In a room hidden inside the wall of a sheer cliff, there hung above the clouds, a screen made of white mist. On it were fantastic portrayals of events in a city, a town, and all manner of life. The ocean, the desert, and even the moon flashed by, perhaps a good portion of the world would be shown in due time. However, then the screen crackled-out. The all-seeing magic dispersed, as the misty screen's center was stabbed by cold metal.
A black sword penetrated a maid's silken chemise and opened a hole in her heart, thrusting her body through the rapidly fading screen of mist. The stunning vistas were shattered by her passage. Soon, the room was plunged from vibrant life, into darkness. As the woman died, she painfully smiled, enjoying the thought that her death was always part of the plan.
"You know the Mistress will never let you go! Not after what you've done here!" With a weak moan, she slid down. On the floor, she stared feebly at the ceiling, the smile fading. Her life was all but spent.
A white-robed man took back his sword from her chest and laughed without a hint of real mirth. Crimson stains slowly dyed the front of his shirt red with spreading blood.
"Let me go? As if I care about her punishment! When I'm done with this world, there won't be anyone left who can hold a hand higher than mine! The Mistress of Fate has always taught that she controlled everything, but tell me, after all these years, why is it that you lie here dying, and I stand here delivering your eulogy? Why is it that the lands, which you oversaw, are free of your cursed influence now? Man need not be born in chains at all. All that needs to happen...is your END! I will not be stopped by Gods, nor Goddesses, and certainly not by men or women. I will show you all what the true order looks like, and it is in no way so random as to allow the Mistress of Fate to have free rein over creation! It has been done before, and I mean to do it again. Man will be set on the proper path!"
"If we were to cut our ties...perhaps we would be immortal..."
It was hard to understand what the woman was saying. Perhaps the man didn't even catch all she was saying...
"You wish to follow in his footsteps, but you don't even know the beginning of his intent. You will see, when you meet the Mistress, remember what I told you and remember that I am laughing in the next life. You remember the words of The Unbound One. But do you remember how his dream ended? The destruction of an eons old age and the loss of millions of souls." She managed to choke out a few last words with her dying breaths.
Then her smile faded into the stiff mask of death.
The man tried to retort to her words but it was too late to have the last word. She was already dead.
"I'm sorry. But so long as the Heavens do not fall, nobody will see past the clouds in the sky. Nobody that is, except dreamers. This is my dream! As for Madraeyal... Madraeyal is not dead."
The man walked out. Whether he truly had regrets or not, there was no one to say. As he walked out, the cavern nestled inside the cliff, began to collapse. Towering spires and age old architecture fell indiscriminately. The entire cliff shook. Then the tip of the bluff crumbled off and left nothing but broken dreams.
While there was no one left in the room by this time, the screen of mist which had been shattered when the maid was tossed through it, displayed one last broken image. Somewhere, between the cracks in the shattered mist, a small province was shown, and in this province miraculous things were happening. An old man with kind hands stumbled upon a crying child clutching the bloody hands of its dead parents. Perhaps the old man took the child in. The screen flashed mercilessly onward without showing. A bright-eyed youth entered the service of an army, perhaps he was successful. A princess was locked in her castle, perhaps she escaped. Some man found true love, perhaps he was successful in keeping it. Each scene comes faster than the last, and the screen expends itself by the end, unable to show more as the rocks pile down. In reality, the cliff upon which this cave was contained, was a pillar holding up the Heavens. Now that it's master was dead, it could sustain itself no longer an crumbled to pieces. Yet despite such a catastrophe happening high above the skies, nobody living below noticed. It was like an invisible barrier blocked all the mortal's sight and hid the destruction of the Heavens.
Lineir was definitely dead. Even those who had achieved immortality, and did not age, would hardly consider a sword to the heart a trivial injury. That being said, where was Buddha? He should be free of suffering and desire, ready to reach enlightenment. Instead, there was the incomparably perfect owner of the sword's voice in front of him. She stared at him blankly within his innermost mind.
"So if I'm dead, does that mean you're Buddha? If I had known Buddha was so beautiful, I would have killed myself long ago," Lineir mumbled incoherently.
"Who's your Buddha? I'm to be addressed as Master, or Great One! Also, what ARE you doing here! You should definitely be dead!"
Huh?
So this wasn't the doing of the sword.
How was he still here?
"Well, I'm sure the reaper will come to claim your soul soon anyway and drag it to hell, so I suppose you might as well know my name, maybe it'll gain you some favor with the demon gods. I'm called Fung-Mei by those who are worthy."
"Excellent, Mei-Mei. My name is called Lineir and I'll be in your care." The face of an angel frowned at the casual nickname he gave her on the spot. After a moment though, she smiled unexpectedly.
"Call me whatever you want. The reaper's coming for you. Look, you're definitely dead." An image was projected in front of his mental form.
"I never would have believed he'd actually have the guts to kill himself just to spite us. What did we ever do to him? Does anyone even know his name?"
The image showed Lineir's body from above. He was crumpled on the ground and white-robed figures were prodding him with their swords. One searched him looking for the black sword which had vanished after carving a hole in his heart.
