The expanse of space and the void stood no chance of halting Dai Long. Space, Time, Gravity, Light, Darkness, no law or dao in existence could stop nor delay his charge.
All you could see if you were strong enough was an enormously large white serpentine dragon, moving like a meteor.
Dai Long's scales were shimmering with an otherworldly iridescence, as he charged through the boundless expanse of the void.
His red eyes, glowing with an intense, fiery determination, piercing through the darkness as he propelled himself forward with powerful, dominating movements.
His long, sinuous body undulates gracefully, crashing through a multitude of stars and planets, leaving a trail of shimmering stardust and planetary debris in his wake.
It was at this time that a young dragon roar resounded in the void of space.
And Dai Long's heart trembled upon hearing it.
He knew what this meant, and he knew what would happen if he didn't make it in time.
And this greatly incensed him to no end, his red eyes became even darker as he felt the presence of many flies in the area far from him. But still too close to his hatchling.
And so as he charged through the void, his dragon scaled chest swelled up.
Then a horrifying dragon's roar reverberated through the emptiness of space, a sound both awe-inspiring and terrifying. It moved out like a tempest storm shattering space, killing many people and putting a halt to certain individuals' movements.
But Dai Long was still worried.
He knew this wouldn't keep some of the old fogies away. And once they caught onto what was going on, then a bloody war would happen.
His claws, sharp as the finest blades, rose up before him and he sliced through the fabric of space, creating ripples that echo across the cosmos.
Dai Long wasted no time and immediately charged in.
The void itself bent and warped around Dai Long, as if acknowledging the sheer magnitude of his existence. Stars and galaxies blurred into streaks of light as the Dragon of the Eclipse hurtled towards his destination, driven by a purpose known only to himself.
In this vast, infinite expanse, Dai Long was both a solitary figure and a symbol of boundless strength and determination.
Many could only look on his disappearing figure in jealousy and fear.
Even those with true strength and truly stood tall above all others were extremely wary of him.
….
Dai Long was greatly incensed; he knew that he was a joke to the older dragons in the realm.
But he didn't care. And no one could openly judge him for his life, as they deeply feared him.
He had locked himself away and drowned himself in his grief. It was like a leech had taken root in his soul.
His wife was seriously injured, his unborn child's soul was fractured, and he could do nothing.
That isn't to say he didn't try, he did. He damn near destroyed the very fabric of existence as a whole to find the ones responsible, but his father, and those old ones forced him to stop.
So he could only put a pause on his search.
This all came down to him not being strong enough, just like always. There was a sky beyond the sky.
It was a really annoying feeling to be honest.
And Dai Long grew tired of it each day he lived.
It's been four hundred years, and since the day he was forced to stop, Dai Long could only holed up away in his palace. He ignored every meeting and function since then to spite his family.
His grief was very strong, and he felt that he had failed as a husband and as a father.
But now feeling what he felt, it was like a fire had been reignited within threatening to consume him and all who opposed him reaching his son.
It was not far, he could see the sealed off section of the void by the Heavenly Dao.
He snorted seeing this.
Heavenly Dao be damned!
Nothing will stop him….not even Heaven!
….
Back in the destroyed demon grotto, the Heavenly Dao was greatly increased by the fact that Tao had repealed its punishment.
It was taken aback by this as no one who hasn't even started cultivating should be able to do this just yet. It had thought that by elemanting Tao's protector that he would break.
But it was wrong.
By destroying Bai Lian's corpse, the Heavenly Dao had brought forth something that should not have been possible.
Tao's soul, flesh, and blood had previously been crushed by heavenly might to the point that his body was torn and ripped. Forcing him to bleed greatly, almost like a river.
It didn't take into account that Tao was not a human but a beast.
And not just any old regular beast. But one of the top apex ones of the food chain.
He was a dragon, and his bloodline was greatly offended by heaven's actions. And therefore it awoke ahead of time and allowed Tao to resist the heavenly dao.
And now, the beast that it had awoken was breaking out of its chains.
Quite literally, the dragon-faced Tao forcibly pulled his arms together, shattering the grey chains that held him captive.
A loud bang sound rung out as the chains snapped like twigs.
Tao fell to the ground, and his beastly instincts only had one drive at the moment.
It was…. To survive.
To do that, Tao needed to escape.
But would the Heavenly Dao allow him to do so?
The answer was obviously no, it would not allow someone like Tao to exist. Especially after that shocking display of him threatening and defying it. No, it couldn't let this young worm grow up to be an actual True Dragon.
Cause if he did, then it would be a serious calamity for all beings!
With these thoughts in its mind, the dark sea of clouds rumbled even fiercer, and the previously red lighting turned an even darker blood red shade. And from that lighting a sense of annihilation flooded the entire area.
If people could see what was going on in this place they would be shocked. To think the high and mighty heavenly dao would stoop so low as to try and erase a young fledgling from existence.
