swayed, and they could barely keep hold of their weapons.

But at that moment Lady Elowen, Scarlett, and Garrick struck together. They crushed the endless chaotic light and extinguished Aiden's last hope of escape.

His eyes blurred. Even his thoughts turned muddy. He murmured, "So this really is the end. Fine. At least you'll all be buried with me."

His gaze hardened. He could no longer fight, but he could still deliver one final blow.

Destruction!

Destroy himself. Destroy the Primordial Chaos Emerald Bloom. Destroy every enemy!

A blue whirlwind tore across the cloud sea. Behind Aiden, the Emerald Bloom appeared from nothing and swelled to hundreds of millions of feet, as if it would shatter the entire world.

He fed it every drop of blood in his body, staring at the three figures in the sky without a trace of emotion.

"With my blood, I return to the ancient past! With the light of chaos, I will destroy heaven and earth!"

Since the day he obtained the Bloom, he had never learned how to use it. But now an ancient, mysterious incantation surfaced in his mind out of nowhere.

Aiden understood. This was the Bloom's companion technique. And to unleash it, he had to pay with his own life.

The Emerald Bloom exploded with light like a sun born from nothing. Chaotic divine light, saturated with the law of destruction, blazed in every direction. The force was so terrible that it hurled Aiden's body into the air.

"RETREAT!" The Eternal Law around the three Half-Step Venerables convulsed. Each of them fled by whatever means they had, their earlier composure gone.

BOOM!

Countless rays of chaotic light flooded the world. The destruction blasted every cloud into nothing and laid bare the barren earth below.

The three Venerables felt the destruction rushing at them and their scalps prickled. They turned and used every life-saving trick they had. It still was not enough.

All three coughed blood and flew backward. The Eternal Law behind them collapsed, their immortal light dimmed, and their auras sank into weakness.

They did not dare linger. Three powerful auras were racing toward them, and those auras felt like enemies, not allies.

Aiden's body drifted down from the sky like a withered leaf in late autumn and landed in the dust. A faint, gentle smile rested on his face.

If I had known it would end like this, I would have chosen to live in quiet seclusion with Lily...

If death is unavoidable, let me meet it with all my passion and all my longing. She is waiting for me there.

But just as his life was about to fade, the storage ring on his right hand flashed with dazzling light. A small pale-yellow stone flew out on its own.

A beam of chaotic light burst from the stone and wrapped around Aiden, dying though he was, and lifted him into the air. In a flash he soared into the heavens and vanished without a trace.

The endless chaotic light annihilated everything within a million miles, leaving a forbidden zone that even a Half-Step Venerable dared not enter.

With Aiden's fall, the battle ended. Countless had died. Many families were wiped out when their patriarchs fell.

Beyond the cloud sea, Seraphina stood high in the air, her beauty beyond even that of an exiled goddess. She had stood there for a hundred years.

Suddenly a man in white appeared from thin air and knelt on one knee, deeply respectful. "Your Majesty, the army from the heavens has arrived at the Chaos Sea..."

Seraphina's face, unchanged for a hundred years, finally stirred. She parted her lips and let out a warm breath. "Begin. Seal the Ascension Platform and sever all ties with the lower realm."

"As you command." The man in white withdrew.

Seraphina looked up at the sky, her white gown fluttering and her long hair dancing on the wind. Her lovely eyes crossed endless space, and she saw ten figures standing in the void beyond the immortal realm.

Nine stood side by side, a dazzling and magnificent immortal realm at their backs. A short distance ahead of them stood a single figure shrouded in chaos.

"The Sword Progenitor has fallen, and after all this time, Aiden's body has never been found. Could the divine artifact have been destroyed along with him...?" Seraphina whispered to herself, worry clouding her face as she gazed into the endless void...