Recorded in old manuscripts of scattered families of dragons, and read by prehistoric gods from the land of the rising sun. An archaic tale was present forewarning a continuous catastrophe.

  Many many eons ago, a scattered clan of dragons from the Chaos World propagated by the near Dao realm supreme being named Pangu, traveled across the infinite Chaos Sea. Through all forms of unique geographical scenery that would’ve terminated most beings from existence, an arduous journey that took a mental toll despite the immense power each member of that group possessed.

  The remnants of Primordial Celestial Dragons, and whatever vassal species who’d chosen to follow after them. Their sovereign, a sage ruler who’d lived longer than most universes could exist fled in shame. Departing from an inability to face the people and the mentor he felt he had failed.

  Recorded in these manuscripts by the descendents of that group, it told of a society that felt lost in what to do. Adhering to their last and most sacred duty, they planted the artifact of their sovereign’s mentor inside a burgeoning Chaos World.

  In an attempt to nurture what they’d assumed would resurrect a great celestial being, they inadvertently created a monstrosity instead.

  One with existence. Its body was the endless ocean. Its body was the vast expanse of space. It body sky and clouds hanging above. Its body was the laws existence that governed all natural phenomena.

  Mindless, willless, soulless. But an extremely powerful nigh invincible being.

  The experts back then looked upon their actions with regret. This perversion of their intentions haunted the dragons and their empress for eons to come.

  Time and again through accident or direct intentions, it’ll resurface. Wether it be curious ancient gods researching its nature, or members of the dragon race who felt they knew better. Somehow, someway, this song and dance would always occur.

  Gui Daiyu felt nothing but regret towards the towering monstrosity now. Its presence was so hollow, not even the slightest bit wrathful yet destroyed everything in its wake. It was chaos in its purest form.

  Cultivators were creatures of order when it came to their on physiological make up. Control and harmony were central to cultivating the Dao. She never wondered what would’ve occurred without it because she knew the answer from first hand experience.

  All power, no mind. Pure chaos, no control. The Yamata no Orochi. The Shadow of Da Hai

  The circle formed by her dragons, most of whom were descendents of the original Chaos Immortals who’d fled with her and Zulong were mostly familiar with how to handle the great serpent. Many of those original dragons had long perished, smothered beneath the enormous weight of the Orochi’s numerous assaults. But their memories and methods lived on.

  From the formation, nine angles representative of the highest singular numerical value poked out like arrows being drawn. Chain like appendages arose from the scales of all those partaking in the ritual.

  Nine was a sacred number among the dragons. It was however many digits their creator had on one claw, exactly how many blood sons he had. Hence, nine arrows will be fired into the Yamata no Orochi and subsequently clasp it in the Dragon Soveriegn’s claw.

  Gui Daiyu battered away several of the snake heads at the same time with a heavy swing of her father’s hammer. Her cultivation had increased greatly over the years, reaching the same heights as peak Primal Zenith Chaos Immortals during the war that forced her husband away. But she’ll never be the same kind of monster as he and similar talents became.

  Her arms stung from repeatedly suppressing the serpent. It was only its heads so far thankfully. The time before they managed to pull the broken sword from the landmass, it formed a torso below the heads and almost killed her.

  Her shell came to great use then and now. Her inherited defensive capabilities had grown to a point where her shell was impenetrable by all the Primal Zenith Chaos Immortal she’d met in her lifetime. Even multiple crunches from Yamata no Orochi failed to break her.

  Using that same shell, she withstood one head biting into her. Then a second head opened its maw even wider and chomped down on them both. Twice the incoming power and she still held strong. Not even when the rest of the heads turned towards her did she flinch.

  “Humph, Nine Clawed Killing!” she cried with a swing of her hammer. A pale imitation of what Zulong could’ve done with his claw.

  She smashed apart three of the heads that were now completely made of seawater and sent the serpent into disarray. ‘That should buy me some time.’

  “Your majesty, we are almost done. Please hold on!”

  She smiled softly and blessed the loyalty of the dragon race.

  Keeping a hold of her hammer, she prepared herself. If the serpent charges for her again, she’ll knock it back again with ‘The Dragon Rises from the Sea.’ Another attempt at mimicking Zulong, but all his techniques were stronger anyway.

  “Alright, fire on…wait second what is he doing?”

