"…"
Clenching a cloud of blood red mist, Long Hua draws in a subtle breath of air, and—
"…"
*…!!!* descending from above like a bolt of lightning, Long Hua rampages through the mass of weapon spirits—knocking all the opponents that he came across into the air, or smashing them onto the ground!
Despite how brutal Long Hua's demonstration of strength is, the number of weapon spirits is maintained.
However, even if the weapon spirits are able to revive themselves, the amount of spiritual damage that they are receiving from being beaten down constantly—it's demoralizing enough to the point that some of them are beginning to question the purpose of attempting to contend against a force that is beyond their reach.
...…
"…"
Looking at the carnage from afar, Qing Ming Yang glances at Lin Yu Heng, and asks—
"Lin-xiong, you able to do the same?"
"…Not possible."
Immediately, Lin Yu Heng shakes his head.
Behind their backs, the combat bodies arrived, and tossed their storage pouches into the rift—prior to being retrieved by Tian Cheng.
"…"
Arriving last, Bai Wen also tosses his storage pouches into the rift, and remarks—
"Ai, Lao Long possesses mastery over four of the five elements. Metal is an element that focuses on offense and defense. Wood and water are more recovery-focused, thus allowing the practitioner to recover from their wounds and replenish their spirit Qi faster. Earth is pure defense. With four of these elements reinforcing one another, his combat strength can't be anything less than this. If he manages to obtain fire elemental mastery as well, he's pretty much invincible in the Core Formation realm. As for the Nascent Soul realm, you're not going to find many capable of rivaling him."
"…"
Blinking her eyes, Yao Ying asks—
"Isn't that a bit too…-?"
"Abnormal? Definitely. It's because of the five elements' ability to reinforce one another—that makes them so difficult to cultivate to perfection. Also, keep in mind, Lao Long's physical body is already at the Nascent Soul realm. This causes the properties of all the elements to have a greater effect on him. At the same time, the inner domain's spirit Qi is starting to flow into the outer domain—making it easier for him to unleash divine arts of greater strength."
Being reminded of this, everyone present sucks in a deep breath of air.
"…Brother, these weapon spirits truly are pitiful."
"Ai, Xiao Rong, at least they're not dying. For the most part, Lao Long is quite reserving with his use of sword Qi. If he had gone wild with it, you'd see more body parts flying left and right."
"But doesn't that make the weapon spirits even more pitiful? Dying means instant release from this beat down."
"Uh…"
Rendered speechless by this, Zhen Qing Huai clears her throat awkwardly, and decides to change the subject by asking—
"Aren't we done here? What's Lao Long doing at this point? Don't tell me he just enjoys bullying the weak?"
By this point, all the New Moon Village's workers had returned.
Towards this question, Bai Wen replies—
"He's waiting for a specific target to appear."
"Hm?"
"Here they are."
As soon as Bai Wen says this—
*Boom!!!!!* a pillar of golden flames blasts into the air, and with its sudden appearance, the temperature of the surroundings instantly begins to rise.
...…
"Finally."
Snatching the four golden whips—which originated from Li Zi Xiang out of the air, Long Hua drags her forward.
"…?"
Towards the incredulous expression on Li Zi Xiang's face, Long Hua smiles, and asks—
"Do you feel a sense of déjà vu?"
"…!"
Recalling what had happened during the first excavation, Li Zi Xiang's complexion turns pale, and faster than she could hope to cover her face this time, Long Hua lands his punch!
*Boom!!!* blasting off like a missile, while spewing droplets of blood from her nose, Li Zi Xiang shouts—
"Surnamed Long, I hate you to hell!"
As Li Zi Xiang flies off into the distance, Gui Lian and Teng Hao approaches, while shouting—
"Surnamed Long, who the hell are Ah Heng, Hongchen, and Qiuyu?!"
"You despicable bastard, you really played with our emotions back then!"
"Hahahahaha!"
Recalling his melancholic act from that time, Long Hua laughs aloud, and towards their approach, he throws out a black and white handprint.
*Boom!!!!!* as Yin and Yang energy detonates to throw Gui Lian and Teng Hao back, Long Hua straightens his stance, as he finally turns his focus towards the pillar of golden flames.
"About time really."
Muttering this, Long Hua teleports his weapon into his right hand.
Simultaneously, the elemental powers of metal, wood, water, and earth emanate from Long Hua's body.
"…"
Taking hold of the colossal sword with both hands—
"Time to wipe the field."
*Boom!!!!!!!!!* rotating his body by 360 degrees while giving the weapon a mighty swing, Long Hua unleashes a devastating shockwave!
