~~~

  “Once is fine. Twice is dangerous. Three times in the same day, however, and you deserve to lose your head.”

  — A popular proverb within the Beheaded Phoenix Sect, in regard to the limitations of the [Headless Impure Resurrection] Divine Art

  It was always a curious sight to witness.

  No matter how many times he had seen it himself, no matter how many times he had experienced it himself.

  A cultivator’s life was far different from a mortal’s. Assuming that one tirelessly pursues the peaks of Mount Tai, a cultivator would bear witness to a thousand, thousand oddities that no normal villager will ever see throughout their extended lifetime.

  A man spitting flames. A woman transforming into a horrifying creature. An elderly male who could discard their flesh for that of a young woman. A monk who could invert the laws of speed and distance.

  The strange becomes mundane, the monstrous boring. The mystics of cultivation — once the sole proprietary of Heaven — have been studied to death after the Divine’s fall. For an entire millennium, cultivators have transformed the majority of Heaven’s lesser miracles into deciphered formulas of spiritual wisdom— the myriad qi techniques — and the wonders of the world ceased to be worthy of awe.

  But, every once in a while, a cultivator bears witness not to a mere qi technique, but to a true Divine Art.

  And in witnessing, they are reminded that though the Heavens have fallen, some of their works will forever remain beyond the understanding of men.

  It is a wondrous thing — to behold the Act of a Dead God, and realise how small men are before the face of them, even after a millennium of growth.

  Divine Arts. The feats that no human will ever replicate without the dead deities’ permission.

  Brother Dai’s severed head fell to the floor, the blade of the broken glaive slicing through burnt flesh and reinforced bones like a knife parting water. For nine heartbeats, nothing happened. Blood spilt forth from the stump, as was normal, and the disciple appeared — for all intents and purposes — dead.

  Then, on the tenth silent pulse, the miracle occurred.

  The headless corpse moved. A mere twitch at first, one that could easily be mistaken for the remnants of post-mortem activity. Then, the twitching intensified, rapidly rising in intensity until Brother Dai’s entire lifeless form was violently convulsing. His beheaded torso began hissing, and his chest became alive with light. A pulsating red-orange glow emanated from his chest, illuminating the skin and muscles that clung over his ribcage with each demonic beat. Lines of vibrant energy coursed across his body like trails of liquid fire, igniting his very being.

  The severed head began hissing as well, but where the torso largely remained unchanged, the head instead began rapidly dissolving. Skin, skull, and brain alike were liquidised into a hissing, boiling tar-like material. The thick, molten-silver liquid bubbled and popped as it rapidly vaporised, before it too disappeared into wisps of golden light. The motes hung in suspension, gathering in size and illumination as the head fully dissolved, before its mass suddenly flew straight into the glowing torso of Brother Dai.

  The moment the last of the visible motes entered his body, the disciple’s corpse erupted into flames.

  [Arts of the Beheaded Phoenix — Headless Impure Resurrection]

  It was no mere fire, but one that blazed white with preternatural heat. There was no smoke produced from its flames, and the light it illuminated was akin to that of the Sun at noon. Brother Dai’s body was rendered to nothingness within seconds, leaving not even ash.

  The enormous pyre remained, even though it had nothing to burn. However, the flames did begin to wither, and amidst the fading light, the orange glow from before pulsed once more. A shape stirred within the dying heat, shimmering crimson and gold. Embers swirled and sparked as the figure expanded until it eclipsed the flames.

  With a cracking hiss, the fire ruptured in a flare of golden light. The inferno died out immediately, and in its place was the returned person of Brother Dai — reborn from the famed Divine Arts of the Sect. His wounds were fully healed, his head and limbs were attached, and the man was naked as the day he was born.

  The Disciple had returned from Death itself, whole and healthy, despite the fatal wounds he had carried mere moments ago. The man stood up, uncaring of his nudity as he stretched and sighed.

  “Now that feels much better,” Brother Dai said as he flexed and straightened his back. “It has been some time since I received the tender mercies of our Sect’s third Divine Art.”

  The Disciple looked towards him, eyeing him from head to toe. “You look terrible, Junior.”

  “You speak those words as if my wounds were not your doing, Senior Brother,” Feng deadpanned, his voice a painful rasp. It was a chore even to stay conscious, let alone speak. The Young Master pressingly passed over the broken glaive. Dai looked over his weapon and frowned.

  “Broken again… Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a good shaft for this blade?” he complained. “I had this wood specifically imported from our neighbouring Province. The timber from the Plundered Coffin Sect is said to be the most durable in the northern lands.”

  “Perhaps they exaggerate, if such ‘esteemed’ material had broken so easily under my fists. I would recommend finding a more durable medium next time.” Feng coughed again, doubling over as he fell to his knees. “Now, if it pleases the Senior, would he kindly lop off my head before we continue this conversation?”

  “You dislike the pain? Suffering builds character, Young Master! We cultivators must not shy away from it!”

  Feng glared at his Senior Brother’s obnoxious grin. “This Young Master can return the Senior to his previous state if he wishes to experience that same enlightenment.”

  “Promises, promises…” The Disciple chuckled before bearing the blade. “Ready?”

  Feng nodded and bowed his head. He barely felt the blade pass through his neck.