  Gui Daiyu snapped her attention to the figure of Shuten Doji who had walked right through the formation unhindered. The kamis and yokais were too shocked to stop him, and her dragons had been too focused to notice. Nobody expect anyone to willingly walk into a fight that was clearly out of their league.

  In the oni’s hand was the same broken sword her people had separated from Yamata no Orochi and the source of their troubles. She felt like ripping the yokai apart for his actions.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  “Oof,” she grunted from a pillar of water smashing into her in her moment of lapse. “Grah, sword spirit step away right now,” she demanded of him.

  She had known of his existence since before his birth but had left him alone in ignorance with the broken sword. Seemed silly to the chief deity of the Kotoamatsukami when she warned her years ago, but she had a clear reason why.

  The sword detached from the serpent, sapped it of strength. But bringing it away from the epicenter of its emergence came close to awakening it.

  She had tried, her alchemical experts and formation experts had tried. Every time they picked up the inert relic and flew away with it, it started drawing out the form of the serpent. Like how a magnet would suck in a metal, the sword draws out the Yamata no Orochi.

  It was agreed upon by Izanagi no Mikoto and herself to seal it beneath a spiritual mountain and block off news about it. When the old chief deity expired, that information passed on to Amaterasu.

  Who knew that years later, the sword would spawn a connate lifeform of its own. Shuten Doji had no parent, appearing one day in the same fashion her husband and his master had. She couldn’t deduce his exact birth for some reason however, just that it was in relation to the broken Heavenly Sword of Gathering Clouds. Hence she bequeathed him the monicor of sword spirit.

  That same sword was raised in Shuten Doji’s hand. The oni glanced at it with fascination, then at the serpent with a look of yearning. It was as if he were reaching out to it, and in the same manner, half of the eight heads raised in his direction.

  Rays of sunlight, arcs of moonlight, and electrifying hurricanes collided into the serpent’s many heads. The trinity gods of this Chaos World’s pantheon entered in an attempt to grab the Oni. Amaterasu, Tsukuyomi, and Susanoo were direct descendants of the first deities of Takamagahara and inherited the celestial energies from that realm.

  It was a separate dimension forged by the first creator gods of the Amatsukami after the first disaster of Yamata no Orochi’s emergence. Through training and occasional guidance from her people, their realm could be comparable to what the Primitive World referred to as Great Unity Golden Immortals. Together and armed with all their treasures, they could output the power of a Great Principle Chaos Immortal.

  Susanoo with the Ame no Habakiri in hand, cut an arc towards Shuten Doji. Ryujin had already explained to him to keep the broken sword out of reach before things got worse.

  Reacting by a guided instinct, Shuten Doji blocked the blow with a shocked look. “Stay out of my way Shinrei,” he said towards the storm god. His body emanated a level of power greater than what he’d been fighting with before. It managed to push back Susanoo’s full power and left him a cut on his waist.

  ‘The hell? That would’ve bisected me if I had not dodged. Has he surpassed the Amatsu Mugen realm?’ The third brother of the trinity fell back feeling the disturbing wound. He could not detect a Dao fruit from the oni so he was ultimately unsure.

  “Get out of my way, get out of my way!” Shuten Doji became busy fighting off Amaterasu and Tsukuyomi in the short interim. The other heads of the serpent stretched out.

  One of them would’ve bitten into all three had a gargantuan turtle hundreds of kilometres long not interfered. Gui Daiyu’s true form dispelled the heads and blasted out currents of water to restrain the creature.

  Collapsing her arms into a hand seal, she forged a statue of a dragon headed turtle atop the eight heads and pressed down on it.

  Her eye turned down at the oni with anger. “I warned out. Do not think just because you were born from that sword that I would not kill you,” she said in an echoey voice that deafened the universe.

  “Damn you,” Shuten Doji growled. He was then stabbed through the shoulder by needles produced by Tsukuyomi. Amaterasu’s mirror then moved in front of him, restricting his movements.

  “Should we do it beloved?” Tsukoyomi asked. “They seem to want to protect. But given his actions.”

  “Jeopardizing all of reality with his insanity, hmph.” Amaterasu drew a short double edged sword of her own.

  The broken sword was still in the oni’s grip. Unseen by the two amatsukami, it pulsated with a feeling into Shuten Doji’s body. ‘Return, return, return,’ he interpreted from its will.

  Rather, he and the sword exuded the same message over, and over again. Shuten Doji still didn’t fully comprehend it. Yet it was so naturally instinctual that he wouldn’t even resist it.