It was now about to use lighting; it's only ever used two times since the very start of its existence.
This lighting was called Taboo Erasure Lightning.
It was a type of lighting that combined the grand laws of destruction, karmic desolation, and origin. This lighting was used to erase an individual's life, history, future, karma, fate, and even memory from existence.
Now this was usually used in defense of the heavenly dao's life, or to someone so vile that they were unanimously a threat to the cultivation worlds as a whole.
It's crazy!
And to think the heavenly dao considered Tao to be a threat on that level so early on in his life.
And so, the might of heaven increased a hundredfold, crushing the split-in-half half grotto to just a large pile of rubble.
Tao had already leaped from the grotto and found himself in a field of white flowers. These flowers were extremely white and beautiful, and Tao probably would have admired the view if he wasn't facing the end of his life at the moment.
But at the moment, he was running for his life. He charged out into the sea of white flowers all feeling a great sense of death behind him.
From afar, Tao looked to be an ant charging out in the sea of flowers, running away for his life.
While behind him, black clouds like an angry tempest were quickly closing in on him from above.
Eventually, the much stronger Heavenly might crashed into Tao, making him vomit blood and crash into the ground, creating a pit twenty meters wide.
Tao struggled to breathe; that impact had broken half of his ribs. And even ruptured some blood vessels. Even his left eye was destroyed, and he bled out of its socket like a little waterfall.
But the semi-transformed Tao gritted his teeth in pain and anger. And he clawed his way out of the pit to stand on his two feet.
Tao was half conscious and half controlled by his dragon instincts. But both were extremely angry.
And he figured that If he was going to die, then he'd be on his feet!
So he struggled to stand up, all while vomiting even more blood. One of his broken ribs had pierced his lungs.
But he clenched his hands into fist, and growled at the dark skies.
And as he looked up to see his killer, Tao swore he could have seen red eyes like orbs in the darkness, along with a long line in the clouds that seemed to be a….. "Smile?"
The conscious part of Tao's mind was stupefied and angry.
It was now that he realized that the heavenly dao was playing with him right now. It was now that Tao realized that it could have been over much sooner.
But it seemed to be enjoying this whole ordeal, treating him as if he was some toy!
As this last thought entered his mind, the full might of heaven arrived down on him like a mountain.
As it fell upon his shoulders, Tao's knees buckled, and his feet sunk into the ground like a fence post.
There was a loud pop sound as his knee bones shattered, and the flesh on his legs burst open.
Fresh dark red blood with a hint of white sprayed on the white floors near him like paint.
And Tao?
Well he was still rooted in the ground and he did not fall. But the pain was too much, he'd never felt like this before.
Even when his soul was torn apart and used for that technique.
Just take that pain and add soul-crushing and flesh crushing weight on top of it.
It was getting to the point that his eyelids were drooping, like they were about to close.
His mind was beginning to shut down, and his head was about to fall forward. But somehow, Tao's mind flashed back to his mother's words.
"Do not fret, my son, stand tall as you go from here. Do what needs to be done in your life. If you must kill, then kill. If you must plunder, then plunder. Do all of that which you need to stand tall and become... supreme!"
"Let no one stand in your way, friend or foe! Become whomever you want to be. A strong heart, an unshakable mind, an unbreakable will- that is what you must cultivate! "
"If you must become evil, then become the vilest and most evil person in the world, the Heavens care little about us small folk. Only by standing tall and going against heaven can we small folk truly be free!"
His half droopy eyelids snapped open, and his head straightened up like a spear. And his one good eye stared directly into the maw of Heaven.
Then a little grin appeared on his face as Tao spoke.
"To think the high and mighty heavens value my little life so much to try and kill me…..but why wait so long to do it?"
There was a fluctuation in the black clouds as Tao spoke.
It was miniscule, but Tao caught onto it, and he grinned even wider.
"It's not that you must wait, but that you….. Can't kill me!"
As soon as the final words left Tao's lips, the void itself rumbled in fury. The dark red lightning intensified, branching out like the roots of a dying tree across the sky, crackling and howling as if the very laws of the universe had been violated.
A great black wind surged from the heart of the storm, its force so immense it hurled Tao backward, sending him crashing into the pit from which he had risen. His body struck the ground with a sickening thud, and he lay there, unable to move.
Then came the true weight of divine retaliation.
The Heavenly Dao, as if to reassert its supremacy, sent down another crushing wave of power. Tao was pressed deeper into the earth, his bones snapping under the pressure—arms, legs, ribs—all shattering like brittle wood. Thin lacerations bloomed across his skin like brushstrokes of agony, as if some celestial blade had painted suffering upon his flesh.
Pain roared through his body, but Tao only smiled.
A broken, bloodied smile.
Because even in the face of annihilation, he had angered the heavens. And that, to him, was victory enough.
With his one good eye, Tao stared up at the storm above—the so-called high and mighty Heavenly Dao. And in that moment, something impossible stirred inside him.
