There is Always War I

"Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck!" Han Xuanyuan screamed out loud the moment he regained his bearing.

"I WAS JUST ABOUT TO LOSE MY VIRGINITY!!! NOOO, WHY DO YOU DO THIS TO ME LIFE???"

He almost cried out, it was simply too unfair. He did everything perfectly, the entire high school experience was flawless.

Why did it have to end that way?

'A random monster pops out of nowhere the very moment I was about to get busy.'

'And what does it do the moment it sees me? Squishes me so fucking tight I straight up die, the angel of death didn't even come to see me off.'

'Fucking lying shit horror movies, bullshit "the soul must be offered." The fucker didn't even want my soul he just drops in and sends me to the middle of nowhere.'

Thinking this he got up from his position of sitting with his legs bent up and knees near his shoulders and face tucked within.

He stood up and looked around.

It seemed fine to him. Sky high buildings, cold winter breeze, and large billboards.

'Hey, isn't this the fucking Times Square? Holy shit I'm in bloody fucking New York. Fuck I don't even have a passport how am I gonna get back?'

He thought as panic penetrated his very core. But soon it all went away, as he could see that a bigger problem was headed his way. A problem with very large wings.

As the clear sky was rapidly flooded with disturbingly dark clouds, he saw the massive figure of a winged reptilian beast pierce through them and cast a shadow above the entire city, its red, vertical pupilled eyes carrying a malicious, disdainful glint.

