Scions of Heaven - Calamity

Chapter 15

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Heavenly Realm, Kunlun - Late morning

Second day since Fengjiu died.

Mo Yuan----------------------------------

Mo Yuan was measuring out more tea leaves as Dong Hua began explaining.

"Originally your parents and I were not bound to the laws of this universe, we existed simultaneously both inside and outside of reality. The reason the Pillars were destroyed, and all the consequences thereafter stemmed from this error."

The water had boiled, and so Mo Yuan placed the leaves into the pot and then slowly, almost meditatively, began adding the water.

"This simultaneous existence, existing within the universe we created, but not bound to it, created a pathway for another being to enter this reality and begin erasing the universe."

Placed the lid on the pot and waited for the tea to brew slightly.

"It destroyed the Pillars, and began unweaving reality. Your mother focused on upholding the pillars, your father, creation. Together, with great effort, they managed to preserve reality, and existence. While your parents kept the universe from collapsing back into formlessness, I and the thirteen elder generals fought."

"Three were lost before we realised it was erasing their very existence from reality. No one remembers them, the round tokens like the one you now possess were all that remained to let us know that they'd even existed at all." Dong Hua spoke pensively, a hint of wistful melancholy in his tone.

The fourth, ninth and thirteenth of the elder generals were completely unknown, not even their titles or names. Mo Yuan, like many, had assumed Dong Hua had banned their names from being spoken and struck from the history books on the chaotic era for them committing some grave crime, like treason. The truth it turns out was much more terrifying, and tragic.

Dong Hua enjoyed a lighter flavour than Mo Yuan, and so Mo Yuan poured him a cup of the delicately flavoured tea.

"Across wastes unmeasured and unknowable; we fought for eternities and single moments. Eventually I pushed it back beyond the boundary of reality, into the state of timeless nothing. There it remains."

Here Dong Hua paused to accept the tea, nodding at him in thanks and taking a sip before he continued speaking.

"Afterward we repaired the Pillars, but this time we bound ourselves fully into this existence. From that moment onward we were subject to the Laws we had created, Heaven Will, Fate, Destiny and other minor trivialities."

"By doing so the only way that thing can enter reality again is if one of us broke the Pillars. It never occurred to either your parents or I that one of us would ever do so. An oversight, clearly." Dong Hua noted with an amused lilt in his voice.

Mo Yuan poured himself a cup of the slightly longer brewed tea, the silence in the room was broken only by the sound of tea entering his cup. Mo Yuan warmed his fingers on the cup for a few seconds before he drank the light fragrant tea.

Eventually Dong Hua started elaborating on matters that had occurred just after Mo Yuan had been born.

"These efforts took their toll. As you know, your mother was extremely weak and mostly bed bound until her death. It was only through sheer will alone that she retained her existence in this reality for as long as she did."

"Of the three of us, she had the most formidable will." Dong Hua admitted.

Even in Mo Yuan's earliest memories, his mother had always been very weak, she'd never been strong enough to do more than walk around Kunlun, never mind going to war or fighting. So why had she clung to existence for so long, clearly in pain and weakened? This fact had always eluded him.