The dawn in Ancestral City arrived cloaked in a tempest of snow, obscuring the horizon beyond measure. Each flake, a frigid arrow, pierced the veil of sight and whispered a chilling lament directly into the soul.

Wang Lin turned, his face a resolute defiance against the biting gale, and began his trek towards the heart of the ancient city.

Clutched in his hand was a jade slip, an artifact of immense import. It was his pledge, his very lifeline into this treacherous citadel, forged in an age past with the Twin Grand Empyreans and the solitary Sky Reverent of Lone Cliff.

For when Wang Lin stood in dire need, the Twin Grand Empyreans would descend in answer to his call – a solemn oath sworn by Lone Cliff and echoed by the Twins themselves!

It was the surety of this enchanted token that emboldened Wang Lin to tread this path, knowing full well that the Immortal Emperor himself stood as his mortal enemy.

Beneath the looming shadow of the eastern city gate, where the storm’s fury was somewhat lessened by the ancient stone, Wang Lin paused. He cast a final glance upon the jade slip, then crushed it within his grip.

In that instant, a violet and crimson radiance erupted forth, forming a swirling array before him. It was a portal, ancient and intricate, humming with forgotten energies, clearly intended for swift passage across vast distances.

As the portal shimmered, two diminutive figures materialized from within – two young maidens, blinking sleep from their eyes, as if roused from a slumber by the mystical summons. One of them still clutched a well-worn doll to her chest.

“Oh, so sleepy… hmm, where are we?”

“Little Wang Lin! It’s you!”

The two young women gazed about, their eyes finally settling upon Wang Lin, and their faces bloomed with childlike glee.

“Wang Lin greets the Twin Grand Empyreans!” Wang Lin declared, bowing with respectful formality.

“Oh, no need for that! We missed you terribly after you left! To think we’d meet again so soon! Say,” one of them chirped, “where’s Little Rascal? Go get him!”

“Yes, I’ve missed Little Rascal,” the other seconded, her voice filled with unrestrained delight.

“This is Ancestral City, the fortress of the Immortals,” Wang Lin stated evenly. “Do the Twin Grand Empyreans recall our agreement from long ago?”

“Agreement? Ah! Yes, now I remember! You asked that we aid you once when the need was dire! Is that now?”

“Who dares trouble you?” the other demanded, her eyes blazing with righteous indignation. “Anyone who dares upset our Little Wang Lin will face our wrath! We’ll certainly set things right for you!”

“I would ask the Twin Grand Empyreans to restrain the Immortal Emperor for a time,” Wang Lin requested, his gaze unwavering upon the seemingly innocent faces before him, “while I venture into the Earth Palace.”

“The Immortal Emperor? No problem!” The twins exchanged a knowing look, a spark of serious intent briefly flickering in their otherwise childlike eyes. Without further hesitation, they morphed into twin streaks of light, soaring away towards the Imperial Palace at the city’s heart.

Moments later, a tremor shook the earth, and from the palace’s direction came the distant echo of thunderous upheaval.

At the city gate, Wang Lin closed his eyes, feeling the tremors course beneath his feet.

“Slaughter descends upon the world, replacing light with shadow… I, Wang Lin, embrace this plunge into destruction…” he murmured, his white hair visibly darkening from the roots, the change spreading like a creeping stain. Even the falling snow itself began to transform!

The snow turned black, each flake a tiny obsidian shard. As Wang Lin’s hair became fully black, the heavens answered his transformation.

Black snow rained from the sky, obscuring the dawn’s light, plunging the eastern reaches of Ancestral City into an unnatural twilight.

The city now stood divided, a grotesque duality. The eastern sector was plunged into unnatural night, while the rest remained bathed in daylight. The cultivators of the east, shocked by the abrupt transition, emerged from their dwellings, staring upwards with a mixture of dread and disbelief.

They quickly discerned the source of this foreboding darkness – a palpable aura of merciless destruction emanating from the city’s eastern gate. It was not a brazen, overwhelming force, but rather a subtle, chilling presence that evoked in all who sensed it, an immediate premonition of death, of the apocalypse itself.

Wang Lin strode forward, his white robes slowly being consumed by tendrils of black mist, obscuring him within a growing cloud of darkness.

As he advanced, the black snow of the eastern sky encroached upon the light, casting its shadow further into the city. Each step he took was echoed by the encroaching darkness overhead.

“I had suppressed this urge to kill, to destroy. I had prepared to leave this place…” Wang Lin’s voice was barely audible, a chilling whisper carried upon the wind. “But Immortal Emperor, you forced my hand! Today, you shall witness the dawn of annihilation!” As he spoke, the black mist around him coalesced into roaring flames, hungry to consume all that lay before him.

Those who saw him cowered in terror, their souls trembling. The black mist that surrounded him was their nemesis, the destroyer of all that lived.

