In quiet hushed voices were raging abound like a dawning storm. Nothing ceased to perform its quaint act, nothing contorted out of shape yet the smell was different – the world seemed different. Standing upon the same graveyard of living and dead, Princess Jingwei observed her inner changes.

She wasn’t overwhelmed with the exactness of the truth, rather upset at the strange link she had to play at the forthcoming events. Unlike the past disillusion, a will to bring out the false as the truth for her sense’s sake, she wasn’t quite aptly prepared to kill her conscience for this world, yet. As such, the path under her feet were bumpy and rigged with traps. For her, even her life-givers were not as important as her will to stay true to her mind. And now she had to prove that sentiment and her own worth, that she hadn’t been ungracious to the wider truth. Or afraid of this troublesome path, she had set forth on. 

Since her birth, as a Goddess born to Deities with overwhelming power and influence in their hands – as the rightful heir to the Spring Domain, the most coveted of places in the Heavenly realm of Yuanshan; she had been cruelly aware of the line that would push her down to the level of mud that stuck on her feet. Unconsciously, through some light choices of her own, she will fall in places from where she will never, ever see a clearer sky again, nor be able to bath in light of earlier innocence. She could kill her ignorance in the cradle, stifle it with a cruel choke, but she might never recover from ever falling from the pedestal of the light of her way. If she betrayed the justice, if she betrayed her conscience, she will be that flower muddied and crushed in fallen dirt. What is worthy of that dilapidated, degraded state? Non, and it was death in rot.

At this moment of silence, glaring at the hellscape, the torture and pain of millions and millions of souls, each being pushed to a void that will crush them forever from existence, she was glaring, quite literally, at the abetting line she had felt in her mind since her birth. No, this was no longer a doubt of whether a race was worthy of being vanquished like a dirty thing out of sight, and quite out of mind. It was no longer as simple as disbelieving that Heavenly Realm, the realm sought by the three thousand small and big worlds as the ultimate goal of their lives; reaching where was the epitome of human success, the success a man achieved by going against the heaven – such a realm, was involved in stifling conspiracies that only human nature indulged in. If anyone told her, that all this raging anguish she witnessed standing over this hilltop was but a petty intrigue for a throne, on another day - she would have died laughing at that fantastical notion. But here, it was an embarrassing reality. Where did these deities put their face? Ridiculous!

In the solace of night, some fluttering cranes crooned their necks together, each wrapped around the other like an eternal symbol of companionship, of loyalty. Till they were blown to ashes in the raging fire that had taken everything, every piece and corner of visible sky and land, until the ashes flew off to the whirling void – Princess Jingwei kept looking at that miserable departure. Then she took out the only weapon she carried in her hand: a small flute of unrecognizable wood, etched with blue and dark totems of birds and butterflies symbolizing the pattern of the Spring Domain. This piece of worthless wood, who would have thought it denoted the reign over a land?

She had quite never understood why, when her mother was still alive and well it had chosen to home itself in her inner realm palace, never budging from that place as if it had taken its root there with no intention to sprout. But now, finally, she did. She took a deep cold sigh as she recalled the exasperated shock on her father's face, while her mothers’ vines visibly wrapped around his wrist. Her mother was there today. When she teleported to ascertain their presence, entanglement with the rights and wrongs - both of them were there.

She watched with her own eyes, viewed the havoc these so-called gods had caused for creatures other than themselves. No, even in their own ranks that snobbery, and utter disregard for the weak was naked, blatant. As if the world itself had denied the weak their right to live! Or survive in dignity. How dare they think that? Didn’t the principles of law they comprehended to become stronger ever make it clear to their senses that all life was equal in the eyes of The Great, neither the humble bugs nor the flimsy mayfly was worthless? They were as noble as her blood! Did the false authority blind their eyes, lulling their values and killing their senses? How dare they forget the past Immortals and Deities who were crushed to their death because they fell in similar fantastical delusion?

