Martial King's Retired Life

In a land where religious beliefs were part of nearly everyone’s life, news of special newborns unsurprisingly travelled fast. Before the official and local shrines could determine if the newborn was the portent of an ominous future or a blessing from the gods, bandits had arrived.

Wealthy families that lacked anything but money would love to have a special child for bragging rights. Any monarch of the seven states would love to have a new and unique toy. The bandits killed everyone except for the infant and the infant’s mother. For bandits who’d mercilessly kill anyone for their gains, it proved to be a fatal mistake.

When the bandits snatched the infant from his mother’s arms, the golden glow returned, crushing the bandits’ organs and reducing them to cesspools of flesh within an instant. A bloody and gross scene it may have been, it was also divine enough to earn reverence. He was heaven’s chosen child among the countless people in existence.

Ever since that day, the infant’s golden light became a legendary topic across the seven states, while the infant himself became a symbol of divinity. There was no explanation for what exactly the golden light was; they only worked out that it would spawn whenever the infant was emotionally stimulated and that he had the potential to surpass the strength of mankind.

People foresaw the story becoming a huge deal in a land that viewed religion with so much importance, but nobody could stop its spread. People travelled from afar, wishing to see the supposed miracle for themselves, wishing to see if someone had truly inherited a gift from above. They were disappointed. The child was human. He still wobbled when walking. He didn’t wear sparkly garments. He still liked clinging to his mother.

To protect the mother and child, the shrine prohibited people from disturbing their life. They knew the people would be hellbent, but they underestimated the degree. Those people knew that the child’s mood was the key to a miracle, specifically, rage.

On a starless night, a light from below brightened every corner of the sky that the eye could see. It wasn’t a miracle; it was man made. They believed that an inheritor of divine power was impervious to fire, but they never saw the child they believed in run to his mother’s rescue when their home went up in flames. As they listened to the pitiful cries from within, they cursed and spat. They felt deceived; they had no self-awareness of what they had done.

Eventually, they were face to face with a three-year-old child, which was when it dawned on them that a child wouldn’t have the ability to speak about their emotions at such a tender age and shouldn’t have had a stoic face caked in white ash. Only when his emotions exploded did they realise they had woken the most terrifying demon of the Western Regions.

The child massacred everyone in the small town. Everyone. After he departed, the story would continue to be recounted in every state for eternity.

Henceforth, they described the child as one with emerald eyes, hair akin to fire, green face, fangs, bones of iron, skin of bronze, as well as invulnerability to blades and elements. They said he was a demon from the depths wielding a titanic axe weighing tonnes. Supposedly, he was an indiscriminate killing machine who terrorised every state without anyone able to stop him in his tracks. As a result, martial artists confident in their abilities travelled far and world to find him, which was simple, only to pad his record and feed the earth. The only person he hadn’t defeated was the Western Regions’ true ruler – the leader of Divine Moon Cult. That was a scenario that would never happen, though, as he had joined the cult and was unfaultable unless he purged the cult. At that point, everyone expected him to be invincible, and they were right… until he met “God”.

***

The palace walls didn’t magically reflect the sunlight. The walls – every part of the city, as a matter of fact – was constructed using gold and had white jade inlaid. You’d find women who’d have men drooling in the palace, white deer, lions and apes in the meticulous garden. The Central Plain was blessed with wealth and vast land, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a city as opulent as this one.

This was the headquarters of the seven states of the Western Regions’ true ruler, the guardian of all those under the sun and moon, the guardian of the night, the leader of the boundless deserts and oceans, the only person truly respected above all else, the offspring of god and god’s representative, the one tasked with spreading the teachings – the leader of Divine Moon Cult. Trying to find anything sinister here would be tantamount to finding a drop of water in gravel.

The blonde elder on the golden throne was once a man who had women swooning over him, but time had taken a toll on his appearance. He stared at the book on hand as though he was measuring the world impartially, just as he seemed indifferent to the oral report coming from below.

“Your Great Majesty… he escaped.”

The elder adorned in the most premium clothing money could buy slowly set down his book, not because he was old but because he was weighing whether the report or the contents of the book were more pertinent. In the end, he took a glance down.

Aforementioned escapee was a menace to mankind. The buildings were all but debris. The guards were skeletons. Nothing in the vicinity wasn’t burnt. The huge hole in the wall looked as if someone melted it with a fireball.

“Yong Ye.”

The youth beside the elder took a close look and then turned back to report, “It is Agni Twelve Heavens.”

The single sentence eliminated the possibility of foreign assistance. Agni Twelve Heavens was one of the prisoner’s most polished disciplines.

“Put out the fire.” The elder left with his arms folded.

“You Great Majesty, he… is a menace. He may very well bring harm to the seven states again. Are we not going to send…”

“Give a Divine Realm name who you could send after him.” The elder stopped in his tracks to ask, “Where did he go?”

“According to reports, he is heading towards the Central Plain.”

The elder smirked. “Let ‘God’ deal with it.” Speaking from a past memory, the elder added, “Mayhap it is their fate.”

A gentle breeze brushed the elder’s hair on his temples, starting the unbridled, scorching, ominous golden wind from the Western Regions.