The black warrior with the dimensional blade opened his eyes to a world in ruins.
A raging sea of blood stretched as far as the eye could see, the skies stained crimson, and in the distance, a silhouette sat enthroned. A young woman with silver hair, seated on a throne made of skulls and flesh frozen in terror.
"Where am I…? Where are my men…?" he murmured, chilled with dread.
At his feet, thousands of supernatural creatures moaned, engulfed in the crimson tides. They screamed, wept, pleaded—reduced to trembling voices.
"Flee…"
"Flee, Taoist master… That woman…"
The voices twisted through the air, warped by pain.
He tried to move. Impossible. The blood tide shackled him. Without hesitation, he severed his own legs with his dimensional blade. Instantly, he was hurled over a hundred meters away.
"Qi Reinforcement… Dimensional Slash!" he roared.
A cut as thin as a thread, yet of cosmic violence, tore through the air. Space fractured, the skies shattered like glass, and the body of the mysterious woman was sliced clean in two.
But...
"You're strong, child…"
The voice came from his left. He turned his head, horrified.
She was there. Intact. Smiling.
A single strike. A slap? A backhand?
The world flipped upside down.
The black warrior was sent flying over five hundred meters. His face was cleaved, his skull split, his arms pulverized. His ribs shattered. His lungs dangled outside his chest. His body—a broken puppet.
But he did not fall.
His body reformed, animated by monstrous Qi. He reopened his eyes… and saw the Goddess.
She was there, just a centimeter from him. Smiling.
"Tidal Technique: Wall of Tsunamis!"
Three colossal waves, each hundreds of meters high, rushed toward the woman. The black warrior stepped back, panting.
"Impossible…" he whispered. "What are you?!"
The tsunamis were obliterated.
A red rain fell softly. Beneath it, the woman stood motionless, sheltered under a large umbrella made of scarlet petals.
"Me?" she repeated with a mocking gleam.
Her single word was enough to sever the warrior's legs. He collapsed to his knees, crushed.
"I am the Demon Queen… Xuelan Mowang. And I won't remember your name. Too weak to be worth recalling."
"Weak?! WEAK?!" the warrior screamed.
"I spent millennia cultivating Qi to annihilate beings like you! Monsters from the Higher Worlds!"
He leapt backward, gathering his Qi. His hands joined. The air grew heavy.
A black typhoon devoured the ground beneath him.
A titanic coffin, 400 meters tall, bound by thousands of celestial chains, slowly rose. Sanskrit markings lit up in blood red.
"Summoning of the Thousand-Faced Demon!
Awaken, Ravana! You, invincible beast of the Higher Worlds! Kill her… Kill Xuelan Mowang!!"
The ground trembled.
A gigantic figure emerged.
A thousand arms. Hundreds of heads. A warped voice, echoed a thousand times:
"Xuelan… For the humiliation of eons past… I will crush you. YOU WILL DIE."
"Come then, Ravana…" Xuelan answered, her smile stained with blood.
They charged.
The initial clash between Ravana's thousand fists and Xuelan's palm was so powerful it tore a breach, ripping the fabric of reality. Together, they plunged into a Neutral World, taking their war into a universe incapable of containing them.