A realization.
Something that would shape not just his fate, but the future of all cultivation.
He would never say it aloud. His mortal soul, his fractured mind, couldn't fully comprehend it. Speaking the words might tear the world apart. But what he could understand, he buried deep within.
Instead, he whispered:
"I see... a follower must obey orders."
Short. Sharp. Dangerous.
He smiled one final time and stared at the clouds, welcoming death. His soul, torn and weary, lay bare for the cosmos to see.
But death did not come.
Instead, the storm stilled.
The black sea of clouds stopped churning. The red lightning froze in place, suspended like cracks in a glass sky.
Confused, Tao squinted at the still heavens.
His eye roamed what little it could. Then he saw it.
Far above, at the heart of the clouds, a face emerged—formed from black mist and crackling red lightning. It sneered with divine fury, its eyes locked onto Tao.
"Hmph. Would you look at that... a face. Seems like it's pretty mad," Tao muttered with grim amusement.
A mysterious force had overridden the Heavenly Dao.
The face's mouth opened wide and unleashed a blinding bolt of white lightning. It screamed downward, faster than thought.
The world turned monochrome.
Color vanished as the lightning fell.
Tao didn't flinch. He welcomed it.
But death did not greet him.
Instead, pain did.
The white lightning struck—not his flesh, but his soul.
It branded him.
A single character: 忌 — Taboo.
The agony was indescribable. Not the pain of flesh, but of identity, of being. It was a wound deeper than the soul itself, and the lightning took its time.
And as it lingered, his draconic heritage stirred.
Unseen by Tao, a fragment of the white lightning remained—a divine ember. Slowly, it was absorbed into the depths of his being.
Tao did not know it.
He only knew pain.
He only knew the shame of being marked.
His soul screamed. His eye slowly closed. Consciousness slipped away.
Above, the face in the clouds began to fade…
Until—
"DAO! YOU… HAVE CROSSED THE LINE!!!"
BOOOOOM! — CRACKKK!
The heavens split apart.
A pair of colossal white crystalline claws tore open the fabric of the void.
A monstrous head pushed through—a dragon, vast and eternal. Its eyes, scarlet and seething, burned like twin blood moons. They locked onto the clouded face, then dropped down… and saw Tao.
Time froze.
And then—Dragon Might.
A force so terrifying it made Tao's awakening seem like a candle before the sun.
Everything decayed.
Space fractured. Stars disintegrated. Even the black clouds of the Heavenly Dao turned to ash.
Only darkness remained.
And within it—the towering form of a crystalline white dragon, sitting in the void, gazing into the face of divinity with unflinching wrath.
It was Dai Long.
And below him, sprawled among a field of ghostly white flowers, was his son.
Beaten.
Broken.
Bleeding—but breathing.
His wife's aura wrapped around the boy like a loving shroud. Dai Long felt her presence in everything—as if she had become the world itself.
And she was whispering to him: "Look at what we created. Look at what I gave you."
Dai Long swallowed his fury. Now was not the time for rage.
He spoke.
"I'm taking my son."
It was not a request.
It was an edict.
The face in the clouds was silent.
A force pulled Tao's body upward, gently lifting him from the shattered earth. He floated into Dai Long's massive nine-clawed palm.
Once Tao was in his grasp, Dai Long's Sage Aura enveloped the boy, shielding him from the void and mending his shattered frame.
In a flash of light, the great dragon turned to man once more.
He held Tao in his arms like something sacred, a soft smile on his face. His touch muted Tao's senses, allowing the boy's soul and body to begin the long process of healing.
Then Dai Long raised his gaze.
The smile was gone.
What replaced it was death incarnate.
An eclipse ignited on his brow. His eyes shimmered with the promise of destruction.
"I WILL BE SEEING YOU AND THE SOURCE REAL SOON. MARK MY WORDS."
The realm that housed the Immortal Demon Grotto shattered.
It crumbled into dust, erased from existence.
Dai Long turned and began his flight back to the Dragon Realm.
Behind him, the eyes in the divine face narrowed—but said nothing.
Then, the face and its clouds vanished.
And silence fell.
...
As Dai Long flew through the void, he held Tao close, memorizing every feature of his battered son. He etched every bruise, every cut, every sign of life into his memory.
Then, he sensed another presence.
An orange cloud approached, moving slowly but deliberately. It stopped a respectful distance away. For though Dai Long wore a smile, the void behind him decayed with every passing second, crumbling under the weight of his restrained fury.
The man within the orange cloud said nothing.
He looked at Dai Long.
Then at Tao.
Then, back to Dai Long. No words were needed.
He understood.
He now knew what had angered the Dragon of the Eclipse.
And when he looked at Tao, he saw it.
His eyes narrowed, sensing something within his soul. But he still said nothing.
He simply turned and followed Dai Long through the void.
Back to the Dragon Realm.
Back home, with his nephew.