LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 1: A New Beginning
Transmigrated back into the body of her child self, can the mighty Celestial, Bing Meilu survive in a Xianxia world all the while staving off the advances of arrogant young masters and wannabe protagonists alike?
Why is life so hard for the Icy Beauty?
Any corrections or criticisms are welcome, I hope you enjoy Chapter 1: A New Beginning
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At the edge of the Abyss, the primeval gap that averted all endeavours of man to discern its depths, fractals of infinity effloresced in those gaps between tangibility and reverie. An unending humdrum came from within its depths, the resounding of a great drum, or perhaps an ancient gong. Bing Meilu could not tell as she fell.
And she was falling.
For all the arguments one could make, that in an ethereal gap where distance and direction did not endure, the very meaning of falling was reduced to but a word and nothing more. Yet it helped Bing Meilu center herself, to imagine it as a great fall, rather than the strange plunge into incoherence and cabalistic madness it truly was.
‘What had she been thinking?’ the woman question herself.
As a Celestial of the Birthing Dao realm, Bing Meilu really, truly, absolutely should have known better than to ever trust the words of a Devil from the depths of the underworld.
Yet the promise of a breakthrough to the Paragon Realm, where her own cultivation had stayed stagnant for uncountable eons, was too sweet a prospect to deny, and in her impatience, Bing Meilu had failed to truly comprehend the ramifications of her accord.
For the Devil had not lied to her, and the truth was oft more insidious than any falsehood. Indeed, Bing Meilu could already feel the power within her, that been stifled for so long, erupting into new heights, beyond anything that Bing Meilu could have ever achieved on her own.
This was the Paragon Realm.
‘The Highest Order.’
For those few, lucky or talented enough to reach the realm of Paragons, they would stand unchallenged, as the zenith of beings below the mighty gods. When the prestige of a Paragon was unleashed, even the endless river of time would tremble before their might and power, and even the stars above would bow in obeisance. Bing Meilu could finally proudly declare herself as a paragon, something she had dreamed of for so, so long.
Yet, it was only after the bargain had been struck that Bing Meilu had discovered the cost. Bing Meilu’s Celestialhood, the heaven and earth within her own body that had been borne from her cultivation, had been sacrificed as the spark to catapult her power to untold heights, but the sacrifice had also served another purpose.
It had provoked the descent of a great Devil-God from the Pit, whose might and will had sundered the skies, scraped away the fabric of existence and pierced open the wall that held back the Abyss.
Yet, the clawing void could only uselessly gnaw at her body, unable to destroy one who had reached such heights.
So she was left adrift, falling in an unending gap where reality itself had begun to fray at the edges, where logic failed and truth was no longer immutable fact.
Bing Meilu looked across the eroding world, as the unquenchable void began to infringe upon the very baseline of existence, a tear falling from her eyes.
‘How long had it been since she had cried?'
As a Paragon, Bing Meilu could survive in the Abyss, that nether place that was neither dream nor existence. She could drift here for millions and billions and trillions of years without a single hair moving out of place...
‘No. No more,’ Bing Meilu thought angrily.
She hadn’t cultivated for so long, given up so much for- for this! To watch as the Sect she and her junior sisters built up from nothing was consumed by the all-devouring void, to watch as the destruction spread across the Ether, spilling down from higher realms to annihilate the hapless mortals below.
Bing Meilu raised her palm, unleashing the might of a Paragon, the power of someone deserving of the title ‘unchallenged below the gods’.
“Appear!” Bing Meilu ordered crisply, and her voice rang out across the Ether like natural law itself, an unquestionable order.
Before her eyes, a mighty river erupted, a mighty, surging river that knew no equal. It was not a river in any normal sense of the word, it was not a channel that carried water to the sea, nor any other such fluids.
This was the River of Time itself, the manifestation of the Heavenly Laws of Time.
‘Am I really going to do this?’ Bing Meilu questioned. ‘Sacrifice it all for a long shot?’
‘Yes, yes of course I am.’
Her convictions, her own ‘Dao’ would not allow her to simply give up and admit defeat, not when there was even one option, one other path.
So she would shatter her own cultivation, the unbounded might of a paragon that would allow her to roam across the sea of stars unchallenged, to go back to the beginning.
It was a secret art, the fifth technique recorded in the ‘Crystal Providence Absolute Tome’ that Bing Meilu had received so long ago.
“Freeze time, freeze fate, freeze this accursed reality!” Bing Meilu spoke, her voice resounding across the many plains of reality with unchallenged might. “Frozen Godly Renewal!”
Frost began to spread across Bing Meilu’s body, as her body seemed to cover with ice.
‘This is it,’ the woman thought sadly as her vision faded to black.
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When Bing Meilu awakened, it was like she was wrapped in thick cotton. She felt weak, weaker than she had ever felt before. The woman tried to stand up, forcing herself up onto soft, trembling limbs.
‘Was this what it's like to be a mortal?’ Bing Meilu questioned. She hadn't remembered ever feeling so weak and small.
Bing Meilu shook her head, slowly, moving forward, barely keeping her frail body from falling. She looked down examining herself. Tiny, childlike hands poked out of her wrists, her pale jade-like skin glistening slightly from her sweat.
“...I think I may have gone back a little too far,” Bing Meilu winced.
She had planned to return to the day before she had begun her journey of cultivation, at the age of fourteen. Instead, it seemed she had awoken in the body of her child self, somewhere around the age of eight or nine.
Suddenly Bing Meilu felt a hand grab her shoulder.
“Who dares touch this Lord? You lowly gnat! Do you not believe this Lord will shatter your nine generations and flay the skin off your body?” Bing Meilu said, turning to glare coldly at whatever filth had dared to-
Bing Meilu caught sight terrified face of her little brother, whom she hadn't seen since she had been a mortal all those years ago.
The small child, no older than six began to tremble, tears welling up in his eyes.