Volume One: The Most Heartless Phoenix Tree Blossom Prologue: Star Ruins

Above the velvet sky, a gently flowing river of stars stretches across the heavens. This is the legendary Star Ruins, formed after the destruction of the Xuanhuang Void, famed throughout the universe. Zhuo Hua leaned against the wall of the Desolation Cauldron, his fists clenched so tightly that his knuckles turned pale. He still could not accept the truth: “Was the illustrious Xuanhuang clan, once dominant throughout the void, truly wiped out in the end?” At this thought, he slammed his fist heavily against the wall.

Beside him, the Xuanhuang Mirror flickered with dim, shifting images, its faint light falling upon Lanling’s sleeping face, making her look especially serene. He recalled the moment when he and Lanling were about to unleash the forbidden art, determined to perish with their enemies, only to be forcibly dragged from the battlefield by guards of the Elders’ Hall and taken to the Sacrificial Altar. The Grand Elder told them only one thing: “Survive, and the Xuanhuang will have hope.”

The seven elders each placed their clan’s sacred relics into the designated slots of the Desolation Cauldron in order, then activated the warp array together. The river encircling the altar began to boil, and radiant light enveloped the cauldron as its lid slowly rose. The Grand Elder flung his eyes open in fury and shouted at Zhuo Hua and Lanling: “Get inside the Desolation Cauldron!”

Lanling cast aside all lingering reluctance, grabbed Zhuo Hua, and entered the cauldron without looking back. In the center hovered two treasures of the Xuanhuang clan: the Starry Pearl and the Moonlit Wall. The people outside, seeing no response, shouted desperately: “Place the Starry Pearl and Moonlit Wall onto the Xuanhuang Mirror’s pedestal! Hurry! There’s no time!”

Suddenly, the unique horn of the Dark Wail clan sounded outside the solemn altar. Lanling seized the Starry Pearl with one hand, tossed the Moonlit Wall to Zhuo Hua with the other, and pushed him toward the Xuanhuang Mirror, shouting, “What are you waiting for? Do you want everyone outside to have died for nothing?”

Both closed their eyes and pressed the magical instruments at the same time. The cauldron lid descended, and a deep blue light spread across the altar, radiating outward. Where the Desolation Cauldron once stood at the center, there was now only a small void.

As Zhuo Hua and Lanling departed, the Dark Wail clan activated their Sundering Array, and soon the Xuanhuang Void’s golden sun would become nothing more than a river of stars. The hole at the altar’s center grew larger, rapidly drawing in everything nearby, faster and faster... With a thunderous crash, the golden sun in the sky and the void below collapsed almost simultaneously.

Zhuo Hua closed his eyes, trying to pull himself out of the memories. He murmured softly, “When the Desolation Cauldron opens, all beyond is desolation.”

He waved his left hand, and a section of the cauldron’s wall gradually became transparent. Peering out, Zhuo Hua saw only endless nothingness, with streaks of starlight shooting rapidly in the opposite direction.

He picked up the “Xuanhuang Chronicle of Wonders” and continued reading: ...The realm where all living beings exist is called the void.

The void encompasses heaven and earth. Within it are mountains, rivers, birds, beasts, fish, shrimp, insects—such voids are blessed with clear mountains and waters, pleasant climates; mortals wish for a lifetime of peace, immortals seek longevity. Yet these ideal voids are rare, one in ten thousand.

There are other voids: seas of lava, barren wastelands, constant thunder, ceaseless winds, deep red suns suspended endlessly in the sky, or even three suns scorching the earth so no life can survive. Such voids abound in the vast emptiness.

Rarely, void behemoths prowl the rocky forests, the strong devouring the weak, fighting endlessly. These beasts hunt by instinct, devoid of spirit, and even these voids are uncommon.

Reading this, Zhuo Hua remembered sneaking off with Lanling and the Grand Elder during the grand ritual, traveling through the Heaven Tree to some of the places described in the book. Reality was far harsher than the words suggested. Some voids lacked any atmosphere; even the strongest Air-Stabilizing Pearl could not produce a hint of true air. He and Lanling nearly suffocated, but at the last moment, before the final Sunstone was spent, the Grand Elder opened the Heaven Tree’s barrier and they returned to the Xuanhuang Void. Thinking of Lanling’s red, breathless face, Zhuo Hua found it ridiculous and amusing.

He glanced at the Xuanhuang Mirror—it had yet to divine a suitable void for habitation—so, bored, he continued reading the dull, convoluted Chronicle, wondering how he had managed to recite the whole thing as a child in school.