In Princess Jingwei’s cold pondering the night past and while the sun slowly dawned, setting the canvas of sky in a colorful mix of chaotic harmony, she breathed in the ashes of various chaos. There was vanquished helplessness, cry for help, tears of betrayal of separation, insensitivity to death and life, and utmost detachment to humaneness… so much, so vibrant as full of worth and meaning than empty cold palaces placed over hard stones and praised by clouded minds.

“Girl, why save him?” The crow peeked through his fluffed-up feathers, his eyes now peeking only through a slit, while his breaths fell short of their natural rhythm. “He owns you nothing – neither does Yuneah. We know now, you are a kind child. I have never felt such compassionate breath in another being as I do in you. that’s why I don’t want to see you make such grievous error! Are you aware of how many sins will fall on your shoulder once you embark on this path, which my old eyes see you have stepped over? Just because of your compassion don’t fall O, pious child. There is no need for you alone to be pillar to this falling sky.”

“Ney, my sins will be mine to bear. This world its own. And my world…will be sure to bear its own. But you ask as if I might regret? Unfortunately, master crow, you might not understand where I stand this minute. If I dared to take a step back due to unwarranted cowardice, I swear that will be the end of me.” Jingwei took a deep concerned look at the sick crow, with his feathers sticking out from several places, and his drooping eyes. She shrugged his nice words, because they weren’t valid enough to hold her back. His time was drawing nearer to close by each minute. And she was awaiting, faithfully for his death.

Princess Jingwei raised her tired head over to the sky. In the cataclysmic firmament, blowing ashes and soot lingered like falling snow; even the dawning of the weak sun couldn’t erase the gloom of the approaching time, and that huge circle of void that had opened and was swallowing each life as she stood gazing inside the Protective Shield. “It’s time. Please bear with me.”

‘You might as well witness the dawn of hope, at the darkest of your hours,’ she wished achingly.

The crow steadied his tilting, drooping body and fell on his stomach. He first glanced at the weakly breathing man lying down beside the tree stump on which he was perched. He looked barely alive, even his chest heaved so delicately that it was difficult to notice if you didn’t place and hand nearer to his breast and feel his thumping heart. He was more like a mortal. Straying, aching for release with painless death.

Then he looked up at the silver haired maiden. A compassionate child, indeed. The more he thought, the more he couldn’t bear the thought that such an untouched soul was going to be tarnished in the black of the existent world. To think of the imminent fate of a traitor, even if he didn’t know the noble lineage of the maiden, he could garner her imminent death and disgrace that might befall her.

 “Forget it, my love. The world will end one way or another, it was set in stone the day it was born that it will end here. You are a pure life; you didn’t do anything of your own will and went against Yuneah. If there is anyone who doesn’t own us anything, it is you. Your purity will protect you from falling out of your way, if that is what you fear. This fate is not yours to bear my child, ease your shoulder and let it all go. Many people did us wrong; we forfeited our wills as a result. But it was no doubt that our fault was being too weak in the face of an enemy. If we had stood together, and stood sturdier we wouldn’t have seen this day. There are many amongst the children of Yuneah who should be more ashamed than you at bringing down their birthland! But did you see a slight shame in their hiding backs? Amongst the pillaging invaders, non were your people who came out with your knowledge and order. Nor the thief of our lands, neither the culprit who destroyed it to bits. Why make yourself pay for others crime – and a hefty debt too? This isn’t your sin to carry on your forehead, come, sit down.” He persuaded the child, with ceasing breath and beseeching eyes. Such eyes…

“Just a while back, when I went to the battlefield, I saw my father and mother there. Complicitly attacking this man over there. They don’t have any enmity with him, other than the forced one that can only come from their need to keep their heavy name and influences unbreeched. I see no bending pressure on them, nor helplessness. Unfortunately, Master crow, it’s too late for anyone to shirk their responsibilities over this matter. If Yuneah dies, it’s a shame that I’ll bear for the rest of my life! As the daughter of my mother, as the daughter of my father – for their sins, I will recompense! Master crow, you don’t have to feel bad. If I die disgraced, I will die a worthy death. For me, that is enough. I might have been unaware, but I’m not an ignoble ingrate forthright.” Princess Jingwei burst out in indignation for the first time, sometime pointing fingers towards the man, at others simply pressing her own forehead.