"You're fucking kidding me, first a demon, now a dragon?" He complained loudly in perfect English.

~~~

Ten years later,

Beijing, China

"Contain your energy mages! Release at my signal!" Han Xuanyuan shouted as he stabbed another massive ogre up its jaw, bypassing all its bones and penetrating its brain directly.

The enormous 8-meter tall, red-skinned, and physically overbearing monster was felled just like that.

"Wow! Senior Xuanyuan is so cool, he killed that ogre in a single swing!" One of the mages, a woman wearing green robes that had a golden stripe down the middle and golden borders, exclaimed in awe from behind him.

She, alongside a couple of others, was maintaining a mobile guardian formation that protected the infantry from explosives thrown by the dragon riders.

"Of course he is, that's the Dominator, the strongest amongst the 9-Star Commanders." Another mage, a man wearing red robes with two silver stripes down the middle and double silver borders, beside the woman replied; he too was in awe.

This man was in charge of maintaining a slaughtering formation that covered the infantry's rear and automatically detected and attacked those sneaking up on the group.

This team of about 20 people marched across the wasteland that was the outskirts of the city and was only a couple of kilometers short of reaching the City Barrier. They had initially been an army of 200 under the command of several 6-Star Commanders set to reach Beijing in 4 weeks.

Such a legion, after facing off dozens of ambushes and countless monsters fell to such a pitiful number and spent over 3 months in the trenches before a rescue leader was dispatched. Only the lucky few survived to travel in his company.

In a war as ruthless as the one they were facing, it did not matter if they were the strongest or the most cunning. A single stray shot and even the mightiest of all warriors would topple like a house of cards.

The key to surviving was luck, but most people did not have it.

These people, certainly did though as a man of Han Xuanyuan's caliber would only be reserved for fighting on the front lines.

A 9-Star Commander like him is not a cabbage found on the roadside, he was already considered to be at the peak of human strength. After all, there are only three other 9-Star Commanders.

But as luck would have it, you can not always have the longer end of the straw.

"Ming Gui, open the barrier at the southwestern gateway. We are at the location." Han Xuanyuan spoke into his Cloudstone, a miraculous treasure that could relay messages at the speed of light through a complex sequence of reflections and refractions in the water vapor in the atmosphere.

"Sure thing boss." Ming Gui confirmed in a jovial yet respectful manner.

The barrier was a gorgeous dome of shiny polygonal golden sheets encompassing the entire city in a sphere of protection.

The moment Ming Gui confirmed the command, some of the golden sheets were retracted in a mechanical manner, and a circular hole appeared in the barrier.

Through this hole, Han Xuanyuan and his men entered Beijing.

The place was not truly a city in the conventional sense, the streets were covered with ruins and rubble.

But under this initial layer of deceit, underground, was the true city of Beijing.

A bustling ultra-modern metropolis where humanity thrived, almost cut off from the never-ending war up on the surface.

But the soldiers did not go there, because something felt off the moment they stepped into the barrier.

The very air felt stiff and unmoving as though the void itself had frozen solid.

"It's a trap!" Han Xuanyuan shouted at the top of his lungs.

"Reinstate the formation!" He commanded, but it was too late, before the mages could react they were all attacked.

Weapons made from ice of all shapes and sizes, swords, spears, maces, javelins, daggers, and even arrows, shot fast and hard toward them all.

Piercing them throughout, pinning them into the ground, or simply annihilating them entirely.

Instantly, Han Xuanyuan was left all alone on the battlefield.

"Fusion Master, you've hidden yourself quite deeply. I thought I had killed you at Mount Everest."

Han Xuanyuan said with a sigh, the ambush was perfect. He never could have expected the enemies to be inside the barrier.

"Come on Xuanyuan, don't be so distant. Call me Xiao Shou, like in the old days haha."

The Fusion Master said with a cackle as a tear in space appeared right in front of Han Xuanyuan.

A pair of hands revealed themselves, ripped the tear further apart, and crawled out, floating above the ground.

Dusting his blue robes with purple flame patterns, he called out into the sky.

"Come on you old geezers, how much longer will you be waiting for, our man is here!"

Han Xuanyuan stayed calm, his eyes closed, this was bound to happen. Since the Fusion Master dared to attack him, he was certain of victory.

Soon, his expectations were all met.

The Fusion Master had brought every expert he had fought up until now but didn't manage to kill.

First came a titanic tree. It seemed like one at least. The roots were tangled together to form legs, three in total, there were no branches, only two thick greenish shoots that emerged from the trunk in a 'V' shape and ended in a giant hand each. Between the shoots was a small stump that hid 9 marvelous sky-blue eyes.

'Imperial Trevenant,' He thought.

And soon just like him, several other figures dropped in from tears in the sky.

A black and white humanoid beast wearing golden robes with feng-shui patterns in thick red thread. The monster was chewing on a glistening stick of pale pink bamboo.

Then came a clay doll, it seemed very disturbing with how the face was painted and its very appearance caused a slight pain to all of one's sensory organs, as if they were screaming in rebellion for being exposed to such overbearing sensory bombardment.

A colossal dragon, at least 500 meters long and with a combined wingspan of about 600 meters. Dark grey in color with scales shaded in a dark purple.

After that arrived two things, not creatures in particular but as they were in possession of consciousness they may as well be labeled as such. However, in reality, they were just a pair of weapons. A purple sword with red stripes diagonally along the blade, and a yellow shield with several polygonal patterns engraved on it.

Another humanoid monster, this time an insect, a revolting creature with four muscular arms and two disgustingly hairy legs, a pair of black beady eyes that just begged you to drive a fork into each one, and antennae that grossly swung around. A shiny brown exoskeleton covered its entire body like armor.

Then a skeletal monster, the figure of a mighty yet noble ogre - minus the flesh and blood. Wielding a giant war axe made of flesh and dripping with blood, it looked absolutely ferocious, the kind that could pile corpses into mountains and make blood flow like rivers, all between the appetizers and dessert of dinner.

And finally, a slime. Slightly orange in color it was wrapped in a gray fur coat that perfectly encompassed its spherical blob-shaped body.

'Martial Panda, Mud Leaf, Void Dragon Empress, Jiandun, Ant Progenitor, Hell Bones, Fantasy King, they're all here.'

"See, friends? I told you I could bring him here." The Fusion Master announced to the others, thinking he had accomplished a great feat.

"How do you feel Han Xuanyuan? Scared? Wet your pants a little?" Martial Panda mocked him, spitting the bit of bamboo he was chewing to the side as he slowly levitated downwards.

"Tell me, Xiao Shou, how did you pinpoint my location and set up such a perfect ambush? Your side shouldn't have access to any such precise monitoring technologies."

Han Xuanyuan asked the Fusion Master, completely ignoring the Martial Panda who became furious and wanted to attack him immediately but stopped as he saw the Fusion Master raise his hand towards him, signaling him to wait.

"I know I shouldn't tell you because who knows what miracle you'd cook up. But fuck it, since it's come down to this, I should have my fun while it lasts. Isn't that right, Ming Gui?"

Xuanyuan's eyes sharpened as he saw Ming Gui pry himself out of an identical rip in space.

Ming Gui was a round-headed rat-faced black-haired fatty, wearing lime robes that left much of his hairy chest uncovered, he was undoubtedly a member of the ugly bastards' club.

"C'mon Da-ge, you couldn't expect me to live under your shadow for the rest of my life did you?"

Ming Gui laughed as he mockingly said so to Han Xuanyuan, taking the liberty to walk around the field with his hands behind his back, passing by each of the nine monsters, looking at them as if he were inspecting the instruments before a scientific experiment.

But when he walked around to the Void Dragon Empress, he could never have imagined what would have followed suit.

"Trash. You've outlived your purpose. So there's no point in keeping you around anymore."

And as the cold voice faded, so did Ming Gui's life.

With a flap of her gigantic wings, the Void Dragon Empress easily vaporized him.

"Haaaaaah, I wanted to do that myself." Han Xuanyuan muttered.

"We're all waiting for your final struggle, Han Xuanyuan, so go ahead. Burst out in your final bout of glory" The Fantasy King said emotionlessly.

"Yes, I too want to see you struggle." The Ant Progenitor said through trills and chirps. At their level of cultivation, language barriers were simply unheard of.

But again, Han Xuanyuan ignored all their taunts and addressed them all.

"You know, all the great rulers of my species have had this one thing in common."

He slowly said, raising his head and looking up at each and every one of his enemies closely, with a coldness in his eyes that had nothing to do with the temperature.

"Oh, and what might that be?" Mud Leaf asked with curiosity.

"We all like a grand burial, especially one with many tomb trophies..."

Han Xuanyuan crisply followed up with a wide grin on his face.

"He's gonna blow himself up!" Martial Panda screamed as he hurriedly expanded his domain and retreated, attempting to get out of the blast radius.

The rest quickly followed suit, using all sorts of exotic escape techniques.

"Going so soon?" Xuanyuan called out with an unforgiving sneer on his face.

"I'd like to introduce you all to my Truth Sequence - Injustice."

He explained with unconcealable ridicule as the others looked at him in horror.

"Nature follows a pre-determined set of rules. Set by whom we don't know, yet. But it is still an undeniable truth that all the forces present in our world follow this sequence. It is the logic of the universe."

He continued.

"But through the intervention of sentient beings such as ourselves, this unchangeable sequence is destroyed and remodeled to fit our desires and relative rationality."

"This is a type of Injustice against nature. But there is also Injustice between sentient creatures. Through the desires of countless living beings, all sense of balance and order is torn apart. This is the greatest injustice."

"My sequence particles allow me to incorporate this primal concept of Injustice into all my encounters. Regardless of what situation I may face, it will always be unjust, for those against me."

He ended with a smirk. But then continued in his cold and merciless voice.

"Right now, the logical action for you all would be to run away from my self-destruction."

"Indeed it would be the natural, and justified thing to do. But there shall be no justice today!"

And as he ended his speech, a majestic sea of brightly shining particles of sequence emerged from his body.

Spreading out, they encompassed the entire battlefield and then some, completely covering everything and everybody.

Gradually, they all began rewinding until they were back in their original positions. Unable to do anything against the overpowering force that contained them as if they were kittens trapped in a solid metal box.

Looking at Xuanyuan's maniacal smile and psychotic laughter, they all began to scream in horror.

Some begged him for mercy, said it didn't have to end this way, and that they would leave him alone.

Others sulked in silence, accepting their doom and reinforcing their defenses.

Regardless, within ten breaths, they were all gone.

From the Dominator expanded a bright sphere of black light, with flashing arcs of pure power it continued to swell until it touched all of the monsters, vaporizing them instantly.

Killing nine of humanity's greatest enemies at the same time; truly a magnificent burial.

