Into Sorcery
Back in the human world—
Pure chaos had erupted without warning.
The portals did not discriminate.
They did not care about strength, status, or willpower.
They did not beg for permission or offer any mercy.
They obeyed only one brutal, unforgiving law:
Pull.
Sen felt it slam into him like a freight train made of pure cosmic force.
One second he was standing firm, the next a violent, invisible hand clamped around his entire body and yanked him backward with savage strength. His boots scraped loudly against the cracked pavement, sparks flying as he fought to stay grounded.
"…What the hell is this—?!" he roared, eyes wide with shock.
Spirit essence exploded through his meridians on pure instinct. He flooded every muscle with power, locking his legs like steel pillars, anchoring himself to the earth with everything he had. His heart hammered wildly in his chest, sweat already pouring down his face.
But the pull didn't weaken.
It intensified.
Like a living beast that had tasted blood and wanted more.
He wasn't alone in this nightmare.
Across every corner of the human world, millions were screaming the same desperate fight.
The Initiated—those with only the faintest spark of power—stood no chance at all.
They were ripped away in an instant. One moment a young girl was running down the street, the next she vanished mid-scream, her voice cut off like a snapped thread. Office workers disappeared from their desks. Drivers vanished from moving cars, causing vehicles to swerve and crash in fiery explosions. Children playing in parks were torn into the air, their tiny hands clawing at nothing.
Gone. Just like that.
The Exalted fought harder. They screamed. They cursed. They poured every ounce of their cultivated power into resisting.
Some drove their blades or spears deep into the ground, flooding the earth with essence to create makeshift anchors. Others activated defensive artifacts that flared with brilliant light, only for the portals to swallow the light along with them.
A few actually held—for a few precious seconds.
But most failed.
Their anchors shattered. Their essence barriers cracked like eggshells.
And those who failed—
Were taken, dragged kicking and screaming into the swirling voids.
Sen's teeth ground together so hard he felt one crack. Blood filled his mouth, metallic and hot.
"…No…! I'm not… going anywhere—!!"
His body slid another brutal foot forward despite his resistance. The ground beneath his feet buckled and split open in a spiderweb of fractures. His muscles burned. His veins felt like they were about to burst. Every fiber of his being screamed in protest, but the invisible force kept growing stronger, hungrier.
"Damn it… move…!" he snarled, forcing more essence into his legs until his skin glowed faintly.
In the distance, through the swirling dust and collapsing buildings, he caught glimpses of the people he cared about most.
"—SEN!!" Serena's terrified voice pierced the chaos.
She was already lifted off the ground, her arms flailing helplessly as the portal behind her spun faster, its violet edges crackling with malicious energy. Tears streamed down her face. "Sen—help—! I can't— I can't hold on!!"
Han roared like a wounded beast. The massive man slammed both fists into the concrete with earth-shaking force, creating a small crater. Veins bulged across his neck and forehead like thick ropes. "HOLD ON, SERENA! DON'T YOU DARE LET GO—!!"
But even Han—the unbreakable tank—was slowly being dragged. His boots left deep grooves in the pavement as he fought inch by inch.
Then Sen's eyes locked onto another figure.
Feng Li.
The calm, mysterious man who had guided Sunny through his awakening stood tall for a moment, his robes fluttering wildly in the unnatural wind. His expression remained eerily composed, but his eyes betrayed a flicker of deep understanding.
He looked up toward the fractured sky.
"…So this is your will…" he murmured, almost too softly to hear.
The next heartbeat—
Feng Li vanished without a sound, swallowed whole by a portal that snapped shut behind him like a hungry maw.
Sen's heart twisted violently in his chest.
"…Everyone… no…!"
His voice cracked with raw desperation.
This wasn't just happening to humans.
From the distant forests came the agonized howls of werewolves—powerful alphas who had ruled the wilds for centuries now clawing at the dirt, their claws tearing up massive chunks of earth as they were yanked skyward. Vampires dissolved desperately into swirling black mist, trying to escape, only to be violently condensed back into their physical forms and hurled into the portals screaming.
Even neutral beings—creatures who had never touched sorcery—were being claimed. Spirits, ancient guardians, hidden races… none were spared.
The Realm Sanctuary, that sacred haven long thought to be beyond reach, was violated in the most brutal way.
Its shimmering protective barriers shattered like fragile glass. Monks and cultivators who had spent lifetimes in meditation were dragged out of their lotus positions, their peaceful expressions twisting into masks of shock and terror. Ancient halls cracked and crumbled as their inhabitants were pulled screaming into the void.
"Nothing is safe…!" Sen gasped, the realization hitting him like a punch to the gut.
And yet… not everyone was falling.
The Sanctified stood like unmovable mountains. Their refined control over essence was simply on another level. They channeled power with surgical precision, creating domes of light that the portals couldn't easily breach.
The strongest Exalted also held their ground through sheer willpower and technique, roaring defiance at the sky.
And then there were the Sovereigns.
They did not flinch.
Not even slightly.
High above a once-thriving city now reduced to rubble, the Sovereign of Arrows stood motionless on a floating platform of condensed energy. A dozen glowing arrows hovered silently behind him, completely untouched by the raging storm of portals.
His cold eyes were fixed solely on one figure below—his daughter.
She was being dragged mercilessly toward a massive swirling portal, her fingers stretched desperately toward him.
"Father—!!" she screamed, voice breaking with pure terror. "Father, please—! Save me—!! I don't want to go—!!"
