Immortal Paladin

236 We Who Dared to Fly Too High

The Megatron surged upward, its hull humming with layers of reinforced formation arrays and spiritual power. The sky parted like silk, and the clouds curled around the ascending warship, drawn into vortices by the sheer displacement of qi. Light scattered off the hull’s armored plates, casting a shimmering trail in our wake. It was a beautiful thing. It was terrifying, powerful, and alive. A beast among vessels, forged for war but repurposed for a journey that straddled fate and folly.

I stood near the forward deck, slightly apart from the others, watching the horizon recede behind us. It was hard not to think about what we were leaving behind. Harder still to ignore what lay ahead.

Alice approached quietly, her voice low but piercing. “What did you see? There’s something you’re not telling the others…”

Her perception had always been sharp, like a blade that never dulled. I glanced toward the others from Lu Gao adjusting some knobs on the side panels, Gu Jie scanning our course with her hands locked behind her back, and Jia Yun minding her corner letting her silver hair be swept by the wind.

Satisfied they weren’t listening, I answered her.

“Before Gu Jie had her Destiny Seeking Eyes, there was Wen Yuhan’s.”

Alice blinked, lips parting slightly. “Wen Yuhan? The owner of the body you stole?”

I gave a tired chuckle. “Yeah… her.”

There were a lot of reasons why I took that body. My lifespan had been flickering like a dying lantern. Jue Bu’s betrayal had been looming in the shadows like a second sword waiting to fall. At the time, I needed a vessel strong enough to survive what was coming. What I didn’t expect was inheriting her Destiny Seeking Eyes, the original pair, a relic of countless timelines and lifetimes. Through them, I saw not just what was probable but what was possible. That sight alone had saved me from being scattered to the Greater Universe and possibly beyond.

But foresight, even divine, doesn’t ease the burden of choice.

“Just so you know,” I said, keeping my tone even, “I’m confident I won’t be dying this time. But that doesn’t make what’s coming any easier.”

Alice narrowed her eyes, stepping closer. “What is it? You can tell me…”

So I did.

“At the end of this particular stretch of our story, I’ll have to choose between saving someone I cherish… and a stranger.”

Alice was quiet for a beat, then replied as I expected. “Knowing you, you’ll probably try to save both.” And I’d probably fail doing it too…

I met her eyes. “What if it were you making the choice?”

Without hesitating, she said, “If it’s between you and a stranger, of course I’d choose you.”

Only if it were that simple. She could speak so clearly about it, so cleanly, but I knew the weight would be different once the moment truly came. Still, her words made something ache and soothe at once. I smiled, and the smile surprised me with how genuine it felt.

I leaned in, close enough that I could smell the sandalwood and iron lingering on her. Fluttering my eyelashes like some theater romantic, I whispered, “I might be in love.”

She rolled her eyes, but there was a slight twitch in the corner of her mouth. “You missed me that much, huh?”

“Guess I’m just starved for affection.”

Alice’s response was deadpan. “You’re just imagining it.”

And before I could push the tease further, a familiar cough cut the air like a knife.

“Ahem…”

We both turned.

Standing between us, arms crossed, one brow lifted in judgmental amusement, was Gu Jie.

Of course.

“Apologies for interrupting the two of you catching up,” she said, her voice clear but grim, “but we’re about to enter a life-and-death situation. I can sense the misfortune ahead, and it’s… bad. Very bad.” She turned to face us fully. “I’ve already bestowed the destiny of victory onto Megatron, but I don’t think that’ll be enough.”

Her words dropped like stones into a still lake, sending a ripple of unease through the crew. I didn’t waste time. With practiced ease, I drew breath and called upon the reservoir of divine power that clung to my soul like fire to a torch. Raising my hand, I invoked three spells in rapid sequence.

“Bless.” A radiant shimmer danced along the hull of the Megatron.

“Blessed Weapon.” The mounted ballistae along the deck pulsed with sanctified glow, their bolts trembling with restrained wrath.

“Shield of the Eternal.” The spiritual dome shimmered across the whole vessel like a barrier of translucent gold, pulsing in rhythm with the ship’s core.

In the same breath, I cast overlapping layers of protective and empowering magic on each of us. Shields of light settled over Gu Jie, Alice, Jia Yun, and Lu Gao. Then, with a steady exhale, I invoked Divine Possession, severing two of my souls and placing them, one within Gu Jie, and one inside the Megatron itself.

The shift was immediate. Gu Jie’s eyes flickered with silver and gold, her aura blooming outward like an ocean of judgment. The ship roared as its spiritual core awakened, veins of luminous circuitry flashing across its deck and hull like glowing rivers. The Megatron breathed. It was weird being a 'flying ship' of all things, but it worked.