~~~

'What this time?' Han Xuanyuan thought as his gaze wandered about, finally landing on a pair of bountiful breasts that were barely covered by a skimpy maid's uniform right in front of him.

"Young Master, today is the Mystic Root appraisal date, please be prepared and follow me. The Lady would not appreciate that..."

'Huh, cultivation right from the start.'

He thought as he got up from the bed. This body of his was very young, about as old as his first. However, the strength he felt within was far superior, it felt like he could stop a charging rhino with just a single hand.

~~~

"What do you mean my son doesn't have a Mystic Root?" A middle-aged man in expensive-looking robes shouted at the priest standing next to Han Xuanyuan in the altar.

"That's simply impossible! Our lineage dates back to the time of the Daofather, birthing a Perforated is not possible!" The beautiful woman next to the middle-aged man shouted in disbelief. She was in severe denial.

The priest, on the other hand, was unfazed.

"This altar was calibrated by the sect just yesterday, it will not make a mistake."

'What the fuck is happening.'

Han Xuanyuan was sitting at the altar. It was a golden construct with four pillars in four directions, densely packed in runic symbols.

The pillars were connected together in curved, purplish, and slightly transparent glass-like material, completely enclosing him from all sides. On top was a dome of the same composition and the whole structure consistently flashed with dancing golden arcs.

From what Xuanyuan could tell, it was a machine used to identify the Mystic Roots of individuals in the specific age range of 16-21.

From the shallow questions he had asked the maid while dressing himself, he obtained a fundamental understanding of what Mystic Roots were.

A Mystic Root is not an organ itself but rather an organ system.

One can even view it as the circulatory system of humans. However, instead of a heart and numerous blood vessels, there is a Dantian and a vast network of meridians.

The Dantian is just a place to store and anchor the qi, the meridians are what determine your ability to absorb and circulate said qi.

The quality of the meridians determines the future cultivation potential of a person, to a certain degree.

In essence, its main job in cultivation is the distribution of mystic energies.

To refine though, they must first absorb.

Regular cultivation requires one to attract qi from the environment. Then they must pass it through their skin and then into their meridians.

Usually in cultivation, the limiting factor during cultivation is the capability of the meridians as they are not only indispensable in distributing energy but also in attracting it.

The wider and firmer your meridians are, the higher the volume and concentration of energy you can circulate throughout your body.

This means the better the quality of your meridians, the better your cultivation speed will be.

And as most battle techniques require you to circulate mystic energy, better-quality meridians will grant stronger battle power.

Usually, all people are in possession of meridians. However, for most, they are of terrible quality. This is why even though most people are capable of practicing, doing so is not only inefficient but also impractical.

The 'Perforated' are people who do not possess meridians, a Dantian, or both, or they are defective.

'I am so screwed...' Han Xuanyuan thought as a bitter smile crept up his face, he had overheard what the priest had said.