The Samsara Jade

Chapter 3

Li Chen gasped as he felt his consciousness, his very soul, being ripped out of his broken body.

He felt himself falling. He was falling upward, into the dark light of the stone. He spun faster and faster. 

The courtyard, the frozen rain, and his bleeding body faded away into nothingness. He was dragged into a pitch-black spinning vortex.

He tried to scream, but he had no mouth. He was just a thought, a spirit, flying through an endless, terrifying tunnel of darkness. Whoosh. Then, the spinning stopped.

Li Chen opened his eyes. He was no longer in the muddy courtyard. He was no longer in pain. His body felt light, as if he was made of air. He looked around and his breath caught in his throat.

He was standing in the middle of a boundless, endless void. Everywhere he looked, there was deep, dark space. But it was not empty. Billions of stars glowed in the distance, painting the darkness with beautiful colors of purple, blue, and gold. Huge clouds of cosmic dust drifted slowly through the sky.

"Where... where am I?" Li Chen whispered. His voice echoed forever in the silent space. "Am I dead?"

CLANK. A massive, heavy sound interrupted his thoughts. It sounded like two mountains crashing together.

Li Chen turned slowly. What he saw made his mind go completely blank with fear and wonder.

Floating in the space before him was a creature so big it made the stars look small. It was a dragon, but not a normal dragon. It had the fierce, horned head of an ancient, terrifying dragon, with long whiskers that floated like rivers of light. But its body was covered by a massive, impossible shell. It was a dragon-turtle.

The creature was ethereal. Its body was made of glowing blue and gold starlight. It looked like a ghost of a god.

But the most shocking thing was not its size or its beauty. It was the chains. Thick, black chains, covered in glowing red letters, were wrapped around the giant dragon-turtle’s neck, legs, and massive shell. The chains stretched out into the dark space, tying the creature down.

The dragon-turtle slowly opened its eyes. Its eyes were like two massive, burning yellow suns. When it looked at Li Chen, Li Chen felt like his soul was completely naked. The creature could see his past, his present, his sadness, and his deep anger.

The creature opened its mouth. When it spoke, the sound did not come through the air. The voice shook the inside of Li Chen’s mind. It was ancient, tired, but incredibly powerful.

"Ten thousand years..." the voice rumbled like thunder. "I have waited in the dark for ten thousand years... Finally, someone has come."

Li Chen was shaking. He tried to speak, but he could not find the words. He was just a poor, broken boy from the Outer Sect. Why was he here? What was this god-like monster?

"Do not be afraid, little human," the giant dragon-turtle said. Its giant sun-eyes looked closely at him. "I thought my final piece of soul would fade away inside that jade. But your blood... your blood woke me up. I can smell it. I can taste it. It is the scent of the curse."

"The curse?" Li Chen finally managed to say. "What do you mean? Who are you?"

The giant creature let out a slow breath. The breath pushed past Li Chen like a warm solar wind.

"I am Old Kui," the creature answered. "I was a god of the primordial era, before the heavens were locked. But that does not matter now. What matters is you, boy. What matters is what is inside you."

"There is nothing inside me," Li Chen said bitterly. The memory of Zhao Feng’s boot on his head came back to him. "I am a waste. My spiritual roots are broken. I cannot gather Qi. I am going to die in the mud."

Old Kui let out a booming laugh. The laugh shook the stars around them. It was not a cruel laugh; it was a laugh of pure excitement.

"Broken? Is that what the blind fools of this age call it?" Old Kui’s voice was filled with mockery. "They look at a bottomless ocean and call it an empty cup! You do not have broken roots, boy. You have something the gods themselves tried to destroy. You have the Cursed Void Root. The Primordial Chaos Root!"

Li Chen stared at the giant creature. His mind was spinning. "Primordial Chaos Root? What does that mean?"

"It means your roots are not broken. They are starving," Old Kui declared. The heavy black chains around his body rattled as he leaned closer to Li Chen. "Normal roots drink the small drops of energy in the air. Your root needs an entire river. It needs an ocean. Because it cannot get enough energy, it looks dead. It looks broken. To fix it, you cannot just breathe the air like those weak cultivators."

The massive dragon-turtle’s eyes burned brightly. The heavy, crushing aura in the starry space seemed to focus entirely on Li Chen.

"To fill the Void Root, you must learn to eat everything," Old Kui whispered softly, yet the words echoed violently in Li Chen's mind. "You must eat the energy of the earth. You must eat the fire of your enemies. You must eat the poison in the air, the blood of beasts, and the spiritual power of anyone who stands in your way."

Li Chen’s heart started to beat wildly. He thought of Zhao Feng. He thought of the elders who ignored him. He thought of the killers in the black masks who burned his family.

Power. This creature was offering him power.

Old Kui saw the burning fire of revenge in Li Chen’s eyes. The ancient creature smiled, showing teeth the size of mountains.

"I can teach you the forbidden way, boy. I can give you the Heavenly Void Devouring Art. But it will hurt. The world will hate you. The heavens will try to crush you. The path of the Devourer is paved with blood and bones."

The giant dragon-turtle lowered his massive head until it was right in front of Li Chen. The heat from his breath washed over Li Chen's face.

"Tell me, boy with the broken bones and the bleeding heart. Do you want to lie in the mud and die like a dog?" Old Kui's voice shook the very foundation of the starry void. "Or do you want to devour the heavens?"

Li Chen looked into the burning suns of the creature's eyes. He thought of his broken ribs. He thought of his mother's shattered jade. He thought of the taste of mud and the feeling of total helplessness.

He closed his fists tightly. In this empty space, his voice was small, but his resolve was as hard as iron. 

"Teach me," Li Chen said.