Gu Jie wiped a thin line of sweat from her brow. “Brace yourselves… It’s going to be rough.”

She moved quickly, helping Jia Yun lash herself to one of the main posts with ropes thick enough to restrain a charging ox. The younger woman raised a brow. “Is this really necessary? I’m in the Tenth Realm, I can handle—”

“Trust me,” Gu Jie cut her off, tying a tight knot, “better safe than dead.”

Lu Gao took the cue, hauling a rope around his chest and tying himself securely near one of the ballistae along the port side. Gu Jie did the same, her hands binding to the wheel like a captain at war with fate itself. Alice, unbothered as always, perched in the crow’s nest with her arms folded.

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And me? I stood at the bow of the Megatron, my boots on the very edge, hair dancing in the violent wind, one hand stretched out as I steadied my breathing. The skies ahead churned like molten glass.

I asked, “Is it really going to be that bad? I don’t remember anything in the visions about our entrance into the False Earth being this dangerous…”

Gu Jie, her voice a whisper almost lost in the wind, replied, “Trust me on this one, Master… It’s going to be bad.”

And I did. I trusted her more than my memories, more than the foresight. Her command over misfortune wasn’t guesswork… It was a prophecy carved in the moment before calamity. She glanced up toward me, her expression tightening.

“I think you and Lady Alice will be fine,” she continued. “But the rest of us… Well… it won’t be gentle.”

She didn’t elaborate, but the weight behind her gaze was enough to make my spine itch. With a slow breath, I opened my Divine Sense and extended it toward her, letting her see what I saw… layers upon layers of complex formations above us, each more intricate and dangerous than the last.

She gasped softly. “There… there! Right flank. And two layers above… There’s a trap sequence designed to fracture qi cores.”

“Got it,” I said, and the Megatron groaned as it tilted hard left, narrowly avoiding an invisible net of soul-rending force. A flash exploded behind us.

The ship jolted violently as a set of ancient glyphs activated to our rear, ripping space open in a spear-like torrent. We twisted hard right. Wind screamed. Gu Jie barked coordinates. Lu Gao bled from the nose but held his rope tighter. Jia Yun gritted her teeth, struggling against the sheer pressure smashing down on us. The formations reacted like a hive, unleashing torrents of illusions, kinetic assaults, and spiritual dissonance. For every inch forward, the Megatron fought with all its weight and soul.

Then… silence fell. Not the comforting kind, but the kind that always came before the plunge.

Ahead of us stretched a wall of unbroken blue, sky deeper than ocean, untouched and vast.

We pierced it.

The moment the Megatron breached the final boundary, the light warped. The blue bled into gray, and the gray unraveled into thick clouds laced with fog. Everything dimmed… and then burst into clarity.

A starry night greeted us, brilliant and cold, wrapped in a sea of swirling mist.

Below us lies the False Earth.

We had arrived.

Lu Gao stood near the ballistae, his arms braced against the railing, face lifted toward the heavens as the Megatron surged upward. His voice trembled with awe. “It’s beautiful… So this is what’s beyond the sky…”

Not really. The Hollowed World was an inward sphere, after all, a divine egg with gravity twisted inside out. What he was seeing wasn’t the cosmos, but a shell of illusions and formation-light woven with celestial lies. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the luxury to explain the physics of our false sky.

“We’re not done yet!” I shouted over the roar of speeding winds. “The stars you see… that’s a formation. They’ll attack!” I pointed to the glowing constellations ahead. “Lu Gao! Load the ballistae! Aim for the stars!”

To his credit, Lu Gao didn’t hesitate. He spun the crank, loading a blessed bolt and imbuing it with his violet flames. The metal hissed with heat. As the Megatron veered into a spiral, he fired.

Explosions burst across the canopy of false stars. The lights above rippled like shattered glass, breaking apart into shards of energy that whistled past us. The Megatron groaned with strain, veering through its remains. Our wings scraped formation traps, and I felt the pressure in my ears shift violently as we swerved between cursed currents and collapsing runes.

Still, we advanced.

Finally, after what felt like being chewed and spat out by the sky itself, we burst through a veil of blue that twisted into clouds and finally bled into mist. We were almost upon the False Earth… Just… a little bit more…

Jia Yun breathed in deeply and said far too loudly, “That was exciting! But not dangerous at all…”

I facepalmed immediately. “Jia Yun…” I muttered. “Why? Why would you say that?” I swore, she just jinxed us. That was supposed to be Gu Jie's job! From my right, the fog began to warm. The horizon split. Light bled in, not gentle, but invasive, pressing into our eyes like knives of radiance. Dawn arrived with malevolence.