“But you might lose your life!” The crow spat with such force as if a hand had reseized his life back into that small shell.

“I won’t. Not without making others pay their due. Till then I will breathe and this heaven will let me breath and walk assuredly.” When Princess Jingwei said this with assurance, she was still looking at the only weapon she held in her hand. Today, she had awakened to a new world and shattered rest of her beliefs. She only wished…perhaps, or maybe this shock was the last key on her path to awaken her latent blood?

After sleeping for five hundred years, it was time for it to emerge and aid her. Princess Jingwei decisively placed the flute at her lips and started breathing a magnificent note. At the sound of that single sound, the world stilled. The void thumped unnaturally as if faced with an invisible pressure that was stifling its power of inhalation. Then, as the note flew one by one strumming into the other, colliding into a breathless piece; all the hush died down, all the raging ended. The world hauntingly stilled over that moment.

“Sigh.” With a deep look at her flute, Princess Jingwei stilled for a moment as if pushing herself to extremes. Finally, as if reaching her decision, she held the two edges of it and broke it in half. The lugging crack was as if it was tattooed over her heart; she breathed heavily. And then, she in the most graceful and natural manner drew a sharp cut at her throat.

It was all too sudden. The breathing, the cut and the spurting of Golden blood over scorched land. The moment the blood touched the parched piece of land, it started shaking and moving and rifting like a world changing earthquake. The Blood collected in no time, in moments it was spreading everywhere. The dragon of the earth emerged and dunked his head over the pool of collecting Golden blood. It was gruesome, majestic. And Princess Jingwei looked at that pool that soon died her silk clothes, her body and her silver hair, dying it all a charming sunlit warm, she didn’t look pained. Only the two broken piece of wood was in her eyes, so eternally haunting in its loss.  

Her golden blood was thumping, dancing as if at an ancient tune thrumming from her Godhood. The burning sky died, the dragon of the Air emerged and dunked his head in the pooling blood. Soon the Dragon of the wood roared and created world-turning motion, as he too fought with others to drink the newly shed blood. Soon, not to be left behind the Water and Fire Dragons rolled and twisted around Princess Jingwei, first bowing their head in admission of her presence then they too lunged at that flowing Golden Liquid. The five dragons were all here, at least unlike the dead consciousness of the Yuneah world they hadn’t completely ceased. Now, they were playing in the growing puddle of blood, which had already pooled enough to be called a small pond. 

But their abysmal strength, their protruding bones, claws that angled horrifically, and teeth that looked like they had been under the force of a raging hammer, all betrayed their closing end. They were majestic, but ill. Too ill. One of them brought out a seed from his heart. The others surrounded him, and then they together started encircling the seed till it sprouted, grew and soon bloomed into the most majestic Golden Lotus. 

Master Crow was shocked; he even froze in utter disbelief.

‘The majestic spirits of the world – they, they did exist…in the end the tales of old, weren’t they records wielded in guised fantasy. Here, I witness to a fact that my ancestors only heard from the lore!” But then he turned his head at the bleeding maiden. By now she was completely died in Golden hue.

“Stop O, worthy child. The blessings of the world are with you, this much is enough. Look, you have reawakened a dying branch.”

But only silence faced his request.

Increasingly, the void closed. As if some force had finely gained enough strength to fight against it, the void was pushed from all sides, pulsing in opposition yet found no way out of that tight repression. As soon as the Golden Lotus fully opened, there was a great shock and the void opening shrunk to the width of a normal head of a human. By the time the sun was burning over the head, the void was nowhere to be seen. And the Golden blood had flowed down, pooled a great deal down…enough to submerge the maiden till her waist.

