“In this world of boundless mountains and endless mists, we once again gather beneath the sky and within the sacred halls of Heaven’s Will. A trial awaits—one of curses unknown. Let our names vanish in the veil of time, as we embrace the challenge set forth by fate…”
Thus commenced the gathering of the young and the brave—those fearless souls born of beast, bird, and bloodline untamed—who stood before the fabled Mountain of Curses, a colossal monolith wreathed in coils of ancient shadow and deathly haze. The mountain loomed as a silent behemoth of old, daring any unworthy to approach lest they be claimed by the endless ranks of those who had already fallen in its maw.
At its root stood a boy no taller than a sapling—a small child with eyes like starlight caught in storm, known only as Little Rascal—a braver child than perhaps even fate had accounted for.
“My sword… my sword…” the child whispered under his breath as the winds whispered warnings into his ears. His voice faltered not from lack of heart, but rather from the sight upon his brow reflected back by the mirror gifted by the legendary Suanni.
There, a series of black glyphs danced across the boy’s skin, dark and shifting, as if whispering forgotten oaths. “A curse? By the spirits above—A curse from the Vault of Gods Above!” he yelped, recognizing the mark and the fate entwined.
He muttered a curse of his own against ancient ghosts as his small feet carried him up the endless path of carved granite—a pathway stained countless times by the hopes and blood of lost heroes.
Upon these steps he trudged onward, his face cast in a grim scowl. Around him, other creatures and young warriors lingered in wary silence—creatures of fire and thunder: Bifang and Pixiu, those golden-winged phoenixes and ancient tree-beasts, known as Pu Mo—a silent assembly where every breath crackled with hidden menace.
Yet, the child ignored their gazes, striding forward like none among them could challenge the wrath building within his breast.
He thought of swords—of one particular. His destination held such relics—some said forged with the fury of ancient spirits—but none had whispered what shape it bore, nor where he might unearth the cursed steel.
“This is absurd—I wasn’t given so much as a map, no hints, no warnings. How am I to know what I seek when even the winds seem to turn away from giving me a hand? My head aches from the confusion!” the boy muttered to himself, dragging his feet with reluctant steps upwards.
Meanwhile, his unbroken gaze caused even the mighty beings around him to bristle—how dare this lone human child walk amidst such legendary bloodlines and not even blink?
A massive brute—an Ape of War—an ancient offshoot of the revered Primordial Simian clans, growled low, his teeth flashing in irritation.
“He walks past giants like he’s made of nothing but shadows… does he even recognize our might?” the ape rumbled, the words shaking like the earth beneath its massive knuckles.
“Who speaks, the great oaf with fur that resembles moss upon an overused stone?” came the boy’s voice laced in mischief. “Wait a moment—are you… one of those ancient ones—the so-called Blood-born Warriors?”
The Ape clenched his fists so hard, they cracked like boulders colliding—how *dare* this puny human speak with such casual contempt?
“I made my oath—that one day I would master an ultimate bloodline beast,” Little Rascal continued, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.
The Ape nearly roared in fury, his very breath stirring winds as he restrained a furious charge forward.
Beside him, a creature of sunlit fire—the great golden spirit bird—eyed the boy with an expression that could carve fear from flesh, golden pupils gleaming like twin suns amidst a void of ancient silence.
But Little Rascal turned away. His thoughts were elsewhere.
“I’ve got no mood to battle titans today. If I don’t find that cursed scrap of forged metal by nightfall, a slow unraveling will be my lot in a tomb of black symbols,” the boy lamented darkly, stepping ever upward.
As the mighty beings surrounding him absorbed his words with wariness and trepidation, a hush fell upon them—an uneasy chill as realization washed through like water. The curse? It was no myth.
It was very real.
Farther up, where darkness seemed eternal, stone titans reposed—bones of ancient geniuses who sought glory and found naught but death. The mangled remains of creatures like Ya Zhu beast-demons and phoenix-hybrids lay broken, remnants of a world devoured by time.
“This one’s Bikou—a once-pious guardian beast. But of course, its bones are nothing more than history now… stripped of their power by treasure seekers past.” Little Dian spoke aloud to no one.
The landscape grew denser, darker, fog like ghosts coiling through broken spires. A flash—a brilliant streak!—shot down as death’s silent whisper approached from afar—an emerald spear of plant origin, one rooted in malice as much as vine.
Faster than thought could travel, it speared for the child’s back—deadly precise as fate’s cruel hand.
But instincts like his, sharpened over battlefields unseen by the eye, stirred even in that moment of quiet contemplation.
A sudden sidestep. A twist in gravity itself.
And like a breeze slipping from tight embrace, the boy slid free.
But not free entirely: the spear struck a rock the size of a bull’s weight—it tore through with ease.
Shimmering with glyphs that danced like wildfire, its power undeniable; its nature, predatory.
He stared into the vine’s wrath as it struck again.
The battle was on. Root and child—beast and boy, clashing in silent fury.
But when streaks of white lightning arched around young Bu Dian’s outstretched arm, fear coiled into roots—magic of the purest sky always a foe it could not hope to match unless given an entire eternity to grow wiser.
The creature tried to flee, but its fate was sealed with golden death descending from young wrath.
Victory left the boy with a short jade blade in trembling hand—but with sorrow in his chest.
It wasn’t merely that it lacked length or luster. Its curse remained half-written and elusive.
He continued walking, meeting many, clashing with more, watching death claim names he could barely begin to learn.
A golden feather shone in battle overhead—a Wuku feather fan claimed by one golden fowler whose grace made the young traveler sigh. And behind a mountain, two foes approached—beaked, armored and ready for war.
As the path led skywards at last—a place of legends and whispered prophecy loomed ahead—an endless sea of silent stones carved by legends past, resting in eerie slumber atop the sacred summit, called The Divide Among the Gods.
Yet even in that hallowed ground, blood called from stone, and betrayal stalked in quiet whispers…
Within its stone groves, Little Rascal dreamed—not just for himself, but for kin, for home, and perhaps most absurdly, for each stone that might hold forgotten relics waiting to be found.
He grinned, a glint returning to his eyes. Even if the mountain loomed like doom, and fate spun its web tighter, perhaps in the cracks of this sacred ground…
“Somehow, I *will* find My sword.”
A whisper. Perhaps a boast.
But it was enough, enough to make even a silent white shadow pause behind him before slipping away like a shadow retreating from a new sun.
And so… the tale was about to continue. With the Divide calling—and with shadows closing in… who would claim the power of Heaven’s Armory, and whose fate lay entombed in forgotten names and cursed glyphstone ruins that had never, ever given without demanding much much more…?
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