THE PEAK OF OBLIVION - A Cultivation Adventure Novel

Prologue - A Dark Star Descends

[TPO #1] Prologue - A Dark Star Descends 

On the remote northern coast of the Great Plains Continent, a little fishing village lay nestled in a secluded cove. Gentle, turquoise waves lapped against the white sand. On the beach, a group of children ran about, shouting and laughing as they played.

Out on the water, a young man sat in a small wooden boat. He drifted lazily in the water, carelessly trailing a fishing pole in one hand. As he watched the children playing on the beach, a contented smile came over his face.

Suddenly, the young man stiffened. The sun seemed to grow dim as a cold gust of air rushed through the cove, rocking the boat slightly. This wind brought with it an ominous feeling, like a portent of disaster.

He frowned and glanced up at the sky. There, he saw a strange disturbance forming. The clouds began to shift, swirling and twisting around a single point as if some powerful force was tugging on them. A tiny spot of darkness appeared at this point, like the eye of a hurricane. It rapidly expanded as the swirling phenomenon accelerated.

The young man stared with terrified fascination, his fishing rod completely forgotten. It was like a hole had opened in the fabric of space, devouring the very heavens. The whole world seemed to become silent as every living creature held its breath, waiting for what was to come.

Now, the children had also noticed and had stopped their playing to stare up at the sky, wide-eyed and open-mouthed. All the clouds in the sky had been pulled in by this phenomenon. They swirled together as one, a massive whirlpool covered the sky from horizon to horizon. The great maw of darkness seemed on the verge of devouring the entire world.

At the center of the vortex, the fabric of space began to warp and bend bizarrely. As the villagers watched in stunned silence, a shadowy blur suddenly pierced through the spatial distortions and shot overhead at incredible speeds. Their eyes had barely registered the object before it was already out of sight. It flashed across the sky like a dark star of calamity, towards the endless rolling plains stretching into the distance.

The air grew heavy, seeming to be charged with a strange energy. It was like the world itself had sensed a great change was approaching. A tense moment passed as everyone collectively held their breath. Then, a dazzling glow appeared on the horizon, and the world suddenly became bathed in light.

Despite their fear, the villagers couldn't help but gasp in wonder. This sight was breathtaking, like witnessing the birth of a second sun. Some even began to kneel, piously clasping their hands towards the light in worship.

Like a blossoming flower, the light rapidly grew in size and intensity until it seemed to fill all the space between Heaven and Earth. The whole world was consumed by its brilliance.

A deep tremor shook the ground as a wave of energy pulsed outwards from that brilliant light. This energy was like a wall of death, annihilating everything in its path. In the blink of an eye, thousands of kilometres of grassy plains simply disappeared as the shockwave tore across the land. The ramshackle wooden buildings of the little fishing village instantly collapsed. In the next moment, great fissures split the earth, swallowing the ruins of the village whole.

The once peaceful waters began to boil, then the entire ocean seemed to rise. A massive ripple spread, swelling into a monstrous tidal wave that rushed out to sea. The young man was helplessly carried along, his boat vanishing into the raging sea. In a heartbeat, the little fishing cove was emptied with barely a puddle remaining.

Another heartbeat passed and the true shockwave finally reached the coastline. What remained of the village became nothing more than ash and dust. Not even a shadow of a person or building remained to tell the world that a community had once stood here.

Generations of history and tradition, skills passed from father to son and from mother to daughter, it was all wiped out in the blink of an eye. It was as if they had never existed in the first place.