I Am Supreme

Yun Yang felt himself being suspended, buoyant despite the supposed weight of gravity. His senses were blunt, he did not know where he was. There was, however, a solemn and ceremonious voice that echoed in the air.

“The heaven is black, the earth is yellow, the universe is formed from nothingness and chaos. The lower realm is ordinary, detained at my boundary. The way of Dao is the path, it allows for no hesitation. A nation has its law, heaven has its rules; Dao has its path, the plethora of occupation has its precepts. Heaven and earth know no mercy, the lives of people are countless. Stay true to your heart, go against it and meet an ill fate. In the world of martial arts, the strongest commands. Stay away from debauchery, those who do not shall be harmed. The heavens see, reap what you sow. The Lord Sovereign rules, do not think, do not conspire…”

The lines were repeated continuously, looping near eighty times inside Yun Yang’s head. When Yun Yang felt like he could already recite the lines backward, another grim voice broke in unexpectedly.

“Enter the Bound of Universe, roam free you shall. The law is lodged in your heart, violate it you shall not. Defy it, and die! Be warned and blame no one!”

Then, Yun Yang felt gravity coming back to work on him as he fell swiftly as if laden by lead.

Yun Yang did not know how high up he was. Falling so fast, it was one thing to wonder if he would injure himself – what if he died from the drop?

Yun Yang tried his hardest to cultivate some spiritual Qi to lighten himself and decelerate or decrease the increasing momentum, but it was in vain. It was completely useless. The spiritual Qi within him that used to be so pliant was thoroughly sealed now. He could not use even a drop of it. Even Emmie was disconnected like the previous incident; it was as if it did not exist!

If freefalling was all there was to it, Yun Yang could have tried to arrest his descent, despite the danger. In spite of this, the deafening thunder and lightning that crackled around him became his last straw. Strikes of thunderbolts landed on him with precision, putting him in constant, excruciating pain, like he was being torn apart.

Under the overwhelming onslaught of the persistent and increasing pain, Yun Yang finally passed out.

Boom!

He fell into a dense forest like a fallen meteor, and as he reached the ground, the land quaked thrice in repercussion.

Stone and sand soared into the sky in a flurry, engulfing the entire territory, as Yun Yang dove deep into the earth, like he was burying himself.

No one knew how long it took before Yun Yang slowly awakened, recovering his senses. However, the blinding darkness and suffocating atmosphere blared like an alarm, telling him that he was currently buried in the ground. Yun Yang dared not take his time, churning the spiritual Qi within him in hopes of breaking out of the soil. At the very least, he had to cultivate the earth manifestation.

If he who possessed all the Nine Supremes’ manifestation powers died in the earth due to suffocation, it would be the worst case of irony.

Yun Yang was caught by surprise as the spiritual Qi in his dantian responded like a tsunami right as he took a heave; an unstoppable force supported him as he catapulted right out of the ground.

The hapless fellow was not at all prepared for the current situation. He was still flitting between the fear of being unable to find his spiritual Qi and that would cause him to free fall from a high altitude as well as the terror of being buried far down the earth.

His best plan was to manipulate some of his energy or manifest into earth in order to get himself out of the unfathomable burial. If he could not achieve that, he would then attempt to seek Emmie for any sense of life support to avoid death’s embrace before he figured out what to do next.

Therefore, it was a surprise to Yun Yang when his spiritual Qi was flowing twice faster than when he was in Tianxuan Continent. It had been only a thought and a heave but he had bolted right out of the earth’s clutches onto the surface!

Despite his escape, he was now even more confounded. He could not even direct any spiritual Qi when he was falling earlier, but how could things have improved so fast once he woke up? What sorcery was this?

Yun Yang, who was in mid-air, was rarely imbalanced; he shot out of the ground and into the sky like a cannonball. The motion was logic-defying, but it pushed a lot of dust into an aggressive dance anyway.

Plop!

Losing strength, Yun Yang returned to the ground and realized that he seemed to be stepping on soft, wobbly land. He was shocked when he lowered his head to have a look at what he was stepping on.

On the ground, it was all fallen leaves. They were at least dozens of feet deep and they were leaves that had just fallen without even rotting yet!

Yun Yang was further perplexed. What tree could shed so many leaves in one season?

That was not right either. If it had been a year, the leaves would have long been rotten – how could they be so fresh and yellow?

He looked up again to scan the vicinity, but he was once again flabbergasted.

Where was he?

The location was obviously a dense forest, one that was far and isolated from any signs of man. Flora should have grown to their lushest in such a region, but anywhere he laid eyes on, it was withered yellow. The place was drained of life, losing vitality.

Anywhere Yun Yang’s eyes could reach, be it flowers and grass or tall sturdy trees, they were all wilted. There was no vivacity nor color. In spite of this, the large tree still stood tall on the ground, its branches spread wide.

“What’s going on? How does a tree like this die just like that?”

Yun Yang looked around, trying to wrap his head around the current scene.

His judgment told him without a doubt that these trees were still alive, finely so, at least two to three days before! There were trails of fresh budding shoots on some of the branches, but they were wholly shriveled now. If this had been the case any more than two days, the sprouts would have been blown away.

This begged the question – what caused these trees to wither and die within a day?

Yun Yang tried moving his limbs to make sure that the accidental explosion of power earlier was not just a coincidence. Only then did he stand up and move more to check that his body was fine; he got more agile, the flow of his essential energy smooth and vigorous. He was in an unprecedentedly well-rested state.

Pondering, his arm came to rest on a trunk as he walked to a tree, murmuring, “What’s happening?”

With a sudden poof, the tree that he had just touched with his palm, the gigantic tree that needed at least a dozen people holding hands to circle its circumference, crumbled into dust that rained down upon the land.

Yun Yang retracted his arm as if electrocuted. His jaw fell slack.

‘I – Just now – my hand… I didn’t use spiritual Qi… Even if I did use some cultivation base and could actually crush this tree to powder, I don’t think I can pulverize it so dry without any moisture like it is now…’

‘How can I be equipped with such prowess?’

Today was probably Yun Yang’s day of many discoveries as there were more surprises to come.

As the huge tree turned into fine powder and blended into the air, it seemed like a horn signal was blown as the surrounding trees fell in waves, as if receiving a summons! They then turned into a flurry of dust as well.

Yun Yang soared up and hovered at a higher altitude. His mouth was still agape as he watched all the trees within hundreds of miles from the center point where he stood fall in rippling waves outward and disintegrate into powder. Dust was everywhere.

It seemed like he was the only one to witness and be wrapped in the storm of fine dust in this territory. Other than that, there was nothing else that possessed any signs of life.

Yun Yang, who was hovering, was dumbfounded.

He did not know that higher up, there was another person who was baffled as well, much more stunned than he was.