It moved as if it was raging with anger, with so much disgust and recoil at its surrounding, but an unchanging motive. Anything bathing in it bloomed. The Dragons were still frolicking with the blood, reinvigorating their lost vitality. Princess Jingwei too was quite surrounded in human like emotions. Suddenly she walked out of the pool, sitting herself besides it with arms wrapped around herself. She was flooding with emotions, doubts. She had many things she wanted to convey, to ask her parents. Many questions were stifling to her.

Lord Father. He was there. Heroic, and powerful standing against a foe not his opponent – neither in status, nor strength. A natural God had fought against the Jade Emperor Immortal. How many realms of strength stretched in between their two existences? Falling chaos, numbed conscience!

The skies were torn, the space mangled. In the clouds above the Abyss, he really was there as she had feared when she had braved to face her reality. No, his hands were tied with many fate lines she didn’t dare to think of. Some of them were darker than blood, lines that easily placed him away from the order and ethics.

And when he had lunged on that man with his sword, ready to slay him, truly it was a moment for her to make many severe choices. Unlike the flustered heart she had when she first heard of Yuneah worlds fate, undecisive, searching for an excuse – laden with guilt when she knew there wasn’t a possibility of misunderstanding. Now, she was completely numb at her own Lord Fathers attempt to eradicate a sinless soul, a God who supported many karmas on his head and was tied to the fate of his world.

Princess Jingwei knew many secrets. She knew the reason that allowed him, her Lord father to easily put himself in that violent position. Unlike the brevity, the grievous sentence a Deity might get by going against a soul in his world – there was a grey void, a moral void, when the subject flickered to the specie of another Universe, an order alien altogether. Yuneah was an alien Universe, unlike Yuanshan in everything. But as a deity with sound judgement, which principle was difficult to understand? If it was a true invasion, she would understand and comply with mum lips…but ridiculously, all this was a play for some inanimate chair! A brave war God…who would believe such flimsy reason?

As a natural deity, how could he be unaware of the fate-line being tangled? How could he not see, the innocence of that clan? Yet he did raise his sword, and sword to kill! That cleared all of her doubts, killed all her whims. It was no longer her own will to steer away, she had to bear some of their sins even if she didn’t want to! Yuneah had to live!

Princess looked encouragingly at the growing bodies of the five dragons, who finally back to their epitome roared together to the sky. The sky tilted, and thunder raged all around. Fierce lightening bolts fell from the brewing cold, dark clouds and thunderous sound burst all around. Soon, the rain fell. The fire raged anew, yet a green fire, purifying every piece of land it burned. The ground shook with recovered vitality, few sprouts of green burst in the open. The empty grove of sea, recovered under thunderous pouring water. The streams flowed, awakened. The hills formed, the mountains lurked above and greenery was everywhere. Reawakened land.

Suddenly, with another collective roar of the dragons, the whole world shook with rage. The Golden Lotus bloom suddenly wilted, leaving behind a pod which soon burst into golden powder flowing out with the air. A cry suddenly burst, somewhere. What kind, of what specie, or being? No one could ever place a similar sounding word to its voice.

“Greetings to the daughter of Chaos. Born from Chaos, it shall thus return.” A figure of a child emerged, amongst the shaking lands and raging sky. He floated and looked at the still bleeding deity who had sacrificed half its vitality to reawaken him, recreate him from the broken pieces of himself. “There was no blood in between us. You stand for your own sins, child. Even if those sinners were once your life-givers tied to a fate with you, their sins will never correspond to yours. It’s the justice of the world. Only ones own sin amounts and is recognized by the laws. ” The child looked down at the silver haired maiden, quite stricken with the change of events. He was surprised, yet felt that the unfolding events were only natural. For beings like him, some mysteries were so embroiled with the unknown that only time's strength could clearly unwind the twisted threads.

