Day of Ascension

Xu Ying and Dazhong followed Jin Buyi’s memories to Zhaoge City. Through his eyes, they looked down upon the ancient divine city.

The vast and magnificent Zhaoge City was filled with grand, ancient buildings. Human cultivators possessed power as deep and unfathomable as the abyss. This was a divine kingdom upon the earth, and the gods these Qi Cultivators worshipped were not the insignificant local deities of later generations, but heavenly gods.

The Qi Cultivators followed the Great Shang’s imperial army to wage war far and wide, sweeping through the other nations across the Divine Land. They conquered other continents and brought people from various tribes to Zhaoge City to serve as slaves.

During festivals, the great clans would slaughter thousands of slaves to offer as sacrifices to the heavenly gods. Whenever that happened, the sky became riddled with holes as the heavenly gods descended to feast on the offerings.

Every festival, they would devour millions of slaves.

Under the protection of the heavenly gods, the Great Shang waged war and slaughtered, crushing all resistance throughout the Yuanshou Realm.

Young Master Xu Ying of the wealthy merchant family consumed the immortal herb that could connect heaven, earth, ghosts, and gods, and became much smarter. That seemed to have loosened his seal somewhat. He followed his clan on their trading journey, bought the slaves captured by frontline soldiers, and transported them to the city.

He learned the ways of cultivation, and gradually grew stronger as Jin Buyi followed him. As his cultivation soared by leaps and bounds, he gradually awakened certain memories and seemed to remember Jin Buyi.

“Buyi, is what we’re doing right?”

Sometimes, the young master would fall into a daze and ask Jin Buyi, “Is it right for us to slaughter citizens of other nations as sacrifices to the heavenly gods?”

“Those slaves are human beings, just like us. Yet the heavenly gods we worship don’t even seem human. Why must we kill our kind to win the favor of those foreign gods?”

Jin Buyi had no answer. Although he was a primeval beast, radiating fiery power capable of burning through the azure sky and destroying everything, he didn’t understand the concept of right or wrong.

He only knew that he had seen Xu Ying’s face when he was born. So, Xu Ying was his closest kin. He wouldn’t let his closest kin be harmed or humiliated.

Whatever the young Ah Ying did was right. At least, that was what Jin Buyi believed without question.

The young Xu Ying had many doubts. Once, he had brushed aside the disheveled hair of a filthy child, revealing a delicate face. This female slave was called Yan Bao’er, a girl from a different tribe from the Yuanfeng Realm.

By then, Great Shang had already swept across the Yuanshou Realm with the aid of the heavenly gods and had begun waging war against other worlds.

The young Ah Ying fell helplessly in love with Yan Bao’er.

Yan Bao’er told him, “I remember you. I think I’ve seen you in my past life.”

The young Ah Ying told her, “After consuming an immortal herb, fragments of ancient images kept flashing in my mind, and you were always there.”

Yet the difference in their statuses was simply too great. Even if the young Ah Ying could grant Yan Bao’er her freedom, he could not marry her. Unfortunately, he even lacked the authority to grant her freedom.

For the slaves captured by Great Shang’s soldiers in war, only the emperor of Shang, who represented divine authority, possessed the power to pardon them.

Once again, Winter Sacrifice Day arrived. The young Ah Ying watched helplessly as his beloved was dragged onto the sacrificial altar to be offered to the heavenly gods.

The young Ah Ying went berserk.

He stormed into the most important sacrificial ceremony of the year, challenging the powerful priests who had received the protection of the heavenly gods.

Jin Buyi lunged forward, striking down the priests who had injured the young man and burning many of them alive.

“Ah Ying, no matter what you do, I’ll always be by your side.”

Carrying Xu Ying and Yan Bao’er on his back, Jin Buyi fought his way out of Zhaoge City. Behind them, the Great Shang’s iron cavalry trampled across the sky in hot pursuit.

The heavenly gods of the Heavenly Dao World were furious. A mortal had dared to snatch their offering. It was a blasphemous defiance of Heaven’s authority, an unforgivable violation of the heavenly laws!

There was no longer any place for them beneath the heavens.

Jin Buyi protected the young couple as they went into hiding and fought countless battles.

