Volume Three: Twin Blossoms on a Single Stem, Alone Against the World Chapter Fifteen: Myth

Hearing the old man recount the tale, Lang Xian had already guessed the general outline. He ordered his attendants to withdraw, then stepped forward and gently helped the white-haired elder to his feet, saying, “Elder, do not grieve. May I have the honor of your name?”

The white-haired elder, trembling, wiped the tears from his face and replied, “To answer you, my lord, my given name is Huang Benchu. My ancestor was Huang Guangtong, General of the Imperial Guard Cavalry of the Great Zhuyuan Kingdom.”

Yuan Ji and Lang Xian exchanged glances. They understood well the weight of these words. Huang Guangtong was the last commanding general of the Imperial Guard in the Zhuyuan royal palace. Others might not grasp the implications behind the elder’s statement, but Yuan and Lang were themselves once scions of the royal house. Their elders had told them a strange tale: when the entire clan migrated inland, Huang Guangtong and the ten thousand Imperial Guards under his command, together with their families, vanished without a trace.

The old man saw the question in their eyes and spoke again, “At that time, the Zhuyuan royal family reported in their petition of surrender to the Celestial Palace only this: ‘The Huang Division of the Imperial Guards, with old and young, whereabouts unknown.’ But where did these Imperial Guards truly go?”

And so the elder began to recount that long-buried past.

The story must begin at the very origin:

The mythic age was a wild and untamed era of the ancient Void. The climate then was much more humid than now, and the very air was richer and more vibrant. Such an environment fostered lush and rampant growth, with divine beasts roaming unchecked, constantly battling for territory.

Among these monsters, the Kunpeng reigned supreme, traversing the world invincible. This state might have persisted until the Xuanhuang descended, and those colossal beasts—relying only on brute strength, fangs, and claws—were wiped out by Lanling in an instant.

Yet fate intervened just so. Not far from the ancient Void, a new stellar explosion occurred—what would later be called the Nine Heavens Nova. Its brilliance was so intense that for seven nights, darkness turned to day, and more importantly, it transformed some of the ancient divine beasts: awakening their intelligence and granting them minds like humans.

Among them were the Golden Cloud Azure Dragon, the Scarlet-winged Sea Hawk, the Cloud Sea Whale, the Star Dream Shark, the Nine Heavens Python, and of course, the Zhuyuan Bird, which was by nature disinclined to strife.

With newfound intellect, the dragons, hawks, whales, sharks, and pythons united against the Kunpeng and its followers. They not only learned to join forces in battle but also devised schemes—using others to do their bidding, sowing chaos, seizing opportunity in disaster. First, they split the Kunpeng’s faction, ruthlessly exterminating the weaker vassals. Then, at Beilun Continent, they besieged the mighty Kunpeng. The war was long and fierce, drawing in nearly all the great beasts.

Yet no matter how savage the storm, the dust it raises must one day settle.

In the end, the Kunpeng grievously wounded several great beasts, forcing them to flee to Xiqi Continent. Spent and exhausted, the Kunpeng itself finally fell between Beilun and Zhongshen Continents, its corpse transforming into what is now the Kunpeng Sea.

As for the Zhuyuan Bird, also enlightened, it chose a different path. Once famed for its incomparable speed, the Zhuyuan Divine Bird could always escape if overmatched. But now, with the other beasts united and even the Kunpeng brought down, the Zhuyuan Bird took flight to the southernmost wilds of Nanyan Continent, where it dedicated itself to studying a new form of communication—language—which it had glimpsed in its own call.

While the other beasts fought over territory after the Kunpeng’s ascension, the Zhuyuan Bird secluded itself in the jungle, wholly absorbed in the study of language. Perhaps due to the illumination of the Nine Heavens Nova, over the slow passage of ages, the Zhuyuan Bird became the first among the divine beasts to take on a humanoid form, resembling the Xuanhuang race. In time, these transformed Zhuyuan beings mingled with the ferocious beasts of the southern jungle, giving rise to countless descendants—the Zhuyuan people.

Once the Zhuyuan race was established, their ancestor, the Zhuyuan Divine Bird, ascended to immortality in a place called Moonshade Valley. It is said that the bird’s gem-like eyes, on every full moon’s night, would commune with the heavens and emit rays as brilliant as the Nine Heavens Nova.

Innately gifted with eloquence, the Zhuyuan people gradually evolved language into an entirely new art: poetry. They even invented the Tadpole Script. For a time, their culture flourished, making them the most renowned and ceremonious nation in the land. Their influence spread to other demon clans who later gained human form; all considered it a great honor to study language and poetry in the Zhuyuan Kingdom.

