The Dawn of the New World

Green and blue bolts of lightning rained across the land leaving tens of meters long gashes in their wake. And from within these gashes men and beast alike would crawl their way out.

A few of them were humanoid but most were not.

The first thing they would do after coming out was to look to the sky which held no sun or moon anywhere in sight, in fact not even a single celestial body could be seen in the inky darkness, and yet, there was light.

Some of it was coming from the occasional lightning strikes but the rest was just there. Everything was dyed in a pale yellowish hue, even the very air.

There were trees but not a single leaf anywhere. There were streams of water but they were polluted and bubbling with miasma.

Bones big and small were littered across the landscape. Some were so small that they could barely be seen and others so big that they covered the horizon.

Shrieks and horrid cries echoed in the air as humanoid winged beasts flew about, sometimes even throwing in a cackle or two for good measure.

All manner of nightmarish beasts walked the desolate landscape, fighting and killing one another as they went along. From groups of tens to tens of thousands they clashed with their bare selves.

And from these clashes blood flowed into the splintered ground and was completely absorbed in the blink of an eye.

As one went deeper into the wasteland the stronger the creatures became. And there, within the densest part of the wasteland was a valley.

It was created by the protruding bones of some hopelessly immense creature that jetted into the sky for several kilometers. One could only imagine how big it must have been when it was alive to have left behind such monumental remains.

But on the inside, every inch of the valley floor was covered by corpses while more and more were being added to it with every passing second like meat into a grinder.

Claws, blades, hooves, and wings, humanoid and beast alike every single one of them fought tooth and nail not willing to give even an inch to the opponent.

But the odd thing was, unlike what was happening outside, there was some semblance of order in here.

Just from their rampaging energies alone it was easy to determine that only the strongest of the creatures fought here. The ones that would be overlords outside with countless followers now stood in single combat against one another.

The only rest came when one of them would die. And after a brief moment of respite another creature would walk up to challenge the victor.

If one looked carefully one would notice some of the creatures stealing glances at the northern end of the valley where a skull the size of a small mountain rested. There were two curved horns on its forehead, one broken in half while the other standing proud under the heavenless sky.

The same lighting that split the ground outside in half repeatedly struck the horn but did nothing to it. But perhaps the strangest part of all this was the sentence carved into the forehead of the skull.

"The Valley of Death" it read.

And within the very center of this valley was a stone gate, almost an exact replica of the one within the barren mountain with the only difference being the orientation and order of the runes and symbols which were reversed.

At first none of the surrounding creatures paid it any heed as they continued their endless battle but something changed all of a sudden when the gate came to life. The runes were set alight with Yin energy as a black sheet of water formed on the inside.

Silence fell over the Valley of Death, true to its name.

Every beastly thing froze midstride, slowly turning towards the gate which had stood there unchanged for countless eras, even before any of them had arrived in this purgatory.

A few of the beasts that obviously stood at the top of their respective tribes came forward, pushing the others aside to get a better view. One among them was a creature with the head of a crow and the upper body of a man and the lower body of an ox.

Its hooves exuded pure magma that set the ground on fire.

It wanted to see what secrets the gate might hold, this ancient artifact that had stood the test of time. No one dared to stop this 'crow', no one really wanted to.

It walked closer and knelt down to peer inside only to see Hao Xuan's very human face looking back at it which once again left it flabbergasted, albeit only for a moment.

"Human!" it growled, prompting countless questioning gazes from the rest.

*TREEEMBLE*

A tremor ran through the valley, following quickly after the beasts resonating words.