Gold dust and ozone saturated the clearing as the divine presence manifested. Ancient trees groaned under the sudden weight of celestial gravity, their bark peeling away in long, dry strips. High above the shattered remains of the paladin’s mythril sword, a colossal figure spun itself out of pure stellar energy. Wings of solid gold fire expanded outward, brushing against the pine canopy and reducing century-old needles to instant gray ash. Heat waves rippled through the valley, distorting the air until the horizon looked like a warped painting. Pressure built in the area, heavy enough to crack the granite boulders scattered along the forest floor. Du Ming tilted his head, his dark, bottomless eyes reflecting the brilliant glare with absolute indifference. Not a single muscle in his face moved. His jaw remained relaxed, his posture slouching slightly as if he were watching a tedious street performance rather than the descent of a god. Nothing about this grand display stirred his stagnant pulse. He had spent his first century achieving the Deity Realm, and the next nine hundred years cultivating a power that made the laws of the universe look like mere suggestions. Boredom had been his only true enemy for centuries, a slow, creeping rot that made every victory taste like ash. A thousand years of unchallenged supremacy in the Murim had left his soul quiet, perhaps too quiet, like a deep, frozen lake where no wind could ever stir a ripple. This foreign world, with its loud magic and fragile knights, was proving to be just as easily broken as his old home. He had hoped for a spark, a moment of genuine surprise, but instead, he was met with the same predictable patterns of power. Beneath his boots, the earth groaned as the pressure from the celestial projection increased, cracking the dirt into a web of glowing fissures. The heat was intense enough to melt iron, yet Du Ming didn't even blink. He simply adjusted his weight, waiting for the entity to finish its grand entrance. Beside him, the fallen paladin lay gasping in the mud, blood leaking from his nose and ears under the sheer weight of his god's presence. Yet, the dying mortal stared upward with a fanatical grin, his cracked lips parting to whisper a frantic, desperate prayer of salvation. To the paladin, this was the ultimate judgment, the cleansing fire that would purge the absolute void standing before him. Runes of ancient, blinding light pulsed along the giant projection's arms, locking their celestial aim onto the black-haired intruder. The entity possessed no eyes, only two burning voids of golden light that radiated an absolute, unyielding authority. Anger didn't register on its features, only a cold, mechanical judgment that demanded the swift erasure of an unregistered anomaly. White-hot fury slammed directly into Du Ming, vaporizing the surrounding forest in a fraction of a second. The beam of concentrated solar wrath was so dense it looked like a solid pillar of liquid gold pouring from the heavens. It swallowed the clearing whole, carving a deep, perfect cylinder into the bedrock. Soil turned to bubbling, molten glass in an instant, glowing a violent, angry red. The moisture in the air evaporated with a high-pitched hiss, leaving behind a vacuum of suffocating, pressurized heat that would have turned any mortal's lungs to ash. Du Ming stood perfectly motionless in the absolute center of this localized star. He closed his eyes for a brief moment, letting the white-hot inferno wash over him. He wanted to feel the sting of heat. He wanted to feel his skin crawl, to feel the primitive rush of survival instinct that he hadn't experienced in nine centuries. Flame licked at his cheeks, but the extreme heat failed to penetrate the invisible layer of innate Qi clinging to his skin like a second epidermis. The divine fire simply rolled off his shoulders, unable to find a single purchase on his transcendent physical vessel. Soft sighs slipped from his lips, lost to the roaring, deafening crackle of the divine fire. He felt absolutely nothing. No pain, no warmth, not even the slight prickle of discomfort he had secretly hoped for when he stepped through the spatial tear. He was untouchable, a god walking among insects, and the realization only deepened the profound emptiness in his chest. Disappointment settled heavy in his heart, more suffocating than the vacuum of the blast itself. His hair remained flawlessly black and smooth, untouched by a cosmic fire that could melt solid fortress walls. Slowly, he raised his right hand, his movements casual and completely devoid of urgency. With a simple, reverse-palm strike, he