Nine Paths of Asura-Original Wuxia

Chapter 54-Field of 100 Steps

Urrrrgh my sleep cycle slingshotted around to normal at the cost of a double shot of migraines. Thanks for reading!

On another world, somewhere far, far, away two men fought a private battle unwatched by mortal eyes.

"You... how can you be? Are you one of the elder gods? This power cannot be wielded by those chained with mortality!" A shout rang out from a man whose clothes were in tatters, floating in the air. He looked as one might after shivering in the path of a hurricane, battered, soaked in not water but blood, and desolate. He was awed by a power which he could not comprehend.

The other man, immovable, standing atop a mountain peak, spoke for the first time,

"An elder god? You insult me, an old god, let alone the elder gods could not rend Heaven and Earth to nothingness. I am not so weak." This immovable man raised his blade and closed his eyes. A terrifying feeling flowed up from the battered man's insides. It was as if the very fabric of reality was moving, his guts squirmed as gravity had begun to rise up and rebel against the chains of its nature.

"You should leave. This place is already empty. Those who will die, will die. I do not desire to kill one who follows the old rules of battle. You have honor, if you flee now, you will survive this ending." So saying, he raised the blade ever higher, and the feeling of impending doom came ever stronger. The defeated man felt his guts trying to escape from his body. However, he did not move.

"I will not move. I will witness this ending. For so long I have wandered, cultivated, and reached for the pinnacle. But having seen you now, I have no desire to fight anymore, I wish only to experience this power one last time. This power which I will never achieve. Let me die having known it with my own body!" The battered man raised his sword as well, leveling it with the immovable man's, a shivering sliver of steel against a blade which held the impending doom of Fate itself.

"I hope you do not mind if I test your strike with one of my own!" He shouted out and slashed forward, visible whirling ripples slicing through the air.

The immovable man opened his eyes slightly and sighed,

"You know, I was once mortal too. This height, this pinnacle, you were not so deep in the abyss as to never climb out and reach it. But if dying here is your wish, then I can only grant it."

 He closed his eyes again, unwilling to watch the destruction of another world, and lowered his blade. It seemed to fall neither fast nor slow, but when it did, stopping at the mountain peak below, a horrendous crackling came as the world was torn asunder. As if a divine bolt of frozen lightning, the sword's passage blasted the clouds apart, first splitting them in two, then casting the split halves into ever smaller pieces which were further blasted away in writhing circles. The land below was shattered and became a chasm which traversed the entire world. From inside, molten fire glowed before being sloshed aside as the hideous blow rent deeper into the planet. The other battered man's attack hadn't even given the slightest pause to this terrifying blow, and he had simply vanished, gone with the shifting clouds, ash on the wind. 

SHUA!

Finally, the Heaven's aura tried to fill in from above, to fill the sundered land and to hold together the falling planet, but upon seeing the divine Qi fall, the immovable man simply snorted and whipped his sword around to slice the air behind him. A dark translucent tear appeared into which he stepped and disappeared. As the tear closed, the Heaven's aura failed to close the mortal wound and the planet imploded from existence. With one blow... it was simply gone, and not even the Heaven's intervention could stop it.