Saga

"What type of story?" Hao Xuan asked curiously.

"What does it matter? It's not like there's much else we can do here," he smiled back.

"I guess. Go ahead then," Hao Xuan accepted his current situation a little too easily and got comfortable. He sat down on the opposite side of the boat, facing Meng.

Meng took another large sip from the gourd and started.

"Once upon a time, in a time not so far away, there was a place called Hell. It was a place made for the unrighteous and the unworthy. The most wicked of all creation were sent there. It was not for the living and was the abode of the demons and devils that were born to torture and punish its residents."

Hao Xuan was thoroughly engrossed in the man's tale as soon as he started talking. It did not matter whether or not it was real.

But something about it held his attention like nothing else ever had.

"These demons were born of fire and blood. They had no emotions, no sympathy, no pity for the poor souls that were burning day and night. They were emotionless beings that only enjoyed giving others pain."

"Like the mortal world, they had the strong and weak as well. These devils could cultivate, corrupt the hearts of mortals, and become stronger. Hell was not a 'world' or a planet. It was a plane of existence that existed everywhere, yet nowhere. It had Nine levels or circles."

"These Nine circles of hell were ruled by twelve supreme beings that had existed since time immemorial. They were true immortals and oversaw and controlled everything. The four strongest were called the Old Ones and under them were the Eight Kings of hell. These beings had many forms and were strong beyond imagination."

"For trillions of years, it all played out the same way. A world was born, its inhabitants became sentient and developed morals and virtues by their own standards, and whosoever went against them was sent to hell by the high heavens," at this time Meng went quiet, with a look of nostalgia in his eyes.

"And then??" when he said nothing for a few moments, Hao Xuan inquired.

"And then....it all changed, at least for one individual. On a very young planet, there existed a race of humans that went a different path from the others. They choose to focus on their mortal tools and did not cultivate. Not long after, cultivation became a thing of legends and myths, and cultivators became figments of imagination."

"This world destroyed itself. It depleted its resources and fought with one another until there was nothing left. Like many others before it, all its beings passed on to the next life. Most went to hell, and a chosen few to the heavens. One of those that went to hell was a man named Huan Shi."

"Unlike the others, he didn't commit any evil deeds. His only sin was that he was week willed enough to have lost himself in the worldly pleasures. For countless years he burned in the fires of hell and boiled in its waters. But not once did he blame anyone but himself. He knew what was right and wrong but still continued his lifestyle so only he himself was responsible for his pain. What a weak man he was..." the last sentence Meng muttered under his breath, almost talking to himself.

"But one fateful day, something happened. One random day, as he was screaming in the fires, a hand reached into the flames and pulled him out. For the first time in millions of years, he got a single moment of tranquility. With tears streaming down his face he looked up and saw the face of his savior, which left him dumbfounded."

"It was the face of a heavenly beauty, quite literally. With a halo atop her head and white wings on her back that were slowly burning away.

"I finally found you," she said to him with a relieved expression on her perfect face. She, was an Angel."

"An angel?! Like from the heaven?!" Hao Xuan asked, shocked.

At some point in the story, he forgot that it was supposed to be made-up and not an actual tale. Meng smiled back and continued.

"Of course. But although she was a being of light, an angel, she was not very powerful. Her powers lay more in divination rather than combat."

"She rescued him from the fires of hell and saved him from eternal damnation, but at a very stupendous cost to her on well-being. You see, normally Angels cannot step into hell, and Devils cannot step foot in the heavens. If they force their way in, they have to pay for it with their lives, as she did."

"She burned her life essence and brought him outside, back to the realm of the living. They fell into a mortal world that focused heavily on cultivation. Here there were beings that could lift planets and enclose entire galaxies in their palms. She lost her divinity and turned into a mortal and started using the name Mao Hui. He, an inhabitant of hell also regained his life."

"They both became cultivators and spent many years together. He always asked why she saved him but she never answered, only smiling in response as if looking at a fool. They later got married and had a very happy life, until one day an army passed by. This was an army of a nearby kingdom and its leader was the kingdom's crown prince."

