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  “Once, long ago, there existed a Divine roost built atop a mighty Crimson Fusang Tree.

  “It was a nest that housed the Ten Fledgling Suns of Heaven, renowned as the precious children of the Three-Legged Golden Crow — She who ensured the timely arrival of Dawn and Dusk.

  “Infant Stars one and all, those fledgling chicks eagerly awaited the day they might roam the firmament with their Sovereign Mother, bringing Heaven’s light to the world below.

  “One day, when the mother Crow had left its nest unattended, a mischievous monkey climbed up the pillar of the Fusang Tree, entered the nest of Fledgling Suns, and cut off the head of one of the hatchlings sleeping fitfully within the roost. The headless chick soon woke up and, upon finding its solar crown missing, clumsily hopped from star to star, chasing after the playful primate that stole its head.

  “The primate fled across the Heavens, and the chick followed. After a chase that endured across a hundred stars, in a journey that spanned across a hundred years, the chick finally cornered the primate atop the Star-Hungry Mountain.

  “No longer was the chick a mere Fledgling Sun by then, however. Its body had grown large and strong, and it boasted magnificent feathers that blinded the eyes of all who gazed upon it. In its long journey, it severed and tried the heads of many different beasts, but none fit it as well as its original crown. And so, the chick chased the thief down, demanding the mischievous primate to return its stolen head.

  “The monkey asked why it has need of a head, and the chick replied that a Sun without a Crown cannot grow strong. In response, the primate laughed, and said: ‘Look how far you have travelled, you who hold no eyes. Look how strong you have grown, you who bore no brain. The Great Sun that is yourself has no longer the need for a head. You claim that this crown I hold could give you power, yet who could possibly defeat you as you are now?’

  “Hearing his words, the Beheaded Phoenix agreed, and returned to its nest. There, it cuts off the heads of all its siblings, who still have yet grown to size, and murdered the Three-Legged Crow, who could not defeat the chick without a head. Now, whenever the Sun travel through the skies, boiling blood bleeds from its seeping stump. Fire rains down upon the lands, scorching all who live below in a torrent of fire.

  “As for the monkey, he returned to the Fusang Tree, found the murdered Three-Legged Crow that the chick could not devour without a head, and consumed it alongside nine headless suns.

  “And for the infant head that he stole one century ago, he planted it elsewhere.

  So that it may one day grow into yet another Fusang Tree that he may plunder.”

  — Excerpt from ‘Divine Chronicles’, a secret text found deep within the vaulted libraries of the Imperial Court

  Present day, in a place neither near nor far…

  The woman reached for the hide of the Fusang Tree.

  The delicate touch of pale fingers graced the side of the stillborn wood, forming patterns within the bronze bark of a tree that once blossomed beneath the Astral Skies. Her Jade eye peered past the veil of blood-red hair, studying the corpse.

  Refuge of Suns. Heavenly Nests that housed the Ten Crows of the Morning.

  It might have been beautiful, once. But it was now an ugly, withered thing. Its branches were void of fruits or leaves, and its bark was gnarled with ancient rage and hatred.

  Most important of all, its qi was dead. Plundered and forgotten.

  Like so many things that traitorous Primate touched.

  “Now that is an uncharitable thought.”

  A voice behind her. Speak the Devil’s name… The woman silently sighed.

  She turned and saw the figure of a humanoid beast, dressed in the guise of a ruler. It noisily ate a fleshy ‘peach’ as it perched itself upon a nearby root of shrivelled bronze. Its golden armour, ornate and fearsome to behold, shone with an unnatural lustre.

  It gleamed with preternatural hate — as if enraged by her presence.

  A conversation with that distasteful thing was not what she had in mind, but since it was here, she might as well make use of the opportunity and indulge in discussion.

  Upsetting as it was to acknowledge, she was rather lacking in conversation partners these days. That God of hers could be awfully childish at times, denying her even the grace of a smile or loving word as she resided in his silent Heart.

  Oh? So you disagree?

  “Some truths are hurtful no matter how they are said. By all means, speak honest thoughts, but I prefer you do so away from my presence.”

  The woman tilted her head, crimson hair parting to reveal that single, baleful eye of emerald green.

