Second Time

Chapter 1 - Starting Again

"The Martial Dao is wrong."

Shao Yue could still remember his face as he said those words. The bitter, helpless smile as he stared at the stars above.

"We won't be able to transcend in this life."

How many years had it been since she heard those words? At least a thousand.

Now, she believed them.

Shao Yue had already prepared her own grave, thousand of miles away from civilization.

All of her life's treasures hid in an intricate web of caverns she'd carved herself. Traps, puzzles, and danger protected each of them, waiting for someone skilled or lucky enough to claim them. Deep in the very heart of the mountain, in a small, circular chamber, she stabbed her beloved sword into the ground and sat cross-legged behind it.

Shao Yue took a deep breath and closed her eyes.

She'd released her Spirit companion back into the Spirit World. Her material possessions could be claimed by the worthy. Letters had been sent to each of her friends. She no longer had regrets.

She poured three round pills from a jade bottle into her palm and tossed them into her mouth. Strands of energy escaped from them as they dissolved in her body, which then travelled upwards and wrapped around her soul like a cocoon.

Her soul's connection to her body began to loosen, floating upward before melting into reality. A thick, tangled collection of uncountable, ever-growing threads of every colour imaginable came into view. They gave off an unassailable, taboo aura. Simply looking at it made every bit of her want to flee. It was distinctly not a place human souls were allowed to be.

The river of time.

She could hardly comprehend anything about it, the strange blurred images, the flowing energy that followed no apparent pattern, the pockets of darkness hidden deep inside. The forces within eroded her soul as she drew nearer. The protective layer provided by the pills would only last so long.

It had taken her centuries of trying, but she had finally identified the golden thread drifting within the flow that belonged to herself. It represented her journey through life.

She couldn't guess how the length corresponded to time. Perhaps an inch of thread in one place would cover a hundred years, while an inch in another place would only be one. She had no way of knowing, but as long as she followed it to the end, it wouldn't matter.

Shao Yue kept close to the golden thread and shot forward. The further she went, the more unbearable the pain. It felt like diving into a pool of acid, her body melting away layer by layer, but she had to press on. If she ever wanted to break the shackles of the world, she had no other choice.

The golden colour eventually faded into red. Shao Yue paused, staring at it uncertainly. The red thread didn't give her the same feeling of 'self' that the gold part did. Was that her past life, before going through the cycle of reincarnation?

She was a little curious, but it was too risky. Her past life could have been an animal, in a place without good cultivation resources, or anything else. Not to mention, following the thread so far had already caused significant damage to her soul.

Shao Yue found the place where the thread first took on the complete golden colour and forced her soul into it, risking everything.

A bright light enveloped her, then vanished as quickly as it came.

She found herself in a shabby room, overlooking it from above. A young girl laid on top of a bed, her limbs splayed in random directions. She had black hair that only reached her shoulders and patchy, boyish clothes.