The ground upon which he walked was despoiled by the black snow’s insidious corruption. Ancient paving stones, untouched for millennia, crumbled into dust and ash, indistinguishable from the snow’s unholy touch.

Buildings around him weathered beyond their years, decaying to nothing in a fleeting moment, falling into ruin.

He walked from the eastern gate, step by step, towards the Imperial Palace at the heart of Ancestral City. The great distance was no obstacle, for with each step, the black mist about him pulsed with dark energy, merging him completely with the shadows. His speed defied perception, appearing as little more than dust in the wind.

The darkness above spread with terrifying haste, hungrily devouring the remaining light. The shadows that now consumed the city radiated forth from its eastern gate, spiraling towards the heart of the city and the Imperial Palace.
Few cultivators dared to impede Wang Lin’s advance at this juncture. They watched, aghast, from afar as the encroaching darkness swallowed the light whole.

A trail of ruin marked his passage, stretching from the Eastern Gate to the heart of the Imperial Palace. When, after what seemed an eternity, Wang Lin’s figure stood before the Palace, no city remained behind him, only the dust of forgotten ages.

Before the Palace stood tens of thousands of Obsidian Guard, their black armor gleaming, each warrior fixing Wang Lin with a deathly stare. Behind them, countless figures emerged from every corner of the Imperial abode, wings beating, robes billowing.

The heavens themselves roiled with change, revealing not one, but two suns! One, a ghastly violet, held within its heart the Twin Sovereigns. The other, a radiant gold, shone forth the Emperor himself, clad in regal vestments.

The clash of these celestial beings shook the very foundations of the world, a blur of light and shadow, echoing outward in shockwaves that reverberated across the land.

“Twin Sovereigns,” the Emperor’s voice thundered across the sky, mingled with the booming resonance of his divine power, “This Wang Lin has trespassed upon the Palace, shown disrespect to the Ancestral Immortals! Such an act is nothing less than treason! Will you persist in your delusion?”

Wang Lin halted before the Imperial Palace, lifting his gaze. The black energies surrounding him abruptly coalesced, shrinking into a dark robe that draped his form. His raven hair cascaded down his back, longer than before. He stared at the golden sun above, his eyes reflecting a chilling, emotionless indifference.

As the black energy solidified into his garment, the darkness in the sky surged, spreading like spilled ink. It seemed the heavens themselves were cleaved into three, with Wang Lin and the Palace each claiming a share of the darkness and light, with the Violet Sun shimmering between.

“The massacre on Long Street, I had wished to leave it in the past, to depart… I desired not to unleash destruction upon this world. But you… you drove me here with madness… Now, I have arrived!” Wang Lin’s gaze hardened, his emotionless eyes fixing upon the tens of thousands of Obsidian Guard before the Palace, and the myriad figures now pouring from its depths.

Wang Lin raised a foot, and with a single step, his form erupted in a cataclysmic explosion, transforming into a vast, roiling black cloud that surged forward, a tide of annihilation.

The Obsidian Guard stood firm, their faces grim. As the black cloud descended, they roared as one, their armor flaring with an infernal light. The power of tens of thousands of souls coalesced, becoming a single, overwhelming force.

This tide of dark power roared forth, shaping itself into a monstrous beast – a Dragon Turtle. It possessed the head and tail of a dragon, yet its body was that of a colossal turtle, lacking horns, but instead, adorned with countless grotesque, writhing, ghostly figures.

This was no Azure Dragon Turtle. It was a creature unique to the Immortal clans, known as the Dragon Ghoul!

The Ghoul was the soul of the Obsidian Guard, a being forged from centuries of war, sorrow, and death. Now, it roared, charging forth to meet Wang Lin’s cloud of darkness.

In an instant, they clashed. But the Dragon Ghoul, upon contact, began to tremble, emitting a soul-wrenching shriek.

For all the force of hatred and killing intent, such things meant little in the face of true annihilation.

Wang Lin’s cloud of darkness swept onward, unhindered. The Dragon Ghoul crumbled, its form dissolving into nothingness. The tens of thousands of Obsidian Guard beneath it, spat blood, their bodies thrown back by an irresistible force.

The gates of the Imperial Palace, struck by Wang Lin’s cloud of darkness, appeared to age and decay in an instant, crumbling to dust. As they fell, the darkness descended, and the very ground beneath the Palace turned black. The Palace gates disintegrated, becoming nothing more than ashes on the wind.

The tens of thousands of Obsidian Guard, thrown back in disarray, watched in horror as Wang Lin’s cloud continued its advance. Terrified screams filled the air as the darkness washed over them. When the cloud passed, reforming into the black-robed figure of Wang Lin in the Palace courtyard, the tens of thousands of Obsidian Guard lay dead, nothing but shattered remains.

And with a breath of wind, they, too, turned to dust.