“Yuneah.” Princess Jingwei greeted, looking deeply at the silver eyed boy hovering near her. He didn’t look older than a two-year-old human baby, yet his eyes held eternal wisdom. She knew. “Apologies come from the hands of Yuanshan, my lord. Her children have forgotten their promises and infringed on others’ rights. This, is just a payment I shall pay on her behalf.”

“I know and I take it with blessings. The harm was done and abetted. With this, there is support for life here and I will sustain, and this world will seclude for the rest of the time to come in the future. To tell the truth, we have feared it for ages. We were nearer to Yuanshan, there was always this worry of being overpowered, after all, my mother had just evolved for a miniscule million years; she was young and weak. She was helpless, and infringement was a destiny. Like the weak eat strong to survive, the end of a universe at its time is also a law. Her death was destined.”

“As was mine to bleed o’ lord of this world.”

The New Consciousness of Yuneah world looked on at the maiden who now sat on the ground, her hands wrapped around her drenched self. Her silver hair was now splattered with dirt around her, her blood diluted to a shining flimsy layer, still running in rivulets down her throat.

“If you stay, you will die.” He couldn’t help observing.   

“I can’t die, Lord Yuneah. At least not now, before I'm done with some things. As for destinies of which you speak…Before me, my High Grandmother Yuze once shattered the sky of Yuanshan to show to the world their wrongs. She purged down a generation of Immortals and Demons, when they were too embroiled in their own sins. When the Ancient city of An was toppled down, leaving no soul behind, she raged the Heavenly realm to grounds. Innocent souls abound, eradicated for a sin they didn’t commit, she was left with no choice but to use this flute to awaken the sleeping heaven, and drain it of its life. Who doesn’t remember in Yuanshan, the carnage that raged that year? Even now, there might be some long-living existence that fled that carnage. When the souls paid their due, a hundred-year rain settled in, like it does in here, filling the sea and oceans with untampered water. It was for justice, my lord. How many souls died in An, how many of those tainted, blatantly mocking Immortals that reined in High heavens – she had dared to kill. I, her granddaughter, how dare I raise my head and claim on that same blood connecting us through time, on the oath of my Yuanshan? I will simply lose my meagre dignity! The anguish which some bear, even if I am not its source, how dare I let it go past my own eyes and sleep?” And this was something done by her family, her clan. 

So, Yuanshan will pay Yuneah the hope of revival, a payment for centuries it spent muddling in its atrocious fate because of its children. How many years Yuneah spent burning in the flames, sucked of its vitality – the same Yuanshan will pay its due through her!

The throne of Yuanshan will change hands. That was a fate set in stone. And that Wilderness Spirit Snake clan, for eternity it will spend the rest of their lives as actual wanderers with no home. Let her be the hands and feet of Yuanshan, set against the blinds and deaf drunk on their power!

How dare she remain that previous self, stifling and blaming everything on fate? Uncertain, uncertain of each step as if the rain would never wash herself of any blame if she did make a wrong choice? Believing she might still wake up one day to find things, places back to their unchanged state as if nothing had ever changed! No, unfortunately not every piece of land could be the miraculous Spring Domain of the Great Deity of Chaos, untouched by feigned pretense, artfulness. Look, even her own blood-ties couldn't protect themselves from the heady mead of power.

“As the granddaughter of Yuze, with her Golden blood tying us down, I, Jingwei dare not, not listen to my way. Yuanshan will pay, I promise.” Yuanshan will clean itself once more of these dirty flees. This time through her. Princess Jingwei had felt its sinking mood, as she put her intent in the broken flute, heard her intentions and agreed. This was a bad dept. And the Heavenly Realm will be met with wrath, once again through the only bloodline of the Ancient Goddess of Chaos.