"Ah!"
"Ack!"
"Uh!"
"Guh!"
As soon as this earthshattering blast goes off, pieces of rubble, along with numerous weapon spirits are thrown back—prior to crashing onto the ground, and rolling pitifully to a stop, with all the bones in their bodies crushed to dust!
"…"
Heaving a sigh while straightening his back, Long Hua raises his head—to see Zhou Chen off in the distance.
"…"
Currently, Zhou Chen is looming a few hundred meters in the air with his trident pointed in Long Hua's direction.
"Condense!"
Behind Zhou Chen's back, golden flames gather.
And rather quickly, these flames form the appearance of a mystical beast.
This beast possesses the body of a scale-covered horse, while its head is that of a dragon.
...…
"…"
Seeing the Qilin beast that is formed of golden flames, Bai Wen mutters—
"Yun Bi Xie…"
Hatred and bitterness emanate from Bai Wen's golden eye, and for the first time in ages—
"…"
"Lao Bai?"
He removes the dark cloth that covers a quarter of his face—revealing a purple left eye.
"…Ai. With this world in its current state, I suppose there really isn't a point in hiding my face anymore."
Peeling off the recognition inhibiting mask, Bai Wen heaves a light sigh, as his white hair grows in length.
Afterword
12/30/2023
I'm going to be honest, while writing this volume—I didn't really know which side to cheer for.
On one hand, you have the main character, who went full-out final boss/main villain. This was hinted at in the previous volume heavily.
On the other hand, you have the weapon spirits that are just desperately trying to survive.
I've read works where the main character tries to behave like a villain, but I don't think I've ever read a work where the villainous main character would… Go this far? I'm talking like works where even the side casts are developed to a good degree—only to get screwed over by the main character in the way Long Hua does.
This sort of main character does go with my original intent of wanting to write a very different story, but… Ai, this line has been memed to oblivion, "he can't keep getting away with this."
Eventually, Long Hua will have to pay for this. As for whether he actually redeems himself to be "good," I don't think that will happen, and looking at my current vision of the story, I doubt it will ever happen. I don't believe he will ever change his personality too much—of being despicable and selfish. If Long Hua was the actual main villain of this story, he'd probably make a fairly decent villain—his motive…- At this point, his motive has changed greatly from my original vision. But disregarding the topic for the moment; he—at the very least, he definitely won't be a low-level villain that is just a simple mid-boss.
As for the hero that ends up defeating this demon lord—assuming that he does get defeated, it will naturally depend on how the story goes from here.
Next volume, Bai Wen will definitely receive some development, so long as everything goes according to plan. As for how much development, it's hard to say.
...…
My original vision for this story, the plot is actually very different from what it is right now.
In the original vision, Long Hua should have experienced a change in personality—starting off as a selfish person to becoming someone who is slightly less selfish, but would still act selfish for the sake of obtaining a happy ending for those that he cares for. He should have played a more heroic role in the original vision, and had a much better relationship with Ye Chen and the others.
During that vision of the story, everyone in the office was supposed to have died. Naturally, this would have only happened after the characters there received good development. The culling would have started off with Ye Chen, followed by Li Xue. Eventually, Qing Yue and Yu Ji would have followed—leaving Long Hua on his own. The original vision, it sort of started off when I had a dream that could be described as "I had a dream about "x-number of idiots," the dream continued until there was only one idiot left." The last idiot in this dream was obviously the main character, which served as a prototype to the Long Hua that was in the original vision. It was supposed to be a very tragic story—set in a world that is left in ruins, an image example would probably be something similar to the City of Mercy from the first God Eater game. The outer areas of the city in the first volume were inspired by that map.
The conclusion of the original vision was Long Hua being the last individual alive in the Leng Bing Realm. The final scene would have been Long Hua stepping out of the ruined world to enter the Everlasting Spirit Realm with numerous baggage—mainly in the physical form of Relics from his fallen comrades. As for whether the story would continue from there, I don't know. I never got that far in crafting the storyline for this vision.
As a person right now… It's hard to say if Long Hua is still capable of caring for others to a high degree. As he is right now, he probably can, but with his current backstory, I don't believe that there is anyone capable of entering his walled off heart, and at the same time, having someone enter his walled off heart—it's probably the last thing he'd ever want in his current state of mind.
In the original vision, Long Hua wasn't supposed to have his current backstory of being someone who had undergone so many reincarnations. He was only supposed to have undergone two reincarnations, but as the story developed post-volume 2 to 3, I decided to change his backstory. This resulted in the creation of many intermissions that took place in his previous reincarnations (Cuo Qing Yi, Sui Yan, the Imprisoning Heaven, Bujian Yue).
