𝑨 𝑹𝒆𝒅 𝑳𝒐𝒕𝒖𝒔. ( 𝑨 𝑯𝒖𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒂𝒏 𝑺𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒚 )

✸𝐎𝐧𝐞: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐄𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐭.

It's been 20 years.

20 years since the Crown Prince of Xianle ascended for the third time. He had ascended with great might, shaking buildings and structures in the heavenly realm, it was surely a shock for every heavenly official there, someone ascending three times? And with such effects? It was unheard of, but somehow, this Crown Prince always managed to do things that were unheard of, his reputation preceded him. However, not long after his third ascension, something stranger happened. Very strange.

The Flower Crowned Martial God, Xie Lian, dissapeared.

There was no trace of him in the slightest, not in any record in Ling Wens palace nor the great Martial Hall. He had simply vanished. It confused everyone greatly, despite only having ascended for a short amount of time, His Highness made an impact on many Heavenly Official's lives. Including the, Shi Qingxuan, Feng Xin, Mu Qing and others he made acquaintances with, including even Pei Ming.

His highness' disappearance occurred shortly after the tragic death of Shi Wudu, who died at the hands of Black Water, however, the heavenly court is aware of the cause, and deemed it a karma of sorts, as a result, Black Water is not being bothered by the heavenly realm about his actions. Shi Qingxuan has returned to being the Wind Master and is now 70% of the time in his male form, as his brother usually wished for him to be in.

The Heavens went to great lengths to try to find Xie Lian. Even going so far as working with Crimson Rain Sought Flower for the first few years, as they were rumored to be close, yet even with knowledge from both the Ghost Realm and the Heavenly Realm, still no progress was made. The search didn't stop for a second, and still hasn't even after 20 years under the orders of Jun Wu.

Since the incident and after the years of cooperation between the two, Crimson Rain Sought Flower has been a considerably bigger pain for the heavens than before, burning down temples more frequently, stealing knowledge, although none are bad in the scale of what he could do, it was still a pain to deal with, especially for Ling Wen. However, no one could do anything, not only has he been a bigger pain than usual, he's also grown stronger. Almost as if something was motivating him... The heavens couldn't think of how or why, they could just remain thankful that he wasn't deciding to suddenly go on a rampage and challenge another 35 Officials.

No one really knew if it counted as him being banished a 3rd time or if it didn't affect his status in the heavens. After several meetings with the Upper Court, many decided that His Highness was in fact still a God, no matter what he was doing now or where he was, it didn't count as his 3rd banishment despite not being present at all.. anywhere actually.

It wasn't just the heavens in distress, the Ghost realm too. The people in Ghost city, despite only meeting with Xie Lian a few times, had grown rather fond of him. Crimson Rain had also ruled with more strictness than before, the ghosts of the city supported him regardless, so peace still somewhat managed to stay moderately there, Hua Cheng barely showed himself in Public anymore, other than certain events. The waning moon officer made the appearance for him, though Crimson rain still took on his responsibilities and didn't shun the city, the citizens didn't mind not seeing their Chengzu, although, they wouldn't mind regardless of what their Lord did, so it wasn't really a grand gesture of them. Supposedly, they were just glad their leader didn't change after his attitude change.

Behind those doors of Paradise Manor, Hua Cheng, more disturbed than usual (and rightly so) kept looking for The Crown Prince. Before his 3rd ascension, even when they didn't meet in person, Hua Cheng used to know where he was, make sure he'd be safe, but now... Now he didn't even know where he was, and there was nothing he could do about it, no matter how many spies or agents he set out, they couldn't find a singular trace of the Martial God, despite how unbelievable it was, he had in fact simply dissapeared. It's almost as if he had done the impossible, and died.

But other than the disappearance of Xie Lian... something else, from centuries ago re-surfaced, something that no one suspected.

And it wasn't Good, it was cataclysmic.

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Hello everyone! This is the end of Chapter One, this Chapter is mostly just to make sure that people understand the basic backstory and if they like my writing style, if I could get some feedback it would be great, if you think that this idea is something I should expand on or not, please let me know so I know whether to continue my story or not, thanks!