Master of Strange Dao

The center of the boundless deep sea is a place even long-roaming Black Ship Saints have never visited.

According to ancient legends, in a distant era, the boundless deep sea was not yet a deep sea; there were lands, islands, and numerous living beings here once.

However, a cataclysmic battle sank the lands of old, and the deep sea was no longer merely an ocean.

The unreachable center of the deep sea is a massive vortex.

A giant whale, nearing the end of its life, crossed barriers and mists to arrive here.

The ancient whale, sensing the water currents accelerating, drifted along, awaiting the simultaneous beginning of the end and its burial.

The vortex's currents carried the enormous whale's body, inching closer to that vortex.

The massive center of the vortex was a gigantic hollow, seemingly devouring everything.

It devoured seawater, air, the scattered Sun, Moon, and Star Radiance, and even spiritual energy.

This place seemed like a low point for spiritual energy, endlessly consuming the influx of spiritual energy from all around.

Yet at this moment, a slight change suddenly occurred between heaven and earth, imperceptible and elusive; it was a transformation within the heavens themselves.

At the brink of death, the ancient whale poked its head above the water, gazing at this unchanged world.

In its dying moment, in this time and place, it seemed to perceive everything in a trance.

It sensed the vortex's center, continually engulfing spiritual energy, yet also felt the heavens themselves changing.

All things within heaven and earth, no matter how they cycle, have a total sum.

Normally, this sum is always decreasing, due to the existence of powerful beings and some peculiar environments.

For instance, the vortex in the deepest part of the deep sea, which continuously consumes resources.

Or powerful beings that, after using vast resources, perish in the Void.

Precisely because of this, the entire world, like living beings, would eventually enter extinction after countless ages.

But now, somewhere, a change appeared, and this total sum between heaven and earth began to increase.

Even if only slightly, it was a fundamental transformation.

To put it plainly, the heavenly mechanism of Chaos, destined to have a determined end in the distant future, had now transformed into chaos, no longer a certainty.

The giant whale suddenly comprehended all this, its eyes surfaced, seemingly looking toward an unseen distant end, suddenly enlightened.

If it were to die and be buried here, it would be at the cost of the world it had lived its entire life in.

It had consumed vast resources in its lifetime; if sacrificed here, the loss would surpass that caused by several powerful human beings.

It decisively turned and swam away, heading toward the direction away from the vortex.

The ancient whale possessed wisdom that young sea creatures did not have.

It began to ponder why its hereditary memory told it this place was their eventual destination, why it could only truly find this place in death.

It started questioning if the inherited memory itself had an error?

Because never in its life had it been clearer, more perceptive of the world than now, as if it had suddenly opened its orifices.

As it swam back, it sorted through the inherited memory in its bloodline, finding more and more points of confusion and doubts.

When its confusion and doubts reached a limit, it saw something new.

It saw the oldest memory passed down its bloodline, a scene of chaos in which its ancestors swam among clouds, covered in armor, battling innumerable Great Demons and enemies concealed by blinding Divine Light, their true forms obscured.

It also saw its ancestors falling from the clouds, their armor shattering, Scale Armor collapsing, continually losing.

Ultimately, losing the power of flight, they fell into the sea, thereafter only able to roam the waters.

In its mind, it suddenly understood that this was the deepest fall.

And now, in seeking to swim away, the obstacles it faced increased, and instinctively it understood this was sublimation.

This was it reclaiming its ancestors' bloodline: success would mean sublimation, failure would mean becoming like its confused kindred, buried here.

The sea surface seemed to begin tilting, and as it swam, the resistance grew greater.

At last, it felt as if the sea had transformed into a vertical sky curtain, requiring it to surge from the bottom to the top of the curtain for transcension.

The thick skin started to disintegrate, flesh began tearing, its skeleton was exposed.

But with the ancient bloodline truly awakened, what had long been hidden in its bloodline was excavated.

Its skeleton began to grow, like its ancestors, forming Bone Armor, starting from its head, protecting the front half of its body.

In the most difficult and painful moment of its life, it felt unprecedented freedom and clarity.

After an unknown length of time, deep within the deep sea, the calm surface boiled, forming a massive water bubble.

When the bubble burst, a giant whale, thousands of feet long, its head fully encased in Bone Armor, with skin and flesh torn and nearly half missing, leaped from it.

A long, vast whalesong echoed between heaven and earth.

But at this moment, no one heard it, as the whalesong declared to the world, its species name: Cloud Whale, Demon Clan Cloud Whale.