Change On The Sky Continent

Wu Yi's corpse lay on the hard ground with a pool of blood forming quickly. Time continued moving as though nothing had happened. After five days, the corpse remained outwardly the same as when Wu Yi was alive. The body temperature gradually fell until it reached the temperature of the cold dark canyon in which it lay and the limbs stiffened.

The torsal and the limbs became bloated. The corpse's skin began slipping off the flesh and the body began producing a foul smell that spread in the canyon.

After this, things truly went downhill. Tissue began liquefying and the skin blackened.

Wu Yi was nothing special and like all living things, he was visited by flies even in this dark and cold place where not even a bird would shit. The flies lay their eggs in his orifices and his open wounds. Soon,it became clear that Wu Yi,like all living beings ,humans included was just maggot food that had slowly growing . The little bastard crawled in his body eating and eating as though it was the best meal they would ever have. They were right. Wu Yi was a martial artist meaning that his flesh was nourished by qi making it more attractive to the maggots.

After some time, corpse wax formed on his body slowing down the decomposition.

Wu Yi's body completely blackened and the tissues such as the heart, muscles and the like liquidified.

Time matched on mercilessly and like all living things, all that was left of the ambitious young man who sought vengeance above all else was a white skeleton and some dried blood.

The canyon was surprisingly free of all living beings with only insects moving about. Wu Yi was truly dead.

 There was just one problem, Wu Yi was a cultivator. Even though he was not powerful enough to keep himself alive, he had done something that no one had done before, He had reversed the movement of his Spirit and in his last moments, he had used all his willpower and the little soul force available to a Spirit gathering cultivator to rotate his Spirit in the anti-clockwise direction. This action was against the heavens and it did not follow the laws of life.

Even in death, the Spirit continued rotating ceaselessly. It attracted qi from the surroundings faster and faster. Even when only a skeleton was left, the spirit continued rotating growing ever stronger. This canyon was not filled with spirit qi but with darkness qi. This was a corrosive qi that humans and other creatures avoided when cultivating. Still, the spirit absorbed this darkness qi since it was all available. The spirit that had previously been white soon blackened and so did the bones. As more darkness qi was absorbed by the spirit, the skeleton became stronger and blacker. The joints that should have separated began sticking to each other due to the darkness qi that kept the bones attracted to each other .ears went by and many things changed. The world moved on, people died and others thrived to become powerful cultivators who even went on to step on the path to immortality. The few people who knew the name Wu Yi soon forgot about this insignificant figure and moved on with their lives.

In the canyon, the spirit continued an absorbing darkness qi that was fixed with a mysterious energy that had never existed in this world. The skeleton became tougher each passing year with the black bones becoming as tough as steel. The spirit continued with its master's will. Ten years went by and by his time, dust had covered most of the skeleton with some of the bones already buried. Another twenty years came and went. The skeleton was completely buried by the earth. After another twenty years, there wasn't any sign that anyone had ever died in this place.

 It had been over fifty years since Wu Yi bit the dust and many things had changed on the continent. A new culture that emphasized cultivation had been introduced and everyone had the chance to cultivate and even step onto the path of the immortals.

This had all been due to the Julanj that was held a few decades earlier. During this Julanj, many talented figures were discovered by the mysterious sects. This was a wake-up call for the sects that realized that they had neglected this continent for far too long. There were talents to be discovered and the sects were very much in need of new talent.

One of the most talented people discovered requested that the sects help her homeland. The sects did this by setting up a few branch sects and spreading a few cultivation skills to the masses. Many powerful figures had been discovered after that.

 On the seventh day of the second month of the sixtieth year of the Rebirth calendar, a group of young people climbed down the Thousand Flowers cliff and entered the dark canyon below. These fifteen young men and women were just a little over fifteen years old but they were already Spirit Name martial artists. The Spirit Name stage was the ninth stage of cultivation before one could step onto the path of the immortals. The youngsters were not even twenty and had already achieved something that was only left to old geezers in the past. Wu Yi had died as a mere third-stage cultivator. This showed how drastic the change on the continent had been.

Spirit Name cultivators were a dime in the dozen.

This group climbed down the cliff and descended into the darkness. They were all disciples of the Jade Lion sect. The dojo had morphed into a sect once its leader, Daoist Lion Heart and his daughter Daoist Jade Lion had been chosen by a powerful sect as disciples during the Julanj. With the backing of this powerful sect, the dojo became a powerful sect at least on this continent.

These disciples all wore the signature red robes of the sect. They had taken a sect mission to investigate this canyon that people had recently begun calling the Canyon of Darkness. These disciples were determined since the rewards were quite enticing. They split into three groups and began searching in the darkness with powerful torches that burnt qi to produce bright light that dispersed the darkness. The Spirit Torches even prevented darkness qi from entering into their bodies. As for the absence of oxygen, the disciples had all cultivated a simple skill that lets one store oxygen in their body. With this art, one could go for over ten hours without needing to breathe.

The group searched without knowing that a filthy unclean creature was about to be born.