  I am not here.

  “Hmm. I suppose you are not.” The Primate took another bite of its ‘fruit’. The juices flowed, and blood dribbled down its lips. “Where are you now, then?”

  I go where my Lord goes.

  “Ha! Does he know that? I pity the Fool who must tolerate your presence day and night.”

  The one-eyed woman turned away from the Primate and looked upon the shrivelled tree again. With a single thought, her body disappeared, before materialising once more atop the giant crown of naked branches.

  She bore witness to a pilfered nest. Once the loving home to a mighty Golden Crow and her ten children, now nought but ash and worthless twigs remained…

  Matricide. Fratricide. Sororicide. Deicide. The death of nine Suns, a Crow, and the tree that guards them. One mother. Nine children.

  Ash and twigs, and the giant decaying corpse of the Golden Crow that lacks a crown. Did it understand what its child had become in the small moments before its death?

  The Primate chuckled.

  “Ah, yes. Not my proudest moment, this. But needs must. I’m sure you understand.”

  To the woman’s regret, she did.

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  One such as her has no right to toss accusations, especially since she had committed far worse atrocities in her long existence.

  Why are you here?

  The Primate considered her question. A heartbeat later, the beast in human armour took another vicious bite from the fruit in his hand, before tossing aside the half-eaten ‘peach’.

  “To be entertained.”

  The moment the discarded offal touched the ground, the gnarled roots came to life, snarling in murderous hunger as it twisted. Bronze tendrils burst into a hundred hungry fingers, and an unholy presence roared and reached.

  All seeking the beating, bloody flesh of the discarded flesh fruit. It was no mere peach. Within its blood-red flesh held a sliver of Immortality — grown from within the very Graveyard Heights of Heaven’s Garden.

  “A question for you, Hierophant. If a Corpse devours an Immortal Heart, what is born from the pit within?”

  The ground exploded. Dead or not, a God was a God. The Divine intelligence within the corpse of the Fusang Tree sensed the source of its salvation. Just one bite, just a single bite, and it shall be reborn!

  The woman sighed, before reaching her finger behind her ear.

  There, tucked within the cascades of her blood-red hair, was an insignificant golden needle of no import. Smaller than her finger. Lighter than air.

  And yet, heavy enough still for even a ghost like her to feel its weight.

  She flicked it forth in her hands.

  The hundred bronze roots of the Dead God, each the size of tree trunks and harder than any mundane metal, were blown apart in an instant.

  The discarded peach — a catalyst of such potent Immortality that even the greatest of Cultivators would have killed millions of mortals for — was obliterated within the span of an eye blink.

  You have eyes. Tell me, then. Why does a Corpse still need to eat?

  The Primate laughed.

  “Even the Dead are hungry these days. Too little meat to go around.”

  And whose fault was that?

  The woman closed her eye and tucked the golden needle back behind her ear.

  The Primate rested its head on a furred hand, gazing at the needle ornament behind her ear with an amused expression.

  “It’s been very long since I last saw that ugly relic. I don’t suppose I could have it back?”

  It was never yours.

  “Neither is it yours. Since its owner is not around to take it, perhaps I might see to its safekeeping—”

  The Primate stood up, and in that moment, the woman moved. Her hand reached for her face, not to pull forth the needle tucked behind her ear, but to tug away at the shimmering darkness covering the other half of her gaze.

  Covering the eye that must not be seen.

  Fingers sank into the living shadow, and she pulled.

  Something broke. Something screamed.

  The seal that kept her gaze contained fell to the earth. Her second eye — now freed and unrestrained — landed on the beast before her, looking straight into its wide, inhuman stare.

  The pupil in that unveiled eye — incomprehensibly grotesque, and rippling with the horror of long-forgotten cosmic madness — directed itself at its loathsome target.

  It pulsed. Once.

  A heartbeat passed. The Primate spasmed, then sat back down.

  “Hmm. Or I suppose not.”

  No sooner had it finished those words than it coughed, divine blood spilling across the front of its golden armour. It chuckled, voice hoarse and horrifying.

  “Ahhh… how nostalgic. Truly, I have yet to find better entertainment than that adorable infatuation of yours. Tell me, after all these years, has he ever once even returned your affections?”

