Tales of Demons & Gods

1. Return To Glory City

     Every man dies.

     Those were the wise words that were once told to him by one of his elders when he was younger. It was a lesson that he had to learn countless times throughout the trying years beyond the walls of Glory City. The pain, the anguish and the non-stop hunts to survive subtly taught him that every day of his long life. Yet it was until he was fighting the Sage Emperor and was surrounded by the emperor's six powerful deity beasts that the lesson finally sunk into Nie Li's thick skull.

     Despite all the training he had done, the power he had accumulated, none of it was enough to defeat a single deity beast, let alone six. The stand Nie Li was taking with the Emperor was indeed his last. He didn't even remember the killing blow, whether it was one of the beasts or the emperor that delivered it, but it all went dark. Like someone had blown out a candle just as the sun was going down and things had gone deafly silent as well. No more hounds growling, no claps of thunder in the background. No sounds of ground cracking and shaking beneath his feet. There was also no more pain, and that in itself was a relief. Nie Li wanted to look around but he could see nothing, it was like he was trapped within a bad dream and was unable to wake up. He wanted to scream, call out her name to see if she was there waiting for him in the afterlife. Yet he couldn't squeak out a single word, as his mouth felt as paralyzed as his body. It was at this moment when something dawned on Nie Li, the lack of sound also mean he wasn't breathing. His lungs were making no sound and wind was not entering or leaving his mouth. Was he really dead? Was this really the end? Nie Li struggled to do or say anything but it was helpless, until he saw a light. A small pin hole in the darkness that slowly grew bigger and bigger as it looked like it was approaching him. It wasn't until the light was consuming everything that Nie Li was able to make a sound. He opened his mouth and called out her name, the only name that mattered to him. There was no response and then everything was bright.

     And then his eyes opened.

     Nie Li was no longer surrounded by darkness, but was sitting in a room he hasn't seen in quite some time. He was no longer standing, but was instead sitting down on a chair, with a table before him. The first thing Nie Li did was inhale loudly, as if he had been underwater for several minutes, the air filling his lungs as they were desperate to fill up with oxygen. His eyes were bulging as he exhaled just as loudly and then immediately inhaled again, trying to compose himself.

     "Where the hell am I?" He softly whispered to himself.

     It was at this point that Nie Li had looked at his hands, to realize that they were smaller than the last time he saw them. What surprised him even more was the scar on his right forearm that was now gone. Both of these details told him something significant: his mind had traveled back to an earlier time. He was younger than the day he had passed away, a lot younger because he was in a school. It had taken him a few moments to recognize his surroundings but soon it all came back to him. Nie Li was beginning to remember where he was and even what day it was. His current location was a classroom in the Holy Orchid Institute. This also meant that he was home, back in Glory City for the first time since... since that very dark and dreadful day. The day he started to run. And it was at this point where Nie Li started to run again.

     Nie Li calmly got up from his table in the classroom and walked out, strolling down the hallway towards the main doors leading outside. s he burst through the door, the view waiting outside for him had taken what was left of his breath away. The majestic view of his former home, one he hadn't seen since it was attacked and destroyed by the Demon Beast. He could remember the day like it was the day before, but here he was standing before the city in all its splendor. The beast hasn't come yet, and the city was just as beautiful as the young man had remembered it all those years ago.