In a thick darkness, the sound of wind gradually reached my ears.
The wind grew louder and louder. I felt as if I were being pulled by a gale, swaying back and forth as I moved forward.
Leaving the darkness behind, I was surrounded by heavy snow, and I had become one of the snowflakes, carried forward by the fierce wind.
I drifted over a forest of ice and snow. In the forest, every tree stood like an ice spike, rising eerily and piercing straight toward the sky, transforming the forest into a hellish prison, terrifying to behold.
I floated through countless ice trees, finally drifting to a frozen lake.
On the lake, atop what seemed like ice that had not melted for ten thousand years, a man dressed in black armor knelt within a blood-red formation. He hunched over, head lowered, his entire body trembling.
His body was covered in wounds, and the fresh blood from his injuries flowed out in thin streams, winding around him to form eerie red threads that fed into the formation on the ground below him.
He murmured incantations, strange spells that sounded like Buddhist sutras yet also resembled dark magic. Though he chanted alone, the entire ice forest trembled with his words.
“Summon my lord, from the extreme abyss, offer my eternal life, willingly serve for eternity…”
As his incantation continued, the blood encircling him like ribbons flowed faster and faster.
“Begin…”
With the man’s final utterance, the formation beneath his feet emitted a strange crimson glow.
In the next instant, the formation on the ground produced a resonating hum, like the morning bell vibrating, one sound after another, rhythmic like waves, rippling outward in layers.
An extremely small black spot, like a grain of sand, rose from the formation.
As it rose, the surrounding air waves grew increasingly violent and terrifying.
When the light spot completely left the ground, the air waves surged like a massive tsunami, sweeping outward and destroying everything around it as if uprooting ancient trees.
The snow fog churned, turning into white steam. As all the mist receded, within the white fog remained only a black flame the size of a water droplet, floating and burning in the air.
The man who had summoned this black flame had been stripped of all flesh and skin by the previous air waves, leaving only a skeleton, standing in place as if in devout worship.
The black flame floated quietly in the air. After a moment, the flame began to vibrate.
As it trembled, the black formation on the ground released black vapors that condensed into threads and entered the skeleton. In an eerie manner, they wrapped around the bones, rebuilding sinews, internal organs, and even flesh.
It… restored the man…
But unlike before, this man’s veins beneath his skin were no longer blood-colored but had transformed into black vessels. His eyes had also been dyed completely black.
A malevolent spirit…
Yet not an ordinary one.
“My lord Hao Yi.” As this name was uttered, bell sounds crashed into my ears, shaking my very soul.
Hao Yi…
The name of an ancient evil god.
Even during our lessons at Kunlun, the master only dared let us see these two characters in books, never allowing us to recite them aloud.
The evil god Hao Yi, born in the extreme abyss, is undying and indestructible.
Thousands of years ago, the gods from all eight directions united their efforts and finally sealed the evil god in the deepest sea. The malevolent energy in today’s world is merely the last lingering breath of the evil god remaining in the world.
After that battle, the gods from all directions were nearly extinguished. In today’s world, counting Xi Wang Mu, the main deity of my Kunlun, there are only ten left.
If the evil god were to emerge from the extreme abyss, there would be no more gods or Buddhas in the world to make him dormant again.
Yet this person here was addressing this black flame as—my lord Hao Yi.
Had the evil god already returned to the world…
I looked at that flame, feeling shock and terror. In the moment of my fear, my heart felt as if it were being tightly gripped by a hand. I became aware of my body’s existence. Then, intense pain spread throughout my body, causing it to curl up involuntarily.
The surrounding white snow receded in an instant, and the scene before me was swallowed by darkness.
I looked up, and that flame, mixed with blood-red, occupied my entire field of vision.
The flame danced before me.
I stared at it, entranced.
I saw countless black malevolent energies extend from around it, transforming into spider threads that came from all directions, touching my skin.
They held me like a puppeteer controlling a puppet.
Looking down, I saw that spider threads had already attached to my chest. I watched helplessly as they seemed to have a life of their own, burrowing into my skin. I felt them entangle my heart.
Intense pain invaded my internal organs, making me want to curl up, but the spider threads wrapped around my limbs stretched my body open.
My heart contracted in severe pain while my body was infinitely extended. I felt as if I was about to be torn apart right here!
I bit my teeth, enduring the pain, using my last bit of consciousness to repeat a sentence in my mind, almost turning it into a belief.
And when I recited this sentence, the pain in my body indeed seemed to lessen somewhat.
The flame danced before me, gradually transforming into a human shape. Darkness enveloped its entire body, making its features indistinguishable.
It seemed curious about what my trembling lips were saying. It walked toward me, gently putting its ear close to me.
“Whatever you dream…”
It came closer.