As Cuo Qing Yi and Sui Yan, Long Hua displays a softer side of himself because these stories took place when he still possessed a more humane side to himself. Sui Yan was his 56th life, while Cuo Qing Yi was his 576th life, which could be considered a turning point in his personality undergoing a drastic change. The 57th life, it takes place post-Sui Yan intermissions. This life—my current plans for this life are rather different compared to the other lives. As for how detailed this life's writing would be, it's probably only going to be 1 or 2 chapters' worth in length.
Speaking of Sui Yan's intermissions, it's going to reach over 600 pages soon, and I need to find places to squeeze them in between volumes. The majority will have to be placed after the epilogues of the following volumes, because I don't want them to be so disruptive to the main story's progress. I'm not going to call out names, but a certain writer, who I was reading the works of in the past, he put chapters that took place in the past—right in the middle of a fight scene, and it was just boring to read through. My mind just went, who cares about what the main character did a couple of months ago when he's in the middle of a boss battle? They had the chance to put those boring three or so chapters into the main story when it was still relevant, but no, they chose then and there when it wasn't relevant to insert it. …I do understand that the writer was going through trouble in real life at the time of writing that story, but with the way moneymaking works on Qidian, where the writers are forced to cram as many words as possible into their writings, that to me was the last straw, to make me quit reading their works going forward.
…Ranting about someone else's story aside, the Imprisoning Heaven intermissions were considered the Bujian Yue intermissions' prologue, and currently, I consider Bujian Yue's intermissions to have been concluded. Maybe that will change depending on how the main story progresses later on. And I did leave the conclusion of this storyline open-ended. Among Long Hua's numerous reincarnations, Bujian Yue is probably my favorite just because of how simple and clearcut the plot was. It was very satisfying to write the final portions of that story—starting from the head collection scenes to the end. The storyline started really slow, but as I reached the end, I felt like it was just a giant snowball that landed a satisfying hit onto someone when it reached the mountain's base.
The poem that Long Hua had muttered upon recalling most of his memories as Bujian Yue:
"Who painted the heavens, and who painted the stars? One stroke, sunlight turns to moonlight. One stroke, reverses the universe. A single brush to paint out a legend, and a single brush to pen the legend's ending. Dim goes the world, as the word—eternity fades. Hong Xiao ah Hong Xiao, from the apostle's corpse you rose, and from the Emperor-Who-Sees-No-Moon's disappearance, you faded from history." – This poem was inspired by a song, and it was what eventually made me want to connect the Imprisoning Heaven's storyline with Bujian Yue's storyline. The name of the song is "Tí Bǐ Zào Shānhé (提笔造山河)," which translates to something along the lines of "Holding the Brush To Create the Mountains and Rivers."
To those who have read through these intermissions in their entirety, thank you. These intermissions, they aren't pointless to the main story's plot, since I personally believe they will pay off in the future—during "the shattering scene," because if they aren't written out ahead of time, it will feel very nonsensical to write about the characters in these intermissions during that scene.
...…
Having ironed out the background relationship between Long Hua and the Tai Xuan Emperor, there might be changes to the plot going from there as well. In case it wasn't obvious, the beginning of their long relationship was ironed out in the fourth intermission of this volume.
In the original vision of this story, the Tai Xuan Emperor didn't exist as a character. In fact, upon her creation, I originally thought to make her and Tian Cheng as two separate characters, but then as I wrote the story, and wrote out the scene in volume 2, chapter 32, I decided to make them one character instead. The reason for that was because it was fun for me to write about their interactions, and as a character the Tai Xuan Emperor tends to break the fourth wall occasionally with "the Chosen Child of the Heaven" references, so there were comedic moments to be inserted here and there with her presence. But ultimately, what caused me to want to write them as one character, there was also the urge to see how the story might progress, or how Long Hua might react when a backstab occurs.
At the same time, I felt like the Long Hua that I had envisioned as the character that he is during this volume, he needed someone beside him to bring out a more human-like side of himself. I can write as many intermissions as I want to showcase a more human-like side of him, but to me that doesn't feel genuine since it was all taking place in the past, the pasts that he had already forgotten about, or might be in the process of recalling. By the point of the main story, Long Hua had already gone through so many reincarnations. His view of life is on the pessimistic side to the point of him being nihilistic.