The Sovereign of Arrows did not move.
Not a single muscle.
Not because he couldn't.
But because in that single horrifying instant, a devastating truth crashed over him like a tidal wave.
"…What have I done…" he whispered, his voice heavy with crushing regret.
His hands trembled for the first time in centuries.
"What has that Hybrid God done to us all…?"
His eyes darkened with a mixture of fury and dawning horror.
"He let us believe… that ascending to Divinity was our salvation…"
His fingers slowly curled into tight fists, knuckles turning white.
"…But this… this is nothing but a cruel cover."
His daughter's scream was cut short as she vanished into the portal.
A deafening silence fell around him for a split second.
Then—
"…But this…"
His aura erupted violently. The sky itself trembled and cracked under the sheer pressure of his rising power. Winds howled. Buildings that were still standing shattered into dust.
"…this is nothing but a trap."
"A mistake."
His gaze sharpened into something lethal and vengeful.
"I need to find her…"
He paused, his voice dropping into a dangerous growl.
"…Elena."
The Sovereign of Impurities.
"If this nightmare is tied to the Fifth Realm of Sorcery…"
His presence distorted the very fabric of space around him.
"…then we will tear it apart."
The air warped and twisted violently.
In the next breath—
He disappeared, leaving only ripples in reality behind.
Meanwhile, Sen's resistance was reaching its absolute limit.
The pull had become a living nightmare.
His feet finally left the ground.
"—NO—!!"
He hung suspended for one terrifying heartbeat, arms and legs flailing wildly as he tried to grab onto anything—anything at all.
Then the world flipped.
Darkness swallowed him whole.
He expected to emerge into a battlefield.
A strange new land.
Some kind of trial arena.
Instead… he simply fell.
Endlessly.
A vast, pitch-black abyss stretched in every direction. No sky above. No ground below. No light. No sound except the frantic beating of his own heart and the rushing wind in his ears.
"…What the hell is this place—?!" he shouted into the void, his voice echoing back at him mockingly from all sides.
Time lost all meaning.
Seconds stretched into agonizing minutes. Minutes blurred into what felt like hours. Or days. He couldn't tell anymore.
His mind raced with desperate thoughts—Serena's terrified face, Han's roar, Feng Li's calm acceptance, the Sovereigns' hidden fury.
"Hold on… everyone… just hold on…!" he whispered fiercely, even as the fall continued.
Then—
Without any warning—
The falling stopped.
Instantly.
No crash. No impact. Just sudden, eerie stillness.
"…Huh…?"
Sen blinked, disoriented, floating in the nothingness.
And then the pain hit him like a thousand white-hot blades.
"—AAAAAAAAAGHHHHHH!!"
His body began tearing itself apart from the inside out.
Bones snapped and twisted unnaturally, reshaping into something new and alien. Muscles ripped and reformed in agonizing waves. Blood boiled violently in his veins, burning every vessel. His heart stuttered to a terrifying stop—then restarted with a violent, painful thud that made him scream louder.
Every cell in his body was being rewritten.
His hard-earned spirit essence was being stripped away layer by layer, dissolving like sand in a storm. All the power he had bled and suffered for over the years… fading. Disappearing.
"No… no, no, NO—!!" he howled, thrashing wildly in the darkness. "Don't take it—! That's mine—!! Give it back—!!"
Tears of rage and agony streamed down his face.
"STOP—!! I SAID STOP—!!"
Then the whispers descended.
Not one voice.
Hundreds. Thousands.
Layered, overlapping, chaotic, and completely alien.
They flooded his mind like a swarm of invisible insects, crawling through every memory, every thought, every fear. They observed him. They judged him. They tore him open and began reshaping his very soul.
He couldn't understand the words—they were ancient, twisted, wrong—but the intent was crystal clear.
They were claiming him.
Changing him.
Breaking him to rebuild something else.
"…Get out… GET OUT OF MY HEAD—!!" Sen screamed, clutching his skull with both hands even though there was nothing physical to grab.
The pressure intensified. Claws of pure mental force ripped through his consciousness, dragging out fragments of his identity.
"CURSE YOU—!!" His voice cracked and broke, raw and desperate. "I'LL KILL YOU ALL—!!"
He thrashed harder, pouring what little remaining essence he had into a final, frantic resistance.
"CURSE YOU… HYBRID GOD—!!"
The moment the name tore from his throat—
Everything stopped.
The whispers vanished.
The pain froze.
Silence crashed down—absolute, heavy, and suffocating.
Sen collapsed forward onto his knees in the sudden stillness, gasping violently for air that barely existed. His entire body felt wrong. Foreign. Stripped bare and hollowed out. Weaker than he had ever been since his awakening.
But he was alive.
Barely.
His hands shook uncontrollably as he stared at them in the darkness.
"…So this… is what you wanted…" he panted, voice hoarse and filled with bitter defiance.
"A trial…?"
He forced a broken, savage laugh that echoed into the void.
"…Fine then."
If the Hybrid God had thrown the entire world into this hell just to test them—
Then Sen would survive it.
He would endure every second of agony.
He would claw his way back to power.
And when he did…
He would make whoever was responsible pay.
Sen slowly clenched his trembling fist, fresh determination burning in his eyes despite the exhaustion and pain.
"…System…"
A faint, flickering blue glow appeared before him in the oppressive darkness, the only source of light.
"…Show me my profile."