Thunders pierced the burning sky, piercing the flimsy fabric and bore witness to her oath. The wind raged, the storm picked its pace and the shrieks of agony, as if responding to Princess Jingwei, echoed past the skies, past the wide-stretching void of the space and reached to the hearts of its hearkener. Somewhere, an oracle collapsed on his feet with blood frothing out his mouth, with his mirror broken to shards. Several hurried feet rang and called for support. It was chaotic for some while, as blood, shouts and panic mingled together.

Princess Jingwei felt her blood heat up to a boiling point then as if it broke a barrier, she felt the tilting of her being. With a click, everything settled and she, who was in presence of a dying crow and a dying man, facing the five dragons coiling and frolicking around, and a floating world Consciousness – she finally received her Blood Inheritance. And her own title.

From that day, she was truly a divine being. From that day, she could claim her names in the genealogy of her mother’s clan, claim the Spring Domain as her own even without the Seal. From that day, she was the newborn Goddess of Chaos and Peace.

It was all a fate. She couldn’t help sigh and recall.

She had heard her mother hum to her. At nights in lullaby, the tale when the first Goddess of Chaos was born. With a zither in her hand, she thrummed a tune to the world. The land which seethed of anguish and sin, drowned with her birth. All the Gods and Demons were pushed to sleep, or killed and vanquished. She was truly born with chaos. And when she had died, falling under the sword of the Demon God of Abyssal Sea, the Deep trenches of Forgetfulness emerged from her darkened blood, born to bear a mark of that fateful end. Eternally separating the Abyss from the lands of Heavenly realm. Even now, the space there is full of turmoil and flashing chaos. Truly, Great Deity returned to Chaos as she died.  

Even when Princess Jingwei was sighing of that entanglement of fate, she was mockingly facing a mirror of her pooled blood. She stood basking in the newly risen sun, itself so weak and demure that it hardly mattered whether it was there yet as warm as hope –she knew. She was born to bear many sins and straighten many wrongs, when the flute chose her that was the proof of her inheritance. Perhaps, it was known by her mother who looked devastated that day. She couldn't help but recall. Since there was a fate than she was not afraid. She will claim it as her own!

“Since you have chosen this fate, then may the blessings of the Great be with you. Here, a farewell present from me.” Yuneah world looked quite pleased as he waved his hands. With that, the two pieces of broken flute rose in the air and flew over Jingwei’s head. They were soon enveloped in a blinding light and then, they took the form of a fluttering butterfly and a chirping swallow. “Many of my dead will be lost forever. It’s a great tragedy of my world, but this never ends in a single instance. Since ages past, it had been a tale as if engraved in law. With age, your anger will settle, and you too will accept many truths, but I am very pleased with you. With these two familiars, might you feel the grace and companionship that many here grieving, lost and lamented. They are born of emotions left in this world – they will be difficult to tame, but once they open their heart, you will find them as the source of your unflinching trust. I am not strong enough now to pay anything more, but this is the way I want you to remember this day once you have grown up yourself. Farewell.”

The butterfly flew around Princess Jingwei, settled on her wet hair while, the swallow settled, crooning over her shoulder. They were new life, and also the remnant of her broken flute. The new emerged in the old, the familiar vanished into unfamiliar. The time ceased to flow straight, twisted in a still and laid over extant as a single land of blooming realizations.

Princess Jingwei bowed her head in deep acquiescence of this blessing towards the child. There was no word she could say that might confess her hearts distress, or fulness of this moment. But the sudden bursting of song from the beak of the swallow, unintentionally brought covered her embarrassment. Everyone suddenly halted, listening together keenly to the music. 

It was a lament, yet it was also a testimony of the changing times. A proof of life, flowing water. 

Princess jingwei felt her wounds sealing and the time approaching near when she must depart. She gracefully stood up in her devastated appearance, took hold of the man and opened a portal. She looked at the crow, the dragons and the child. Here the death, the old and the new stood greeting her turn in life. 

“Farewell.”

Till the newer blossoms bloom, and the meadows brim again with cheering respite.