  The woman pulled forth another piece of writhing shadow. She wrapped it around the unspeakable half of her face.

  The phantom sound of a heartbeat ceased.

  What need would I have for something like that?

  The Primate laughed louder, choking more blood.

  “I suppose you would not know what to do with it even if he gave it to you. Perhaps that was why he never bothered to try. What will you do now?”

  As if I would tell you.

  “Hm. And if I commanded you to?”

  What would your command matter to me?

  The Primate spread its arms, uncaring as more blood split from its eyes and mouth.

  “I am the Leader of Cultivators, the Imperial Regent to an Empire one billion souls strong! Since the Emperor no longer speaks, my voice is His voice! My authority beholds even you, Hierophant.”

  What Emperor? What Regent? All I see is a monkey wearing armour — bleeding all over its face while declaring itself King — as it sits upon a stone that ill-fits its horrid bottom.

  A chorus of shrieking laughter followed. Such was its manic merriment that a drop of its blood dripped off its chin.

  And fell upon the earth.

  The tree exploded into activity once more, only this time the entire Corpse shrieked. Roots burst forth from the ground, not to advance towards the crimson droplet staining the dried soil, but to desperately drag the entire tree as far away from the sanguine liquid as possible.

  The Primate chuckles ceased. It stood.

  It snapped its fingers.

  The Fusang Tree, half torn from the ground and writhing with a thousand screaming branches amidst torn earth, reaching out for any salvation that might save it from that Primate—

  Stopped.

  There was no scream. There was no disturbed soil. There was nary even a hint of wind. The Fusang Tree was in its grave, quiet and serene. Dead, and devoid of qi.

  As it always had. As it always was, even before the woman’s arrival.

  She looked behind her. The Primate’s presence was never there.

  She closed her lone remaining eye, one that was green and mundane. She was not interested in the self-proclaimed Regent, nor did she want to look at the Fusang Tree any longer.

  Where was her god, her lord? He who gave her permission to rest so fitfully within his Heart, when she did not have a place to stay?

  She looked. She wondered. She moved. Ah, and there he was.

  The boy had a glaive in hand, preparing himself to strike a fellow brother. He paused, as if sensing her gaze. Her foolish god turned, flinching when he saw her looking at him.

  She tried to smile, to wave. To say anything, so that she might endear herself to him.

  Her corpse could do nothing but stare.

  Her god looked away and focused on his role as executioner. The woman closed her eye once more at the sound of blade cleaving flesh.

  Patience, patience…

  It will all come to an end soon. The woman longed to kiss his silent heart again. Would it still flutter for her as it once had before, she wondered.

  That solemn heartbeat that drums only for her, calling for the end of the world.

  Divine Arts, Part 2

  Through partaking of both celestial viands and sacred knowledge, the unfathomable complexity of executing the dead deities’ Divine Arts is instantly ingrained within the cultivator’s soul. Most would immediately possess some small grasp of the techniques despite having never used them before. The application of the Divine Arts would feel as if second nature, although full mastery of them would be the task of countless lifetimes.

  While it is a universal truth that the effectiveness of a technique grows with the understanding and advancement of the cultivator, there is always an upper limit to how far a mundane spiritual formula may aid its practitioner. Most cultivators eventually outgrow simpler techniques in exchange for more advanced ones, despite being able to wield the former with greater initial effectiveness.

  The same does not hold true for Divine Arts. The depths of their power are often thought to be limitless and grow endlessly with the cultivator’s advancement, not just in magnitude but also in their range of effects. The Arts, uniquely, evolve in a way best suited for the practitioner’s cultivation, a feat made possible by the sheer profundity of their design.

  The Immortal Scholars of the Imperial Academy have spent countless centuries dissecting the intricacies of Divine Arts, to limited but oftentimes very illuminating success. True mastery of the Divine Arts would allow practitioners to harness the very essence of the cosmos itself, as the Gods once did, bending the laws of nature to their will. With such a tempting prize on the line, it is no wonder that the Imperial Academy has invested considerable effort into deciphering the secrets behind the Divine Arts ever since the very inception of the Empire.

  – Excerpt from To Those Worthy of the Eternal Banquet