A nihilistic character would have a very difficult time interacting with others; hence, the amnesic trait was added onto Long Hua's character to get the ball rolling, as he gradually reveals himself to be the sort of person that he is during this volume. Had he not been able to properly interact with others in the beginning, I figured that for the readers of the story, it might make them question why this character is the way he is at every turn, and consider him an "edgelord," while also thinking the story itself to be cringe.
To be honest, all stories are going to be cringeworthy to read through because the market is oversaturated with stories that possess high potential, but were executed poorly. The fact that people have low attention spans is another issue, because good stories require a lot of set up in the beginning to make its future content pay off—think of FFXIV during the "A Realm Reborn" storyline. That was such a slog to get through because it was meant to setup the future expansions' storylines, but if I didn't slog through, I wouldn't have gotten to enjoy "Heavensward" and "Shadowbringers" as much as I did.
Redirecting the topic back to the Tai Xuan Emperor, if Long Hua didn't have someone to share some of his plans and views with, and it's all happening or talked about in an inner-monologue-format, I think that would just be dull to read. I guess a good example is a comedian needing a straight-man to give them the opportunity to crack jokes.
The current Long Hua, to me, from a reader's point of view—when the Tai Xuan Emperor is subtracted, he's simply someone who is cold and nihilistic, he's powerful and is able to get away with infuriating others. He's the stereotypical overpowered main character template. But if that's all he's going to be from start to finish, he isn't a very interesting character.
However, when the Tai Xuan Emperor is added, Long Hua is able to display emotions of anger and irritation, which makes him seem more human-like—while also showing how poor he is in the face of a gacha system. This makes his current self's interactions with other characters—to me, it feels more natural, because he's already demonstrated that he's at least able to converse with others in certain settings.
The amnesic trait also helps, but looking back, it really was just a trait that acted like a kick to get the ball rolling in the beginning of the story. The moment Long Hua knew that he had already died once, and that this was his second or third life, his odds of speaking to others about his views on life, or just making casual conversations with others, it would have been so much more difficult—because the lives of others to someone of his nature, as an individual who had already died once, and numerous other times in the past as the story gradually reveals, he's not going to put a sense of emotional or physical value onto someone else's life, especially so when that someone is revealed to also be capable of reincarnating.
Additionally, Long Hua having a few ties to other characters in the beginning as a result of him being an amnesic, it drives home just how much of a scum he currently is, while also making it feel more natural. The fact that he can screw Ye Chen and the others over right now without hesitation, it's natural for him because this is just how he is as his genuine self, but without the minor relationships that he's had with them in the previous volumes, it just doesn't hit as hard to me.
While writing the story up to this point, I still felt like there was going to be a chance where Long Hua might change his mind to work with the weapon spirits, but no, at this point, that's never going to happen. He's chosen to side with himself, along with Bai Wen and the others.
Speaking of Bai Wen, as a character, he isn't able to perfectly fulfill the role that the Tai Xuan Emperor possesses for Long Hua because the former doesn't know the Long Hua from the latter's previous life. And as a character with his own baggage, it doesn't suit Bai Wen to follow Long Hua around at every turn.
In essence, if the Tai Xuan Emperor didn't exist, I think it would have required far more effort to mold Long Hua into the character that he is right now with the past that he currently possesses—in a reasonable manner that would be acceptable to me as both writer and reader.
All that aside, there's a decently-sized set of lines that I want Long Hua to say to the Tai Xuan Emperor at some point. This set of lines is probably one of my main drives in establishing their current relationship. The same can also be said in reverse, there's also a set of lines that I want the Tai Xuan Emperor to say to Long Hua as well.
...…
As the writer of this story, to the readers, it might seem like I should know how this story will progress in the future, but really, it's not that simple. When writing a story, you can have an outline in your head or elsewhere—with various scenes and events all planned out, but during the writing process, the story in the present instance can just take over, and go off in a direction that is completely different from your original outline. At that point, it may or may not return to the destination that you had in your original vision of the story, which more times than not, it astonishes me how certain events can just come into being so randomly.
This all results in the writer themselves not having a genuine idea of how a story will develop as they write on. Having read and heard other writers' experiences with story crafting, I know this isn't just me alone.
This is probably going to be the longest afterword I'll ever write. But since it talks about my original visions for this story, it being 11 pages long isn't too surprising. There's quite a bit more that I can go on about for this story's original vision, but revealing some of the details might end up spoiling the later portions of the story—if I ever decided to take inspirations from the cut-outs of the original vision.
Truth be told, writing this story, I don't expect it to become a major hit with everyone that is into this genre, because it's a niche genre to begin with.