The divine bird gradually reached maturity and grew increasingly powerful. Xu Ying and Yan Bao’er were the same. The young couple kept growing through battle, and their feelings deepened by the day.

Yet Jin Buyi remained an inseparable part of their little family.

“We will never forsake each other. Even in our next lives, and the lives after that, we will find each other again.” They promised one another.

However, the retaliation from the heavenly gods and the Great Shang was far more vicious than they could have imagined. The pursuit continued for centuries. They fought their way from the Divine Land to other continents, and from the Yuanshou Realm into one world after another.

The heavenly gods even went as far as descending personally to eliminate the couple who had dared defy Heaven’s decree and violated the heavenly laws.

Xu Ying and Dazhong followed Jin Buyi’s memories through an immense stretch of time, and what they witnessed left them deeply shaken.

Gaps began to appear in Jin Buyi’s memories. The bird had grown old, and its memories were fading away.

These faded memories were like primordial chaos. Anyone who fell into it would be assimilated by the chaos, losing themselves and forgetting everything.

It was also like a maze, looping endlessly, with no way out.

Xu Ying and Dazhong faced one disaster after another as the memories faded into oblivion. Dazhong desperately protected him, escaping each round of destruction.

These memories mattered to Jin Buyi, but he had grown so old that he could no longer remember the experiences they held.

Dazhong kept looking toward Xu Ying. He didn’t know how experiencing Jin Buyi’s memories would affect Xu Ying.

In the long river of Jin Buyi’s memories, Xu Ying slowed his pace once more. He watched this segment of Jin Buyi’s memories very seriously.

These memories were likely very important, as they had been etched deeply in his soul. Jin Buyi hadn’t let them disappear completely even after numerous centuries.

The young Xu Ying and Yan Bao’er had grown into the world’s most powerful Qi Cultivators. Along with a Golden Crow blazing with the flames of war, they traversed the long river of time together, standing against heavenly gods without losing any ground.

They had evaded pursuit time and time again, even engaging in decisive battles against heavenly gods and the top priests of Great Shang.

They even raided the Great Shang’s slave ships, leading those slaves to revolt against the rule of the heavenly gods.

However, Yan Bao’er gradually grew old.

She lived through the full lifespan of a Qi Cultivator: four thousand years. The young girl she had once been was now white-haired, and time had long since erased the beautiful face of her youth.

Ah Ying, however, remained a youth.

The young girl from the past had finally reached the end of her life. As she lay on her deathbed, her consciousness slowly faded.

Holding her hand, the young Ah Ying spoke softly, yet with absolute conviction, as if to etch his vow into her soul and follow her through countless lifetimes.

“In your next life, I will definitely find you, no matter where you are in the myriad realms.”

A flower withered away.

Elsewhere, another flower quietly took root in a forgotten corner of the world and slowly bloomed.

While fighting off heavenly gods and the Great Shang’s pursuit, Jin Buyi and the young Ah Ying searched for the woman to whom he had sworn that vow in a past life. They traversed the starry sky, fighting their way from one world to another.

As the young Ah Ying awakened more of his memories, they also found themselves hunted by increasingly powerful beings. They belonged to a faction unlike the heavenly gods: an extremely mysterious group whose very existence seemed shrouded in obscurity. Even the heavenly gods treated them with great respect.

It was the most dangerous battle they had ever fought, yet the young Ah Ying was strangely exhilarated. He said to Jin Buyi, “I might have found what’s sealing my memories away.”

He drew a series of strange, wondrous runes. These were immortal Dao runes, which he had comprehended while clashing with those mysterious beings. He said excitedly, “These things might be what sealed my memories.”

Jin Buyi examined these immortal Dao runes closely, but he didn’t understand any of them.

He was the most powerful primeval beast in the world today, but he wasn’t omniscient. The immortal Dao runes drawn by the young Ah Ying were simply too profound and unfathomable for him to decipher.

Seeing the runes, Xu Ying whispered, “Master Zhong, we’ve found what we were looking for.”

Dazhong remained silent. He knew that Xu Ying likely had a thousand complicated thoughts swirling through his mind, yet he did not know how to comfort him.

