The heavens changed, as I reached out with my power and reached out to the empire as a whole. What I’d done before paled in comparison to what I was doing now. There were no chains to break from the heavens, as I fundantally altered their nature.
I felt the divine tree manifest, a massive tree reaching up into the sky, as if its branches were holding the sky up, and its roots went deep into the earth, spreading out into the world. I felt my connection to the people, to those I knew, but many who I didn’t know either. I felt their will, felt their faith in , felt the ties that tied us together in a way that tied all people together. I felt that bond, felt it feeding power into , changing , morphing into sothing greater, sothing more than just who I was, and so I rose, a vessel of true divine power and will, as the four spirit ring in my soul blossod and I reached the edge of transcendence.
I moved my hand, and the world obeyed my command. The ground moved shooting towards Yang Shen. The demon blocked the strike by his own profusion of will. I called upon the heavens, as clouds swirled in the skies, and lightning strikes struck down. Yang Shen rose his hand and commanded them to stop, and the bolts froze in mid air, breaking the laws of reality. Be grabbed those bolts by his hand and then shot then back at the heavens. The heavens rumbled, and I felt a surge of rage rise from the divine power above, but I moved past it.
The world was a canvas, and we were two gods spraying color on it, trying to outdo one another in our vision for how the world should look.
One mont we were standing, another we struck. The strike tore the world, but our imposed will fixed the gap, the weight of our presences weighing down reality, making it more durable than it would be on its own.
I no longer stepped, I simply moved and the world obeyed, moving from one place to another. I stepped across mountains, jumped through the skies, as we fought, our strikes sending shockwaves that altered the weather.
I punched a mountain, shattering it, using the cracked rocks and directing them to strike at Yang Shen. The demon burned the rocks into nothing, and then redirected a river to try and drown . We continued to fight, continued to move till eventually we hit the ocean.
A strike sent into the water as Yang Shen followed behind. I willed the water around , commanding it, as a tsunami rose into the air, threatening to swallow. Yang Shen willed the wind around him forming a tornado that sucked up the water, sending it into the skies as it filled the clouds, before falling down as rain.
I rushed towards him, the collided forces of Void palm shattering reality and summoning the void itself as I strike at him. He blocked with an opposition to void itself, with pure creation made energy, as the two seed to nullify each other, leaving just the forces of our fist. The strike between the two of us parted the ocean across a straight line, before the water resorted itself from the receding shockwave.
Yang Shen turned and hit hard, sending high into the skies, I shot above and he rose with . I blocked his next strike as we fought in the skies above, moving further and further upwards.
I punched him, carrying the force of the power of the entire empire. I felt the pulsing power even from here, every living thing in the empire was connected to in this mont, connected to where I was and this fight, and I let that power manifest. I struck Yang Shen and he blocked my strikes, pushing back. We continued to rise till the world began to darken around us and I vaguely took note of the world curving beneath , as I felt the primordial Qi… no, the primordial Chi of the beyond.
I called upon that as well, let that unknown chaotic power give strength, little slivers and strands of it that I could not truly contain and I rushed towards Yang Shen.
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I felt the moon and the sun, the entities of reality around burning with celestial power. We moved at a scale beyond this world as he danced across the edges of the planet, fighting each other.
Mont after mont, punch after punch, I felt the blows landing, and I felt them land on . The world itself shivered, witnessing the battle as I drew upon the night infinite power I seed to command, pulling it all together.
We both knew this battle would never end, not until we both gave it our all. I drifted at the edge of space and looked at the world underneath . This was absurd, all of this was absurd, and I felt it, here, there was reality greater than this out there, but in this mont, this was the place I was in, the ho I needed to protect and so I did my part.
I drew upon the power, I drew upon each leaf, each plant, each bug, each child, each mortal, each cultivator, I drew upon the seas, I drew upon the earth, I drew upon the sky and the clouds, I drew upon the sun and the moon, I drew upon the stars and the cosmos and the distant things that created the primordial power that all creation existed within. I drew upon it all and let fill it for all I was, I let it beco a part of , and a part of my being and I manifested in into a single strike.
I did not have a na this ti, there was no na for it. It was all I had, all I was connected to, all I ant to preserve.
I roared, screaming as I shot forward and our fists collided.
The world shook beneath us, as the light from the impact blinded . I felt myself being shot backwards, I felt myself tumbling as I crashed though the world, burning up like a descending teor before smashing through mountain peaks and landing into the earth.
I ca to a stop at the place I’d begun when I had first started. In the centre of Azure city, within the royal palace. And that was indication enough of the difference that existed between us.
I had nothing left, not enough enough to lift a finger.
I watched Yang Shen descend from the skies. He was injured, quite heavily so, his prosthetic arm was gone, and a part of his body was missing entirely. I realized belatedly that there was a hole in my chest, but I was alive, I did not know, but in this mont I could not feel any of it.
The demon looked down at , huffing, spent from the fight as much as I was. His lips pressed into a thin line, and then he reached out to my soul. I felt it happen like a severing, a pull that cut off sothing that had beco a part of . I scread then, from the pain of that severing, as I felt the two spirit beasts that existed inside of be pulled out.
Xuanwu and Qinglong appeared, both roaring but their power was spent too, I’d used all I had and more. I watched Yang Shen’s domain spread out, a demon with red skin and four arms manifest behind him as Zhuque and Baihu appeared. The Black Tortoise, The Azure Dragon, The Vermillion Bird, and the White Tiger. All four of them were gathered here, and all four of them found themselves bound by Yang Shen’s chains.
The divine beasts resisted, but it was not to be, as whatever technique the demon used took hold, and a shudder of power passed over him.
I felt it happen, felt the divinity snap into place, felt it change and morph as the four divine beasts and the demon, the asura was pulled into Yang Shen, and then, I saw the demon change.
His body changed, his features altering. He grew taller, his skin turned a shade of red as two are arms sprouted from his back.
It was a grueso thing, and yet there was the touch of divine within it.
And yet there was sothing wrong, sothing deeply and fundantally wrong with what was happening here. I saw a brief mont of panic on Yang Shen’s face, and then I saw sothing twist and break.
The world shook all around , the heavens rumbled in the skies, the earth shuddered beneath , as sothing was born in this mont. Sothing new, sothing different.
The creature took a step, walking closer to as I felt the last vestiges of divinity fading from , and as my body began to realize that it was not supposed to live in the conditions I was in.
But I only saw one thing, as a horrifying realization sank my gut.
“Who… are you?” I asked the demon, the asura that stepped towards . The creature looked at curiously, paused, and its mouth contorted upwards as it gave a smile.
“God,” it said, and I saw one of its hands move, I felt sothing touch my neck for a brief mont as the world spun around .
And then everything went dark.
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