flicked his wrist toward the colossal figure in the sky. He didn't use a named technique, nor did he channel the devastating arts that had flattened mountains in his youth. Pure, condensed Qi erupted from his hand in a silent wave. It was a basic discharge of the vast, limitless energy he had accumulated over centuries of lonely cultivation, yet it carried the weight of an entire world. Brilliant solar light shattered like cheap glass. The colossal beam of divine wrath cracked down the middle, its golden structure fracturing into millions of tiny, harmless shards. Massive shockwaves tore through the clearing, instantly dispersing the white-hot inferno and leaving behind a smoking, blackened crater. The vacuum was violently filled with rushing air, creating a thunderous clap that echoed across the distant mountains. Even the divine projection itself cracked, golden fractures running along its massive arms before it dissolved into harmless gold dust. The archangel's mechanical face seemed to flicker with something resembling shock before it faded entirely into the wind. Quiet returned to the devastated clearing, save for the crackle of burning stumps. The air was thick with the scent of melted stone and ozone, but the oppressive gravity was gone. --- Sharp, terrified gasps suddenly cut through the heavy silence. Du Ming turned his gaze toward a large, hollow mana-oak that had somehow survived the blast, protected by its own dense magical core. Huddled inside the hollow trunk was a young woman, her wide eyes reflecting the smoking ruin around her. Sylvie clutched her merchant pack to her chest, her knuckles white and her breath coming in ragged, shallow pants. She had only come to this forest to harvest rare mana-moss, a valuable commodity for the local mages, but now she was staring at a monster in human skin. Her mind refused to process what her eyes had just witnessed. She tried to pull herself deeper into the hollow trunk, but her limbs felt like lead. A cold sweat broke out across her forehead as Du Ming's dark, bottomless eyes locked onto hers, stripping away all her defenses with a single, indifferent look. Paladins were supposed to be the ultimate shield of humanity, but this absolute stranger made their grandest magic look like child's play. Her heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird. She knew the legends of the Archangel of Order, the divine protector whose light was said to be absolute and unyielding, but this man had dismantled that god with a flick of his wrist. Cold terror seeped into her bones as she watched him take a step forward, his movements fluid and soundless. He didn't look like a killer; he looked like a god who had forgotten what it was like to be alive, and that made him infinitely more terrifying. Beside the crater, the broken paladin also heard her gasp. He dragged his shattered body forward, his remaining eye fixed on Du Ming with absolute terror. This man was not a mage, nor was he a rogue knight using forbidden dark magic. An absolute void, this black-haired entity swallowed the divine light of the heavens without leaving a single trace. Desperate resolve hardened in the paladin's chest. He knew what he had to do, even if it meant condemning his own soul to eternal darkness. Allowing such a heresy to escape into the wider world was out of the question, even if stopping it cost him his very soul. Reaching into his dented, blood-stained breastplate, the paladin pulled out a cracked, golden amulet pulsing with volatile holy energy. It was a high-tier relic, a fragment of an ancient star gifted only to the highest ranking defenders of the faith. Blood dripped from his chin as he began to chant, his voice raspy and frantic, pouring his remaining life-force directly into the relic. The golden metal began to hum, vibrating with a high-pitched screech that made Sylvie cover her ears in agony. Sylvie screamed as the amulet began to glow with an unstable, violent radiance, the light expanding rapidly to form a dome over the clearing. She scrambled to escape the hollow tree, but the air had turned thick as syrup, locking her in place. Du Ming watched, his curiosity mildly piqued by the sudden spike in energy, though he made no move to stop it. He simply stood there, his hands tucked into his sleeves, waiting to see if this new world had anything left to offer him. With a final, ragged breath, the dying Paladin, desperate to prevent 'the void' from spreading, ignites his own life-force to detonate a high-tier holy relic, locking Du Ming and Sylvie in a blinding, collapsing sphere of pressurized light.

Gold Dust And Broken Steel