Modern Life of Immortal Demons 山海奇谈

Prologue

Right before dawn, the flickering of stars in the dark sky gradually grew dimmer and dimmer. In the east, a glimmer of light emerged above the sea. As the brightness reached the coastline, the sun suddenly jumped above the horizon and blanketed the sea and the land with its brilliant, golden rays.

Slowly but surely, the chill of the night was pierced by the sunlight. Somewhere, the sound of barking and crowing erupted and quickly spread from one house to another. Men, wearing crude shirts and carrying hoes on their shoulder, pushed doors open, ready to start a new day of work. They were greeted by similarly dressed women, who looked after the children and various and household chores.

"Run and you'll break your legs!" A woman lectured her naughty son: "Didn't you listen to what your dad said - there's war, famine and plague everywhere! People fled to hide on our mountain, be careful or they'll eat you!"

Obviously, the children did not understand what "plague" or "war" meant. They blinked a few times, and hugged the big dog that stood in the doorway. They just wanted to ride it as a children's game. However, the usually docile dog suddenly paced away from the children, staring wide-eyed and barking wildly up to the sky.

For a split second, all the animals in this small mountain village let out a loud noise up into the sky, half-terrified and half-awed, as if they had seen a monster.

"Help! Save me!" - yelped a loud voice. A blood-soaked man whose arm was ripped off in half rushed around frantically, terror painted in his face, and yelled: "Where is the elder?!"

Instantly, screams and cries exploded into a chaos. A white-bearded, elderly man propped himself on crutches and slowly paced in front of the terrified crowd, sighing heavily.

"Elder!" The man ran to the old man, crumbled to his knees and wept: "Dead! Under the mountain! Monsters! Some are dead, some are alive! Outside the village!"

Just as he was howling in madness, the whole earth suddenly rumbled. Everyone turned their heads to see a long, horned beast that hurriedly rushed westwards.

The elder sighed and looked up. The sky was clear, but he knew that the power that targeted them wasn't dispersed yet. Instead, it was growing more serious.

"God's will." - were the only words the elder uttered, then closed his eyes in silence.

Thousand miles away, in the Kunlun mountains.

The surface world was already bright, but the Kunlun mountains were still asleep. Blanketed by a dusky forest that stretched for a thousand miles, mountain ranges refused to wake up.

Suddenly, a loud rumbling roar bellowed on the horizon, and the whole world instantly changed. One half was basking under a bright and beautiful sunlight, while the other was smothered under black clouds and torrential rain. However, before the heavy rain could fall, it was swept by a roaring hurricane and turned into a storm of hail and snow that smashed into the mountain slopes.

The skies were showering rain that turned into hail and snow on its way down, and in the blink of an eye, the entire world changed. In the bone-chilling wind, the myriad of mountain ravines awoke from their slumber with a deep, majestic roar.

This sound split the curtain of rain and snow and sparked waves of resounding echo that boomed thousands of miles away. But this sound also scattered across the world. Almost imperceptibly to humans, darkness flocked together into a black pile that rushed towards the Kunlun mountains.

Instantly, rain and snow grew in intensity and the gale grew in force and surged over the increasingly dense blackness. The weather twisted and the Kunlun mountains seemed as if caught in two giant hands. For a while, a giant palm seemed to close and the entire Kunlun mountains disappeared into grey ash, completely wiped out.