"The prince fell in love with the fallen angel, Mao Hui on sight. And no one could blame him, she was a heavenly beauty even after losing all her divinity. So one day when Huan Shi was away, he sent some powerful cultivators to kidnap her. When Huan Shi returned and saw the state of their home he immediately knew who was behind it."

"So without a moment of hesitation, he went straight towards the royal palace and fought his way in. After an arduous battle, he finally reached the crown princes' abode. He rushed in through the hordes of guards only to see the crown prince standing over her bloody body. Huan Shi killed the prince where he stood and went to her side."

"She had slit her own wrists over the fear of being tainted by that filthy beast. Blood flowed like wine through the palace. Her face was ashen but she only looked at him with the kindest of smiles. As if she wanted to ingrain his face into her very eyes. "Why," he asked with a quivering voice. "Because it is meant to be," she answered and closed her eyes for the last time."

At this point, Hao Xuan's eyes were also wet.

"You see, the thing was that if she had just died it wouldn't be that big of a problem. But she committed suicide so Hell was the only place her soul could go to. Huan Shi had spent countless years in that place and he knew of its horrors all too well. When he thought about the pain and suffering she would have to endure, there was no way he could rest easy."

"So he cultivated. He cultivated like his very life depended on it. He fought and killed mercilessly. They called him a demon, a monster, but he didn't care. He only wanted to become strong enough to walk into Hell itself and walk out with her. And he did. He became a monstrous existence, strong enough to break the dome of heavens above and suppress the Nine Hells below."

"To fight against the armies of hell, he raised one of his own. An army of the most powerful cultivators in existence. The army had beings that would be labeled as Gods anywhere else but they acted as his subordinates, his mighty generals! He Led this army through the gates of hell and fought his way in."

"He alone fought against Kings of Hell and his armies and generals fought against their armies. He, a mortal, instilled fear into the emotionless demonic beings and devils of hell. The Kings of Hell, after severe losses, took Mao Hui's soul and sealed her away to use as bait to entrap Huan Shi."

"Knowing that it was a trap, he still walked in alone. Because to him, nothing else mattered. As long she was there, nothing could stop him. The Hell Kings used everything at their disposal but still could not kill him. Left with no option, they bartered with the Heavenly Angels and used a God Slaying formation to rip his soul from his body and seal it in another dimension."

"It still took the entire might of Hell to finally destroy his physical body. But his soul was still immensely powerful and could not be destroyed with normal means. So they used inconceivable means to gather primordial objects from around the known realms to make a treasure capable of suppressing his soul. They called it the Nine Hells Immortal Brand."

"With its help, they marked his soul and he was finally weak enough to be killed, but before they could do anything else, he used the last bit of his power to break out of the sealed dimension and escape out into the Abyss."

"Woah. Didn't they follow after him?" Hao Xuan asked when Meng didn't say anything for a few minutes.

"Hahaha, little boy, you still don't understand. The 'Abyss' is not somewhere anyone can just walk into. Our worlds, the planes of mortals are just a very, very small part of the universe. The rest is just murk and teeth enveloped in eternal darkness. In there, the laws of the universe as we know them do not exist. Nothing makes sense in that place, not even time itself. And all of that is separated from our realms by the Chaos"

"Chaos does not follow our laws and has its own set of rules. There are things in there that our minds cannot even comprehend."

"No one knows what exactly is in there though. Space doesn't work the same as here. Chaos, like its name suggests, is a place that we are not meant to understand. It gives birth to treasures and creatures that would defy your logic. Even Huan Shi who could be called an overlord would be nothing out there."

Hao Xuan went silent. He looked up and saw the chaos Meng was talking about. It looked like a pitch-black thunderstorm at the edge of the universe.

"So what happened after? Did Huan Shi come back to rescue his wife?" he asked after a little while.

"No one knows. It has been eons and most consider it an old tale," Meng shook his head.

"Wait, what do you mean 'consider'? Do you mean all that could be real?" Hao Xuan asked, surprised.

"Who knows, the worlds are endless and their miracles even more so. Who could say it was real or not," Meng finished and leaned forward to pick up the gourd at which point Hao Xuan saw something out the corner of his eyes, something burned into Meng's back, almost like.....a brand.