  The sword and he produced a screeching sound together, akin to metal scraping against metal. Both celestial gods flinched while a huge volume of water erupted from whatever land that wasn’t already submerged.

  “Guh!” Gui Daiyu’s humungous body was hit square in the stomach by a current that transformed into a snake wrapping around her. The statue she had built to suppress Yamata no Orochi was full of cracks and had been pushed up.

  “Your majesty!” the dragons inside the nine pointed formation felt powerless.

  Unwilling to submit, Gui Daiyu snapped her head onto the neck of the snake entrapping her. She crushed the head that escaped which caused the rest of its body to collapse. At the same time, a wound into the Chaos Sea was opened. She quickly grabbed it and forced spacetime shut. ‘Can’t risk any droplets.’

  “How is it growing in strength so quickly?” she mused. Eying the formation, she knew it was almost ready to fire. She had to get out of its blast radius. ‘That damned brat.’

  At the same time, Shuten Doji had broken out of his encirclement and descended. The forming heads below him twirled together. Each penetrating through each other in a tussle. All the same, their jaws aimed to eat him.

  “Don’t you dare!” Gui Daiyu screamed at him, she blasted him with a beam.

  Reacting at an impossible speed for him, Shuten Doji spun around to cleave with his broken sword.

  “Impossible! He split it?”

  The three supreme gods of Takamagahara backed away. Shuten Doji fell further into the maw of the great serpent faster than reality should dictate. He and the broken sword together, was like magnet being sucked in by another.

  “Your majesty, retreat now. We’ll close the dragon’s claw.”

  Gui Daiyu nodded and shed her true form.

  The formation’s nine arrows fired. The illusionary claw of a black and gold dragon enclosed around the serpent.

  …

  In darkness, Shuten Doji opened his eyes.

  “I thought my clothes were shredded,” he mused after checking himself out.

  Standing up, he took in the empty world around him. No ceiling, no floor, no entrance nor exist. There was no colour, no substance, nor any sign of existence. Other than a strange feeling of being immensely far away from his former location, he could not detect anything.

  Confused, he walked around only to end up in a circle. In this space, lying down was the same as standing up. The broken sword in his hand made no discernible movements.

  He wasn’t panicked however. Rather, he felt a gentle warmth that was similar to his home on Mt Ibuki. In fact, the environment didn’t feel too dissimilar to the island he’d lived on his whole life.

  The natural laws of nature were the exact same, though expressed differently. The vision was akin to a primordial state of existence, far removed from the physical world.

  “Hm?”

  As he was enjoying his time in the blank void, it began taking form. A tiled floor manifested for him to stand on. Pillars rose into a decorative ceiling. Walls lined with murals depicting events he was unfamiliar with emerged.

  Before him, a great open entrance came into existence. Outside was a world of white clouds in the backdrop of a golden sky. Acting as a road, this sea of clouds lead to numerous buildings in what appeared to be a celestial city. In the distance, he could even make out floating mountains.

  He had never been here before, seen nothing from here. He was totally unfamiliar with this location. But somehow he could identify it all with full clarity. And not in the language he was used to either.

  ‘Lingxiao Palace.’

  Turning around, he saw the hallway end in an elevated platform where four empty thrones sat. Then on the highest platform behind that, was an occupied throne that floated just above a white lotus with twelve large petals.

  The man sitting on it appeared to be expecting. His bearded head rested on a knuckle, while his other hand tapped the armrest. He wore clean white robes not dissimilar to the clouds outside, which had dragons running along his sleeve. On his head, was a crown with nine beads falling to his forehead.

  The man seemed stern, tired, and annoyed at the same time. He released a soft sign and sat straighter. Shuten Doji knew he had never met him before. Yet he could recall him, and knew he was ruler of this realm he found himself in.

  Even though he could not see it, he knew instinctively that on the back of this man’s clothing were four characters.

  ‘Jade Eminence Great Emperor.’

  …

  In the endless ocean, Gui Daiyu watched with fear in her heart. The thousands of dragons retreated with widened eyes.

  The claw had collapsed and exploded into pieces. What remained wriggled in suspended air. It was once again, made entirely of seawater and possessed eight serpentine heads. But instead of coming from the sea or the land, it was a full body.

  Detached from the endless ocean was the Yamata no Orochi. What’s more, within its watery body was a complete skeleton.