"Looks like he was telling the truth. There's nothing on his body, not even a penny, let alone any treasures! That sword is gone. We've wasted our time here. Throw his body into that pool of undead filth. That way he can peacefully rest with the trash, where he belongs. He wanted to hide from us? Well he can stay there forever. We tell the Great Sects nothing understand? If they know what happened here, they'll come back and overturn our city stone by stone. We need to find out what happened before then. There is always something to gain from miraculous events such as this, but only if we discover the truth first!" With that, Lineir's body was unceremoniously tossed back into the pool of black liquid, and the members of the White Horizon Sect flew off into the city for the night.
"Wow! Look at the size of the hole in your chest! Impressive, you really put your all into it! How you're still here is beyond me. Maybe you're a ghost in the sword with me now!" The beauty in front of him seemed rather happy at the thought. Despite how she feigned an aloof atmosphere, she must have been quite lonely inside the sword after all these years. Lineir didn't believe her, though.
"Something's definitely wrong here! I can't be dead...ahh jeez look at that black liquid getting inside my heart. That's definitely going to be infected."
"I'm telling you, you're dead. Nobody short of the Celestial level could survive what you just went through. Look, even the White Horizon Sect thinks you're dead. Just accept that you're stuck here in the sword with me and we can wait until somebody worthy comes along just like you did. Should only take a few decades."
Lineir panicked when he heard that,
"I can't be dead! What will happen to my sister! For that matter, there were so many things I wanted to do in life! Once I sold you, I was going to be rich, and live happily ever after!" Naturally the boy was not able to accept that he was dead, despite the evidence in front of him. The two began bickering, though to be honest, Lineir had given up hope inside. His body was definitely dead and not only was his heart not beating, it might not even be there anymore at all. After falling upon the black blade, it had probably been completely destroyed by his suicidal actions. There wasn't much else to do in this strange mental space, but argue. It distracted him from being dead. Unbeknownst to both of the two spirits, however, the image Mei had summoned to display the outside world was still projecting, and something very interesting was happening on it. If they had been watching, they would have seen undead blood slowly seeping into Lineir's crushed heart. When it slithered inside, it began to take solid form. Strand after strand of liquid weaved around inside of the crumpled body, and soon took a shape. This shape was something the two would recognize if they saw it, but they were too busy bickering to notice. It was the exact same shape as the undead heart they had destroyed! A small miniature version had formed in Lineir's chest cavity and after it congealed, the cavity slowly closed, a black scab covering the cut.
As they were arguing, suddenly Lineir's mental form winked out and the beauty was left alone.
"Hey, where'd you go? Did the reaper finally take you?"
Lineir opened his eyes and stared around. He was surrounded by black liquid and yet he didn't feel particularly bad. As a matter of fact, for a dead man, he felt pretty amazing! He immediately reached down and grabbed his chest looking for the hole. With shock, he found a black scab where the wound had been and gasped. Or tried to, there was no air in his lungs. Flipping himself upright, he took a huge breath of air, floating on top of the blood pool. A few short strokes and he found himself climbing out of the filthy pit for the third time in two days.
"Mei, what the hell is going on! I was dead! Yet now I'm here...and this..." He pointed at the hole in his chest. Now it was just a dark black patch.
"I don't know either, kiddo! this is a first even for me. I've seen a lot of things, but I was sure you were dead." Lineir continued to feel his chest, and then froze.
"I don't have a pulse! What is going on! Could I be...undead?"
"That's impossible! You had no heart! There's no way you would rise as the undead no matter how much death Qi is here...unless...no! Those old bastards dare to chase me this far!?" Mei was currently fused inside Lineir's blood. She found it a simple matter to see what was going on in his heart.
"HAHAHAHAHA, those old bastards really overestimated themselves this time! This shouldn't be possible, but apparently it is. The undead heart we slew before was created by those old bastards who chased me through the Heavens. I thought I destroyed them, but who would have thought that some of the undead filth actually still retained a free will! When your freshly dead body was flung into the pool, their residual energies must have entered you and set upon building a new heart! However, this heart is not beating because it's of an undead nature. If this continues, your mind will die and you will become a mindless undead just like any other.
Fortunately, I am with you. I'm skilled in the arts of manipulating darkness. It should be a simple matter for me to gain control of this thing from within you. This'll only take a moment." A second later Lineir felt a huge pain in his chest as if an electrical current was running through him, and a second later, a mighty thump sounded in his chest, so loud he could actually hear it. Then again, and again, until it gradually became inaudible.
"Got it on the first try! I'm just too good, I'm not even a healer and I brought somebody back from the dead...!" Mei celebrated restarting his heart.
"So does this mean I'll be okay?" Lineir asked.
Mei took a moment before answering excitedly,
"Better than ok! There's no way your body would have survived without a working heart for so long if I hadn't already worked on it and used so many forbidden techniques. However, since I managed to take control of this new heart, I am now part of it! I can even manipulate your heart, look!" Lineir staggered as suddenly his new heartbeat faltered and missed a step.
"Ow!"
"Sorry, my mistake! But the point is that your new heart is quite durable. There's an unusual amount of death Qi in it. Given time, I might even find a way to harness this energy...but for now, just know that you have been given a second chance at life. Don't waste it this time! Remember, the White Horizon Sect absolutely cannot know that you're alive! They won't be fooled again."
Lineir sighed.
His life just kept getting more and more difficult. But then he smiled.
"You're forgetting something Mei-Mei, my gambit worked again. They actually thought I died when I stabbed myself. Technically...you have to admit, your disciple has promise, Mei-Mei."
"SHUT UP THERE'S NO WAY YOU COULD HAVE KNOWN!!!"