Xu Ying looked at the immortal Dao runes in Jin Buyi’s memories. The crow couldn’t comprehend them. Many of the runes had already turned blurry and couldn’t be made out clearly.

Even Jin Buyi could no longer remember them.

Xu Ying moved forward through Jin Buyi’s memories, hoping to find more useful information.

Together with Dazhong, he bypassed the faded fragments of memory and arrived at another deeply etched segment of Jin Buyi’s past.

There, young Ah Ying finally found the girl he had longed for. Yet on the very day he found her, he also discovered that enemies surrounded him.

Those mysterious beings and heavenly gods found her first and used her to lay an ambush. The young Ah Ying sensed that something was wrong just before he stepped into the ambush.

“Buyi, in the future, bring this character to find me and awaken me.”

The young Ah Ying imprinted a golden immortal Dao rune into Jin Buyi’s memories and said with a smile, “You can still escape. Fly away, don’t stop. We’ll reunite in the future.”

Jin Buyi looked at him in confusion. Hadn’t they agreed never to forsake one another? Why was he telling him to run?

Ah Ying could escape too. Why did he insist on walking to his death?

Why go forward when he already knew death awaited him?

“There is always a glimmer of hope, isn’t that right?” The young Ah Ying waved his hand, sending him away, and stepped into the ambush without looking back.

Even though he was well aware it was a trap, he had to try.

Jin Buyi flew and flew. It was the first time he had ever fled without fighting back. Behind him, divine light erupted from the ambush, casting his enormous shadow across the vast wilderness.

He committed the young man’s words to heart and flew without stopping. In the future, they would reunite. He flapped his wings and fled for more than a hundred years. Eventually, the chaos behind him subsided, and the world fell silent.

He set out to find Ah Ying once more, like a blazing sun flying past unfamiliar places one after another.

He searched for a very, very long time. By then, he realized that he had passed his prime and was growing old. Some things that should have been etched permanently into his memory had begun to fade. He could no longer remember them, even though he knew they were important.

He continued to fly, searching. He cried out in the air, “Jin Buyi! Never forsake, Jin Buyi!”

Finally, he found Ah Ying again. Ah Ying was still a youth. He never changed, while Jin Buyi now bore aged feathers.

The human cultivators guarding Ah Ying were extremely powerful. They fought him and drove him away. Jin Buyi was injured time and time again, yet he returned each time to fight those human cultivators desperately.

He snatched the young Ah Ying away, evaded the human cultivators pursuing him and the heavenly gods hunting him, and constantly fled from one hiding place to another.

He showed the young Ah Ying the golden rune, but it was useless. Ah Ying didn’t remember him.

The human cultivators and heavenly gods repeatedly caught up to him, wounded him, and snatched Ah Ying away.

He stubbornly flew back and forth, searching high and low. He was like a stubborn old man who refused to change his ways.

Yet, he gradually grew old.

He had not lost to the human cultivators; he had not lost to the heavenly gods—he had lost to time.

One day, as he flew in the air, Jin Buyi suddenly felt lost. He neither remembered why he was flying nor what he was seeking.

He had grown so old that he had forgotten the memories etched into his heart. He no longer remembered his friend, his obsession, and everything he had been through with Xu Ying.

He vaguely remembered that he was searching for something very, very important. But what was it?

Perhaps he was simply tired.

Then heaven and earth were sealed, and Jin Buyi was swept into the sealed world.

When the Yunmeng Marsh was released, he had grown so old that he couldn’t be bothered to move.

However, just as the Fusang Tree descended from the sky, he felt a sudden urge to fly again.

He sensed a familiar scent, so he soared into the air, flapping his ancient wings, dragging his aged body, and flying to the Fusang Tree.

This place felt very familiar.

He spewed flames, setting the divine tree ablaze, then settled comfortably upon its branches.

He saw a familiar figure. He had the vague feeling that he’d seen him before. So, he poked his head out from the tree and looked at the youth named Xu Ying again and again. “Strange. I think I’ve seen you somewhere before.”

I’m too old. Jin Buyi thought as he looked at Xu Ying.

He had grown so old that he could no longer remember this youth.