At that time, other demon races had only just moved beyond howling to communicate. They were soon drawn by the Zhuyuan’s radiant culture, and many flocked to this remote, forbidden domain to learn the art of poetry and song.

However, the competitive nature of the demon clans was not tamed by their new forms or their studies. As their populations swelled, conflicts over territory and resources grew more frequent. Perceiving the looming danger, the Zhuyuan royalty resolved to cut off contact with the other demon clans, fearing that war would inevitably come to their lands. They began a policy of seclusion, destroying all roads into the jungles and severing all ties with the Central Plains.

The demon clans of the Central Plains, preoccupied with their own power struggles and wary of the jungle’s miasma, gradually forgot about the reclusive Zhuyuan Kingdom.

In later times, the Xuanhuang immortals Lanling and Zhuohua Yuanjun fled to this region and transformed the ancient Void, sparking a protracted war with the demon clans.

As the war drew to a close, the demons and the Celestial Palace signed a treaty, ending millennia of conflict. At the grand Demon-Sealing Assembly, the four great demon clans recognized the Celestial Palace as the ruler of the world. The Celestial Palace, in turn, divided all beings into ranks: the Seven Immortal Clans, the Four Great Demon Clans of Dragon, Hawk, Shark, and Whale, the Twenty Lesser Demons, the myriad yokai, and finally, the Puren race—those lacking both divine beast power and Xuanhuang blood.

The isolated Zhuyuan people were not invited to the assembly—whether by oversight or design is now impossible to know.

At that assembly, a new law was decreed: apart from the Seven Immortal Clans and the Four Great Demon Clans, no other demons or yokai could found nations. Existing capitals were to be dismantled, armies disbanded, and the populace relocated to live among the dominant clans. Any defiance would be met with joint punishment by the Celestial Palace and the Four Demon Clans.

Just as the world’s fates were thus divided, on a full moon night, a mysterious figure, accompanied by blinding light and thunder, arrived in a distant sanctuary deep within the southern jungles—a tale that quickly spread. Suddenly, all eyes turned to the far south, where it was revealed that the Zhuyuan people, hidden since the mythic age, still survived.

The Zhuyuan Kingdom’s sanctuary was originally built at Moonshade Valley—a place of pristine mountains and clear waters, birdsong and flowers, a rare paradise in the wilds. It was said the Zhuyuan Divine Bird first attained the wonder of language atop an ancient tree there.

Later, the ancestors of Zhuyuan emerged from Moonshade Valley, gradually growing in strength. The valley was not only the resting place of their divine ancestor but also a source of pride for the Zhuyuan people. There was, however, a third secret reason the sanctuary was built there—one known to few.

Moonshade Valley was touched by a mysterious power: every year, on the night of the full moon of the fifteenth day of the seventh month, a strange event would occur—divine objects would descend from the heavens.

No one knew when this began, but each year on that night, as the moon shone bright and serene over the valley, tranquility would reign until midnight, when distant thunder would rumble and the moon would be veiled as if by clouds, its light dimming. Hence the name “Moonshade Valley.” This phenomenon would last about half an hour. When it ended, peculiar objects would be found somewhere in the valley—some recognizable, most enigmatic, but two kinds of stone clearly did not belong to this world.

One was later called Moonlight Stone, used to craft Azure Moon Pearls. The other was Luminous Moon Stone, used for Essence-Fixing Orbs. Only the royal kin and the commanders of the Imperial Guard, who gathered these treasures yearly, knew the true secret.

Since the arrival of Zhuohua Yuanjun and Lanling, the cultivation of spiritual energy had become the ultimate pursuit, and the Essence-Fixing Orbs were essential for this practice, while Azure Moon Pearls were holy relics for tribulation and healing. Yet the Void did not naturally produce these stones. The Celestial Palace possessed a vast hoard but never shared it with outsiders.

Thus, the Zhuyuan royal family, after reserving the finest gems for their own use, dispatched trusted agents every year to secretly sell Moonlight and Luminous Moon Stones to other nations—a source of steady, considerable wealth for the Zhuyuan kings.

The last king of Zhuyuan, however, was ambitious and dissatisfied with the modest bounty his ancestors had accepted. He wished to acquire ever more celestial stones each year, to trade for gold and arm his armies. No longer content to hide in isolation, he planned to wage war, to expand his dominion beyond the jungle. He heeded the advice of a shaman and, over three years, constructed a magnificent sanctuary in Moonshade Valley, decorating it with all the royal treasury’s Moonlight and Luminous Moon Stones, hoping such opulence would attract yet more gifts from the heavens.

Heaven was indeed moved. In the very year the sanctuary was completed, on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, not only did the usual stones arrive, but also a mysterious visitor came with them.