“It’s the Sun,” I whispered.

And the Sun heard me.

Alice called down from the crow’s nest. “David… Remember that time we fought that dead immortal? The one in the grafted dimension where the sky started smiling at us?”

“This isn’t the same,” I remarked, “This is worse!”

Lu Gao squinted at the horizon. “What’s… that?” he asked, lifting a hand to shield his eyes.

“It’s the Sun,” Gu Jie repeated.

And it was.

Not metaphorically. Not spiritually. Not symbolically. It was the literal sun, and it had a face.

The orb of flame was impossibly close. Slowly, it began to writhe. Its surface peeled like searing cloth, and beneath the light was something alive. Arms of plasma stretched outward. Shoulders churned from the solar flare. Two enormous orbs of burning white opened like eyes.

"Holy motherfucking-"

I never finished.

The Sun had limbs. The Sun had eyes. And the Sun was pissed.

It fired.

Twin beams of condensed light surged from its pupils, crashing toward us with enough force to rend continents. I raised my hand and cast, “Judgement Severance!”

A holy rift split the sky, shaped like a great cruciform gash. The beams struck the rift and vanished into the void, devoured by the divide in reality. But the pressure hit us anyway. The Megatron staggered, groaning under the weight of redirected power. My Quintessence plummeted.

“We’re actually fighting the Sun,” I muttered to myself, wiping sweat from my brow, though it might’ve been blood.

And then…

“Ah, shit…” Alice shouted.

I turned.

Behind us, peeking through the other side of the sky…

The Moon had arrived.

The Sun had taken on a masculine form, hulking, radiant, and ancient in fury. But the Moon was no less terrifying. From the other side of the sky, the pale orb twisted and unfurled, forming a slender, elegant figure wrapped in silvery mist. Her hair bled stars, flowing like constellations torn from the heavens, and her eyes were twin voids that devoured light. If the Sun burned with divine judgment, the Moon seduced with annihilation.

She raised a hand in one graceful sweep.

We were ripped from the cloudy veil of the False Earth’s upper layer and hurled violently back into the greater sky, no longer flying, but falling upward into the breathless void. My insides twisted from the displacement. The Megatron rattled like a dying animal.

"We're so gonna die!" cried Jia Yun.

"Shut it, lady!" echoed Lu Gao.

I called up to Alice in the crow’s nest. “I have an idea! It’s probably stupid, but the chances are—”

“It’ll work!” Gu Jie cut in, wind whipping her voice thin. “Just do it!”

“David!” Alice snapped. “Don’t you dare die on me!”

“I make no promises!” I yelled back. “Take care of my body, will you?!”

Without wasting another breath, I cast Divine Possession, sending my strongest soul hurtling toward the one target everyone would say not to possess.

The Sun.

The moment my soul touched that impossibly bright entity, I ceased to be. Language fled. Thoughts scattered. I wasn’t Da Wei anymore. I wasn’t anything. I was ash. I was light. I was energy stripped bare and raw. I existed in a state beyond agony, beyond comprehension.

And then, terrifyingly, I was content.

The fire whispered to me. It told me I was the Sun. That I had always been the Sun. That I was proud and pure and warm, and that I had a duty to burn.

Burn everything.

I hovered on the precipice of losing myself, one more heartbeat, and I’d have never returned. But somewhere deep within, past all the lies and light and death, I remembered Alice’s voice. Gu Jie’s defiance. Lu Gao’s courage. Jia Yun’s curse of optimism. And the memory of my own stupid promise: not to die again.

With every ounce of remaining willpower, I seized control. Just for a moment. Just enough.

I turned the Sun’s face.

I focused all that maddening fury, not toward us, but at the Moon.

Twin beams of solar fire erupted from my eyes, carving through the sky like swords from a vengeful god. They missed the Megatron by a miracle’s breath, ripping through the air and finding their mark.

The Moon let out a soundless scream. Her body twisted in pain as half her chest, specifically, her left breast, was obliterated by the beam. Stars poured from the wound like weeping blood. And still, her glare intensified, her shadowed form growing larger and more wrathful.

I didn’t get to see what happened next.

Because I returned.

My soul slammed back into my body like a comet. I collapsed, chest heaving, lungs burning with effort I hadn’t made. My memories were fuzzy, blurred, and twisted with thoughts that didn’t belong to me.

I had been the Sun.

And it had killed me.

I coughed, vision swimming, and found Alice above me. She cradled me in her arms, brushing away the sweat and blood, muttering something I couldn’t quite catch.

“…Idiot,” she said softly, voice cracking. “You always do this…”

I smiled, barely.

“Yeah,” I croaked. “But… I think I vaporized a boob…”