  ~~~

  The Divine Arts. Be they of greater or lesser God Corpses, all existed as the foundation of Cultivator Sects found throughout the Flesh-Grafted Empire. Non-replicable Phenomena that eluded all attempts to reproduce them without a direct Communion with the Dead God in question.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  A cultivator could manipulate his spirit and perform all sorts of inhuman feats through the use of qi techniques. But true miracles — true power — come not from mere spiritual formulas learnt from cultivation scrolls or taught by tutors.

  True power has but one source, and it comes from the Divine Arts that could only be understood after Communion with Gods. Such is their spiritual profundity, their depths of incomprehensible might, that the knowledge of even a single Divine Art triumphs ten or even a hundred of lesser man-crafted qi techniques.

  It was what drove cultivators to maddening heights of atrocity in pursuit of even one drop of Divine blood, one bite of Celestial flesh. No man, not even the Perverse Emperor himself, had ever fully deciphered the inner workings of even the least of the Gods’ Divine Arts. Their mystery was, in a way, the last act of oppression from the Heavens — one that would plague humanity for the rest of its existence

  Yet, Humanity Communed with the God Corpses anyway; men drank of their blood, feasted on their flesh, and gnawed on their bones with unsightly relish. It was Hunger that drove them; the First and Only Decree of His Imperial Majesty — to look upon the bodies of fallen Heaven and dare decide themselves worthy of consuming them.

  To dare despair that there was a limit to their lifespan, and to seek Immortality by cannibalising the Gods themselves.

  A cultivator must be nothing less than greedy to succeed. The very act of cultivation necessitates believing yourself beyond Gods. One must endlessly aim to catch the flesh of divinity in their teeth. It was the only way to achieve enlightenment. The only way to advance oneself.

