Tree of Life

Qin Shi Huang was known as a tyrannical and cruel ruler by his people, but he was also recognized as the greater emperor that had ever existed. The way in which he planned war strategies and solve political problems was respected by everyone on planet earth!

200 BCE.

After a declaration of war in 210 BCE, 10 years had passed since the biggest world war that earth had ever seen. This was the climax of the war! Qin Shi Huang of the Qin Dynasty and Artabanus IV of the Parthian Empire were the final victors, the only thing left was to see who would claim the title of the king of the earth!

After multiple grueling years and hundreds of millions of deaths, this was the final breath of the ginormous world war!

As the fire raged on the long annihilated battleground, Qin Shi Huang had finally conquered most of the Parthian Empire! The only thing left was to directly attack Artabanus IV and recover the victory!

"Charge forward!!" Qin Shi Huang yelled at his soldiers, standing atop a large stallion and pointing his blade towards the enemy base. As the wind howled in the noon sky, Qin Shi Huang's army of over a million soldiers advanced forward while yelling their battle cry all at the same time. It was an electrifying moment.

As the army came across a large hill, a hail of millions of fire arrows rained down upon all of Qin Shi Huang's army. For the first time ever, Qin Shi Huang had made a crucial war strategy mistake. Qin Shi Huang was absolutely devastated. As a could of arrows rained down, killing all of his soldiers, Qin Shi Huang could only think as to who spoiled their plan to the enemy.

A traitor? Too bad.

Qin Shi Huang took and deep breath and raised his arms out to the side and closed his eyes, pushing his chest out and accepting his death.

It was an emotional scene.

'At the very least, I am humble in defeat. I am accepting a humble defeat.' Qin Shi Huang thought to himself at the last moments of his life.

'Accepting a humble defeat.

A humble defeat.

Humble defeat.

Defeat... DEFEAT!?' Qin Shi Huang's eyes instantly opened.

"Me? Defeat? Impossible!" He yelled out into the sky as a fire arrow pierced him in the heart, blood started to come out of his mouth.

"DO YOU THINK MY DEATH WILL BE MY DEFEAT?!?!" He finally roared at the heavens before falling off of his stallion.

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All Qin could see and feel was darkness. His entire body felt numb and he couldn't use any of his senses. "So I have truly died? Hah! What a funny concept. This is not the end."

Suddenly, Qin could feel his senses slowly coming back to him. 'Hmm?' Qin thought. Qin could open his eyes. Looking straight in front of him, he saw a ginormous tree. The tree was the size of a city, if not an entire state. It reached far above the clouds and looked absolutely majestic.

The glorious tree was as bright as the sun and looked like it was constantly burning in a raging fire that never seemed to stop. However, this was not fire, but magic. Apart from the tree in front of him, he could see nothing but ocean for as far as the eye could see. 'Where am I? This does not look like earth.' Qin thought.

It felt as though Qin was dreaming.

"You have died, Qin Shi Huang." A loud and strong voice sounded. The voice was slow, steady, and calm, but had an overwhelmingly big presence that any normal human would bow down to. "Who are you?" Qin questioned.

"I am life." The voice sounded again. Qin noticed that the tree's illustrious shine glowed slightly more each time the voice would sound. "Are you this tree in front of me?" Qin questioned. "That is correct." The tree of life answered.

"Then tell me, what will happen to me from here?" Qin questioned the tree. "You will cross over into the realm of hell due to your consignment of sins." The tree answered. Qin didn't speak. "You Qin, are a sinner of the highest degree." The tree sounded again.

"Watch your tone when you speak to me, tree. I don't care what you are, I am the emperor." Qin replied to the tree of life, emphasizing the "I".

"You? The emperor? This is no longer earth Qin, you are nothing but a soul here." The tree of life said.

Qin raised a single finger in the air. "Wherever I exist, It is MY domain, for I am the emperor." Qin said, with no doubt in his stern voice. After this, he started to randomly look around for something that would help him in this situation. After a little bit of looking around, he looked at the tree itself.

Looking a bit closer, he saw that there was something encrusted inside of the tree. It looked as though the bright energy coming from the tree all originated from that divine artifact.

'Perfect' Qin thought to himself as he jumped in the water and started swimming towards the tree. It was quite a short distance.

Seeing Qin swim over, the tree was slightly confused. "Wat are you doing?" Te tree questioned.

"Wat is tat artifact encrusted into you. It looks quite valuable." Qin replied.

"This!? You cannot have this. Stop swimming towards it at once!" The tree replied. The tree itself was quite confused as to why Qin hadn't crossed over to hell yet. Qin continued to swim before finally reaching land.

He was only 100 meters away from the artifact.

"Stop! This divine artifact is one of great prophecy! It does not belong in the hands of the likes of you. A legendary warrior will one day inherit this artifact and obtain everything the universe has to offer! You are committing a cardinal sin by destroying a prophecy told by the heavens themselves!" The tree said desperately. If it were to lose such an artifact that it was supposed to be guarding, it would have been over for his role as the tree of life.

After hearing this, Qin smiled. "Even more perfect!" He said, widening his eyes. "I am already a sinner of the highest degree! How much will this affect my result of going to hell? Haha!" He yelled at the tree.

Qin reached over and took the artifact out of the tree. It was a metallic and luminescent object that was in the shape of a pyramid triangle. The moment Qin grabbed it, the object quickly shrunk until it was the size of a grain of rice before shooting itself into Qin's glabella.

"Ack!" Qin said in surprise. Before he knew it, he was no longer in the same place. Qin was moving at the speed of sound through what looked like a tunnel of endless colors moving in all directions!

He felt nauseous and sick, almost as if he were riding a roller coaster. After an entire hour of this crazy ride, Qin saw darkness at the end of this crazy light. 'Finally some peace...' He thought to himself, absolutely exhausted.

After entering into the darkness, Qin felt a familiar feeling. He again was in darkness, not being able to see or feel anything. "My god! Not this again!" Qin thought to himself. He thought that he would have to wait for a moment again before regaining his senses, but it simply didn't happen that day.

His wait continued for an entire week, eventually turning into a month. Throughout all of this, however, Qin did not lose even a shred of hope. He was going to get out, and when he did, his journey to the supreme sovereign would continue even further.

Qin waited and waited, and finally, he saw light for the first time in nine months...