“Emptiness is the sum of all voids. No one knows its origin or extent. Beyond the void lies emptiness; within emptiness, all is void.

Common folk spend their lives on fields and roads, spirits and demons hide in wild forests, immortals retreat to lofty mountains; none can escape the confines of the void. Only the divine clans can tear through the void, leap beyond, and traverse multiple realms.

The divine clans enjoy heavenly longevity, wield world-ending power, travel between voids, control the flow of time, and command myriad magical instruments. In a moment, they can raise mountains, open rivers, create objects from nothing. All these abilities stem from their method of drawing the essence of the golden sun, either used directly or stored within Sunstones.

Yet the golden sun’s power is finite, while the gods’ demands are limitless.

The practice of destroying distant golden suns to replenish one’s own is no longer a secret; all gods employ it. There are two main methods: the Xuanhuang clan’s Solar Eclipse Array and the Dark Wail clan’s Golden Core Heart Method.

The Solar Eclipse Array works thus: the practitioner warps to within five hundred celestial spans of a void’s golden sun, unfolding the array, which begins palm-sized and thin as a cicada’s wing. After a stick of incense, it can envelop the sun. Sunlight is drawn through golden threads into storage vessels, the threads shining brilliantly. From afar, the sun appears to lose a corner, hence the name. This method is slow but sustainable, aligns with the cosmic order, and harms none.

The Golden Core Heart Method is much more violent. It takes the naturally deceased core of a sun, compresses it to the size of a human fist, and traps it in a box forged from powerful magnets, causing the core to float at the center. At the target location, the core is extracted at ten thousand celestial spans, placed in an immense magnetic tube lined with rings. With a surge of stored sunlight, the core races through the tube and plunges into the heart of the golden sun, causing it to collapse in an explosion of blinding light.

Once the brilliance fades, Sunstones are scattered throughout the stellar ring to absorb the light for later use. Thereafter, the void is left without a sun—any life within is doomed to perish.”

Zhuo Hua looked up, saw Lanling turn in her sleep, mumbling indistinct words. He flipped to the last page, took up a brush from the desk, and wrote:

“Emptiness is vast, yet the divine clans expand rapidly, and the destruction of golden suns far outpaces their birth. Battles for dominance are frequent, with victories alternating between Xuanhuang and Dark Wail.

But when the final war of the gods erupted, the Dark Wail clan used a small force and vassal armies to pin down the Xuanhuang Alliance reinforcements, holding them at the distant edge-clouds of the Xuanhuang Void.

The seven elders, upon learning of the border battles, hastily deployed seventy percent of their forces around the stellar ring at the void’s periphery, hoping to keep the enemy at bay until reinforcements arrived. This brittle defense gave the Dark Wail their opportunity. After probing with several small detachments, their emperor, seeing the Xuanhuang ranks thick and evenly spread, decisively sent all his divine warriors—the Four Dread Lords and Eight Mourning Generals—against a single point in the ring’s defenses, while the rest of his army attacked head-on, mingling with the Xuanhuang troops in chaotic battle.

This desperate strategy worked wonders: within half an hour, the twelve-member squad broke through the thick Xuanhuang lines like a blade, striking straight at the heart—the Tower of Seven Sages and Saints. By the time the elders rallied, gathering the Star Sovereigns to encircle the intruders, they paid a heavy price to trap the twelve.

But the formation was broken, and the Dark Wail armies surged in, forcing the Xuanhuang elite to fight desperately just to hold their ground. With reinforcements delayed, the Xuanhuang army, alone and overmatched, began to falter, the defenses trembling on the edge of collapse.

At the brink of annihilation, Lady Lanling and Lord Zhuo Hua unleashed a world-shattering spell, pouring all the accumulated essence of the Xuanhuang clan into their golden sun, triggering the cycle of solar destruction—a plan to perish together with heaven and earth.

Seeing disaster, the Dark Wail emperor employed the Golden Core Heart Method, hurling a sun core into the Xuanhuang golden sun, then abandoning his embattled troops and fleeing with his four lords, eight generals, and a handful of guards.

Lanling and Zhuo Hua watched as their golden sun slowly collapsed inward, its orange hue fading to white and bright, their hearts emptied by despair.

As their sun exploded, Zhuo Hua and Lanling, aided by the seven elders, escaped into the Desolation Cauldron. Under the pale light of the newly-formed star river, they tore through the void and vanished, their homeland lost, their fate unknown. And the mournful brilliance of the star river illuminated the emptiness before the belated Xuanhuang alliance, casting a stark light across the void.”