Flashback or Flashforward?

Zhen Liu stared at the Chaos Body Forge formula with great intensity for a solid minute and a half. Just because he knew the name, didn't mean he wanted to touch it...yet.

A furious debate began to rage in his mind. It was like he could see a little angel and devil on his shoulders

"This is our chance! We haven't tried cultivating a Universe-Class formula, this could be our ticket to a bright and glorious future," the ambitious part of him encouraged eagerly, "It's just sitting there, we could take it and go!"

"No way! You just jinxed us with that statement! We touch that thing, we could end up exploding, melting or being turned into an animal! You know how this crap goes, leave it alone!," the cautious part of him retorted.

"Shove it you coward!", the ambitious one shouted as he threw a rock at the cautious one. Where did he get a rock in his imagination? "Just take it and we'll be stronger than-AH!"

Evidently, rock were not enough to deter the cautious one from leaping to the other shoulder and drop kicking the ambitious one.

"Don't do it!", the cautious yelled right before the ambitious one tackled him.

"Do it."

"Don't!"

This conflict went on in his head for quite a while.

Out of frustration, Zhen Liu threw his hands into the air and let them fall back to his sides, only for one of his hands to not fall back down. Instead, his wounded hand was now suspended in a reaching out position towards the scroll. A subtle but strong force began acting upon the inside of his arm and pulling him forward.

"Okay, that's probably not good..." Zhen Liu thought as he tried to pull his arm away. However, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't pull his arm or himself away from the unusual force. "This is blatant railroading or something, me", he grumbled to himself.

It wasn't until Zhen Liu was about a foot and a half away from the scroll that he was no longer being pulled towards it. However, the inside of his arm felt like it was bubbling. It was right about now that he debated the viability of just chopping his own arm off.

"Wait a minute...I don't even have a knife on me. How I am suppose to-"

But before Zhen Liu could complain further, his wounded hand suddenly released a spurt of blood that quickly condensed into a red string-like stream of blood that connected itself to wax seal on the Chaos Body Forge formula.

The moment Zhen Liu's blood made contact with the seal, a strange colorful pulse of aether began to travel down the stream of blood and directly into him. Once the pulse fully entered his hand, Zhen Liu's vision went fuzzy and his head began to spin.

"Uh oh...this is gonna get weird...," Zhen Liu lamented moments before passing out. A strange vision began to form within the confines of his unconscious mind.

_________________________________________________

Primordial Battlefield - Grave of the Titans

In a time before time, in a space between worlds, a war of an unprecedented scale was waged. Powerful and titanic beings clashed with fang, claw, steel, lasers and even entire galaxies as they tore each other to pieces.

Some say this war was fought over the ideals of good and evil, others say it was for the sake of existence while even more so it was just for power, plain and simple.

In truth, no one knows the exact cause for those who knew the truth have long been devoured by the maws of time.

Regardless of the reasons, casualties of the war were common and the scars of the conflict remain on the universe to this very day.

The Grave of Titans was once a paradise, but the battle wrought here turned the idyllic landscape into a hellish nightmare. The remains of massive warriors lie here while the remnants of their weapons and scars created by their skills dotted the landscape. Hulking machines that once roamed the cosmos, now rendered mere shells of their former selves.

It was at this battlefield of fallen warriors, that a new war was about to rage between forces that desired whatever loot could plundered from the dead that laid here.

Atop the skull of one of the fallen warriors, a lanky, sloppily dressed young man with dark hair and darker eyes took a long swig from a gourd twice his size, happily drinking while holding it up with one hand. He was surprisingly carefree, despite being surrounded by an army of at least a hundred peak tier cultivators.

To the man's right, to the man's left and a whole bunch above his head, he was surrounded by cultivators who had enough power to annihilate nations with a flick of their pinkies. On the plus side, it was clear from their lack of uniformity and the way that they eyed each other that this group was not an united army, but a shaky alliance.

From among the crowd, a fellow dressed in golden armor hovered forward.

"-_!@'-( ! We have you outnumbered and outmatched! Surrender and hand over the Chaos Body Forge!," he called out in an arrogant voice, "If you comply, we'll make sure your death is swift and painless."

"I have got to hand it to old Barrel Belly! Old drunk knows his wine!"

"Cease your-."

Any other threats were drowned out by a loud belch.

"Outmatched? Probably. I can't take y'all by myself", the sloppily dressed man said in a casual tone as he presented a "bird" to the crowd, spinning the gourd that mysteriously shifted into a heavy iron club, "Outnumbered? Are you sure about that?"

After posing that rather bold question the man snapped his fingers, releasing a sound that echoed throughout the battlefield. Then the ground began to violently shake as thousands of twisters of earth and bone began to manifest around the army.

The sudden development caused the encroaching warriors to pale, panic and cast blame on one another.

"What the nine hells?!"

"How are so many of those damn things already here?!"

"I knew it! You Sacred Hall dogs lured us into a trap! You will pay for this in blood!"

"Calm yourselves you idiots!", the man in golden armor commander, "We can still beat him if we-"

But before he could finish giving his command, a strange monstrous humanoid made of cobbled stones bursted out of the ground and swung a huge blade at him.

"Die for your arrogance, tinker toy," the humanoid shouted in a grinding voice that sounded like two millstones slamming into each other.

The golden man tried his best to block the swing, but was sent flying backwards from the force of the blow.

"Is this all you weaklings could muster?!," the rock monster roared like a landslide, "When you fight with kaijin, you need at least a thousand times more! Brothers! Sisters! Let us paint this battlefield with their blood!"

"ROAAAAARRR!"

After the command was given, an army of monstrous humanoids with fury in their hearts came bursting from the ground one after the other and began to rush the enemy warriors.

"Damn you guys are loud," the sloppy man said while picking an ear, "I was having such a nice picnic too. Oi, morons, if you're not gonna kill them quietly then at least kill them fast." After a moment of watching them rampage a bit the man let out another sigh. "As expected from Acheron class kaijin, so unnecessarily violent and slow. Might as well as give them some extra assistance."

The man clapped his hands and began to circulate rainbow-colored aether throughout his body. A strange, jagged aether diagram began to manifest behind him as the prismatic energy rushed throughout his body faster and faster. As the diagram became more solid, the man started to recite a spell.

[With my power, I forge your vessel.]

[With my wisdom, I forge your mind.]

[And with my will, I pull your soul from Chaos.]

"Now heed my call!", he exclaimed before slapping both of his hands to the ground. The diagram behind him suddenly exploded, fragments of it shooting into the ground and fusing with the bones of the fallen titan.

Another pulse began to echo throughout the field.

{I...heed...the call...}

Moments later, the world trembled as the giant's skeletal arm rose towards the sky.