Can Death Be Killed?

The fire crackled with an unnatural rhythm, like a whisper stifled by something greater. It wasn't the warmth of fire, but the hollow murmur of existence trying to assert itself against the void. The Death Plains were indifferent even to fire. The sky stretched overhead, a motionless gray shroud—like the empty stare of a corpse that never knew what life was.

There, between everything and nothing, Lian Xuan stood—his presence a crack in the eternal monotony of that realm. The airless stillness seemed to resist his existence, but he remained unyielding. His eyes, ageless and sharp, held no fear—only a piercing curiosity.

Before him sat Morwen, the Lady of the Death Plains. Her face was motionless except for the faint curve of her lips—a smile devoid of kindness, steeped in the irony only corrupted deities could grasp.

Lian Xuan stepped forward. The ground beneath his feet responded with a brittle crack, as if the world, for a brief moment, remembered it could still break.

His voice cut through the stagnant air, calm and resolute, imbued with a weight that transcended the physical.

— "My name is Lian Xuan." — His words floated like heavy stones across a still lake. — "I am but an old cultivator from a distant world, wandering through these desolate lands for reasons beyond my understanding. In my world, I was once called the Sacred Lord of the Five Elements… though titles never meant much to me."

Morwen inclined her head slightly, her smile growing with a subtle, shadowed intrigue.

— "Titles are echoes in the abyss… they seem important until you realize it's just the void speaking to itself."

Lian Xuan's presence shifted, expanding like a breeze fanning dormant embers.

— "I find myself curious: is it possible to fulfill your wish? To kill Death?"

The question hovered, dense and defiant. Morwen's smile faltered, her eyes narrowing, surprised by the audacity.

The air thickened, compressed by invisible forces. The cold that permeated the plains didn't intensify—it changed. It now came from within, seeping into the marrow of the soul.

Morwen stood with the grace of silk unfurling in still water. Her presence surged, filling the space, pressing against Lian Xuan like the weight of an ocean's abyss. The very fabric of the realm seemed to recoil from her.

— "You amuse me, Lian Xuan. Standing before a corrupted goddess, so… unafraid. Ever since you set foot in my domain, I've felt an overwhelming urge to rip your immortal essence apart."

She raised her hand. The air around them didn't grow cold. It died.

Not a lack of warmth. Not silence. Death.

Lian Xuan felt it. Not with his senses, but with his soul. The oppressive force of Morwen's Death Law was absolute. It didn't merely threaten life—it denied its very premise. Pain ceased to exist, for pain required something living to feel it. This was the erasure of self.

His body trembled, not in weakness, but in instinctive defiance. He was a cultivator who had stood before storms that cracked the skies, who had bent mountains and pierced the heavens. But now, he stood against something beyond the natural cycle—something that did not kill, but unmade.

He smiled.

— "Heh… exhilarating." — His eyes ignited with a golden fire. — "I thought I'd forgotten what trembling felt like."

He closed his eyes and reached into the core of his being. The Will of the Elements stirred—an eternal melody resonating with the pulse of the universe. He didn't just control fire, water, air, earth, and lightning. He understood them. He was them.

His eyes opened.

The small fire between them exploded.

No Qi, no incantations—just his presence. The mundane flame became something primal, raw and unbridled. The ground cracked, the air shimmered, and the dim plain was bathed in incandescent heat.

Morwen's gaze sharpened. Her lips curved again, but there was something else beneath the amusement: respect.

The fire roared, ascending in a blazing column, splitting the stagnant sky like a spear of defiance. The heat was suffocating, yet it touched nothing beyond the intent that birthed it. Lian Xuan was the fire.

Then he pushed further.

The Law of Space answered his call. The fire became a conduit, bending the fabric of the world. He wasn't looking to fight. Not here. Not now. The fire coiled into spiraling rifts, tearing open unstable portals to anywhere but this cursed place.

Morwen stepped forward.

And space died.

The portal didn't collapse. It was erased. The concept of "somewhere else" ceased to exist.

She was suddenly before him. No movement. No transition. The distance between them had simply ceased to be.

She touched his face with eerie gentleness. Then she kissed him.

Lian Xuan disintegrated.

Not burned, not torn—simply… gone.

Yet, he did not die.

The natural laws he embodied refused to yield. Cell by cell, thought by thought, his form reassembled itself through sheer force of will.

He gasped as he returned, breathless but whole.

Morwen took a step back, genuine surprise in her abyssal eyes.

— "I only meant to mark you… to bind you to this place. Seems I underestimated you."

Lian Xuan wiped the corner of his mouth—there was no blood, only the ghost of what might have been.

— "I can't let you touch me so easily, can I?"

He raised his hands, and the world shifted.

The fire flared, no longer a mere blaze but a lance of radiant white flame piercing the gray sky. This was no earthly fire. It was an elemental force that defied the concept of death—a fire that rejected oblivion.

He didn't stop there.

The Law of Air answered next. Invisible winds circled him, accelerating until sound itself failed to keep pace. The air crystallized into blades, forming a barrier Morwen could not cross.

The Law of Water followed. Mist condensed into rings of liquid mirrors, rotating counterclockwise. They reflected no environment—only visions of worlds untouched by her decay.

The Law of Earth responded. The sterile soil beneath his feet blossomed into vibrant green. Trees erupted from the ground, roots intertwining into colossal spirals. The terrain pulsed with life—a forest birthed in seconds, proclaiming: "We exist."

Lightning crowned his creation. Golden bolts wove through branches, stitching together the elemental network. It was more than a defense; it was a declaration.

Morwen's eyes darkened.

She took a step forward… and faltered.

She tried again… and stopped.

The domain held. Not because it was stronger than her, but because it embodied something that even death could not extinguish: the primal defiance of life.

And within that tapestry of forces, concealed beneath the fire, the wind, the earth, and the rain, thrived something more profound: the Law of Life itself.

Life pulsed through the domain, not as raw vitality, but as an elemental constant. It wasn't just a barrier against death—it was the conceptual counterweight. Death defines endings. Life defines beginnings. The cycle relies on both, and Morwen's corruption was the distortion of that balance.

With each step she took, she felt the equilibrium resisting her. The domain wasn't defying her power. It was restoring the universal truth: life exists, and death cannot erase that.

Lian Xuan stood at the center of this living maelstrom, his expression calm.

— "You see it now, don't you?" — His voice was soft. — "The inevitability of life."

Morwen's face was devoid of emotion.

He turned to the pillar of fire—a rift in the fabric of the realm. With one last glance at her, he stepped toward it.

— "Until we meet again."

He disappeared through the rift.

Morwen remained still, surrounded by trees, vibrant grass, and the crackling pillar of elemental defiance.

She lifted her hand.

Everything died.

The air froze mid-motion. The water turned to ash. The ground decayed into sterile dust. The lightning dimmed to nothing.

The Death Plains reclaimed their desolate silence.

Morwen stared at the spot where Lian Xuan had vanished.

For the first time in millennia, she did not smile.