  Or perhaps, the only way one was allowed to advance oneself whilst within the Domain of His Imperial Majesty — the Eternal Banquet.

  ~~~

  The first time the Disciples of the Beheaded Phoenix experienced their Sect’s fabled resurrection is a memory that will forever be etched into their minds.

  The surge of life rushing through your veins, a moment where time seems to slow, and every sensation becomes sharper. Every detail — qi, sight, sound, even smell — imprints itself deeply into your memory, as the world reveals something profoundly beautiful yet incomprehensible at the same time.

  To have faced Death in the face, to feel your very mortality fade from your body. That sensation of your vision darkening, your fingers going cold, your heart’s erratic beats fading, to be enveloped by blackness and nothingness…

  And then to have all that boiled away in an instant. Your qi comes to life, your body is set alight! Every meridian, every aspect of your existence, flares with power and purity as your wounds burn away. Life force coursed through your veins, and at that moment, even the most humble and undeveloped of Disciples would feel powerful enough to take on the world.

  Profound does not even begin to describe the feeling. It is a spiritual awakening of the highest order, greater than even the first time a person makes their first breakthrough into the Foundation Realm and becomes a Cultivator.

  It was Divinity, a taste of the power once wielded by the Gods.

  The third and last Divine Art of the Beheaded Phoenix Sect — [Headless Impure Resurrection] — was only available to those who tasted at least a drop of the Beheaded Phoenix’s blood. All the Sect’s Inner Disciples were capable of using the Art, for they had proven themselves worthy by ascending to at least the Second Realm and surviving their second Communion with the Sect’s buried God.

  When Feng first reached the Second Realm at fourteen, his father had given him an entire pound of Divine flesh to feast on — plundered fresh from the Corpus of the Beheaded Phoenix itself. After the boy had finished ravenously devouring the blessing, the man had severed his son’s head without a moment’s hesitation.

  The shock of that death, followed by the sheer ecstasy of his life returning, was not something one easily forgets.

  Hei Feng stood, naked but healed of all his wounds. He rubbed his neck out of habit, finding not even a scratch or mark that might have indicated that he had been beheaded mere moments ago.

  The first two Arts — Fiery Comet Step and Severed Heads Apostle — were higher techniques that required a conscious effort to activate. But the third Art was a self-acting boon that triggers upon a single condition: the beheading of the Disciple.

  Upon receiving such a fatal wound, the body of the Disciple would spontaneously combust, and he would be reborn mere moments later.

  The Art was not without its flaws. For a start, the technique strictly required the Disciple's head and neck to be relatively intact during the time of decapitation. A Disciple could lose everything below his collarbone, for so long as he was beheaded in time, he would be revived. But if he suffered a critical wound to his head or neck — such as a fatal spear thrust to the spine or a pulverising hammer strike that obliterates his crown — he was beyond the technique’s salvation.

  The Art also had a finite time limit after death before the Disciple was beyond saving. This was somewhat dependent on the Disciple’s physical condition, but as a rule, the odds of success were guaranteed if the Disciple was still conscious during the time of his beheading.

  The possibility of revival then decreases with each passing minute after the disciple has ‘died’, until survival is considered null once more than nine minutes have passed.

  The Art also requires nearly an entire minute to fully complete. In a life-threatening situation, even if the Disciple were beheaded in time, his opponent can still disrupt the resurrection process and succeed in killing them anyway. Moreover, even if the cultivator’s resurrection was successful, their qi would be horribly imbalanced for the next few hours, leaving them temporarily crippled and unable to fight effectively for that duration.

  As a final flaw, the resurrection will most likely work only twice a day, with the second time having a significantly lowered chance of success. For a disciple to successfully revive three times a day was almost unheard of in the history of the Sect.

  Still, those downsides could barely compare to the enormous boon that came with a near-complete resurrection and restoration of all wounds upon beheading. It was a safety lifeline unlike any other found in the Four Mountain Sects Group, and it was why the Beheaded Phoenix Sect allowed their disciple to fight with one another so brutally — with the only restriction in place being to avoid inflicting grievous head or neck injuries except for decapitation.

  Fatal injuries were but mild inconveniences to address, rather than life-ending wounds that necessitated expensive treatment to save the cultivator. Additionally, with such few restrictions in combat, the Sect Disciples were able to fight all the more viciously and advance their cultivation quickly through the use of violent duels.

  It was this trait that saw the Disciples of the Beheaded Phoenix Sect transformed into some of the best and fastest-growing cultivators among the Four Mountain Sects Group.

  All of this, merely by ingesting a dew of Divine blood. If the barest drop of Celestial essence could grant such miracles, one shudders to imagine the height of powers the Gods once wielded in their prime.

  It was equal parts humbling and arrogant to behold: that they were once Heavenly Beasts whose might and majesty utterly eclipsed that of humanity, but had yet still fallen to the dogged voracity of mankind in the end.

  Divine Arts, Part 3

  Upon Communion, the cultivator takes upon the Path of their chosen Divine Corpse. While a blessed cultivator may come across the opportunity to consume the flesh of multiple celestial entities throughout their lifetime, they may only follow the Path of one Divine Corpse at a time. It is possible for one to abandon their previously chosen Path for the secrets of another Corpse God, but such an act is not without consequence.

  The Heavens may be dead, but such blatant faithlessness will see punishments and Tribulations heaped upon the insolent cultivator. Even when slain and devoured, the gods still expect respect from their human ‘lessers’.

  It is not impossible to survive Heaven’s Tribulation, however, especially with the right preparations. If successful, the cultivator will then possess the knowledge of two sets of Divine Arts. A great boon to be sure, though one that very few will ever achieve. Such a practice is more commonly seen within the Core Provinces or the Imperial Court. In addition, it is generally agreed that only Immortal Cultivators stood a chance of surviving direct Divine Tribulation.

  As with every case, however, there are always exceptions. The Empire is wide and vast. Who knows what mysterious occurrences may happen in the dark and secret corners of Imperial territory?

  – Excerpt from To Those Worthy of the Eternal Banquet