The Dawn of the New World

"Oh god, what did you do!?!" Hao Xuan cried out from shock and anger.

"Me?! YOU! You did this a*shole!" Jin Wang retorted even louder.

"You little bitc-" Hao Xuan shouted while trying to strangle Jin Wang in the middle of a disaster.

*CRAAACK*

The floor beneath their feet cracked into two, effectively halting their altercation.

"Oh f*ck! Jump!" Hao Xuan quickly let go of Jin Wang and climbed on top of another coffin nearby, one that hadn't been destroyed yet.

"CAPTAIN!" Zeng Yu shouted from afar. He was also standing on top of a coffin.

"There's an entrance on the other side! Go from coffin to coffin and reach it!" he pointed to the other side of the hall.

The massive grid of coffins and statues had completely disappeared. There was no floor left anymore either. The remaining coffins seemed to be floating on nothing but air, and where the floor once used to be now held a neverending darkness.

About five people had already fallen down there and were most probably dead. The others were following Zeng Yu's orders and could be seen jumping to and fro from one coffin to the next.

Jin Wang who was standing next to Hao Xuan bent over the edge a little bit and stared down into the black abyss.

"Do you feel it?" he asked in a tone so light that even Hao Xuan was barely able to hear it. It sounded like he was mumbling to himself.

Hao Xuan also bent over and looked down but other than vertigo and a strong feeling of doom, there was nothing else.

Hao Xuan shook his head, "No...what...is it? What do you feel?"

Jin Wang moved back from the edge and looked at Hao Xuan with a rarely seen seriousness, "Cold. It's...so cold down there."

"Cold?" Hao Xuan frowned. No wonder he didn't feel it. Black's Qi was still in his body, doing its job.

"We'll talk later. Let's get out of here first," he said looking at the nearest coffin. It was about twenty meters away, but the problem was there was some rubble on it along with many cracks.

It looked like it would break soon.

As Hao Xuan got ready to jump, Jin Wang stopped him, "Let me go first."

Hao Xuan was going to refuse at first but he had heard of his prowess first-hand. If the coffin really did break, he would be able to jump off in time, but Hao Xuan couldn't say the same for himself.

"Alright, go," he moved back and nodded at Jin Wang.

The coffin they were on was only about four meters in size. And with Hao Xuan's extra-large body, it was already a bit cramped.

Hao Xuan moved towards the back of the coffin, waiting for him to leap off. But what he saw next made his heart skip a beat.

Jin Wang bent his knees to gather power in his legs, making them actually expand. His legs almost doubled in size and tore through his pants. The veins wriggled around like small snakes. Even Hao Xuan felt a bit suffocated just looking at it.

"O-Oi, isn't that a bit too mu-"

But before he could finish, the coffin they were on exploded from the sheer power exerted by Jin Wang's legs, propelling Hao Xuan in the opposite direction, in the direction of the Sagax's coffin.

"YOU F*CKING IDIOT!" was the last sentence Hao Xuan shouted before he fell into the giant coffin, making it collapse and fall into the icy darkness below.

"CAPTAIN!" Zeng Yu and Zeng Wu's worried yells along with Jin Wang's "Oh sh*t," resounded in the hall as Hao Xuan disappeared from sight.

****

*Drip*

*Drip*

*Drip*

Hao Xuan slowly opened his eyes as a cold liquid dripped over his face. He was met with total darkness and was barely able to see five feet ahead of him.

"Ouch!" the first sensation he felt was of a sharp pain as he tried to get up. His legs and ribs seemed to be broken.

The left leg was twisted at a forty-five-degree angle and his chest was crushed on the same side. Every time he breathed out it felt like needles were poking his lungs.

With some effort, he moved his hands over his ears and tensed up when he couldn't feel Black or White. Closing his eyes, he tried to feel for their souls with his connection and relaxed a little bit when he felt that they were both alive, and very close to him. Unfortunately, he wasn't in a condition to move.

With a wave of his hand, a humanoid shadow appeared right next to him.

"Master!" Ensis quickly bent down and inspected Hao Xuan's injuries.

"I'm fine," he waved his hand. "Go get Black and White, they are right over there," he looked at a certain direction.

"Yes," Ensis quickly walked off into the darkness fearlessly and came back three minutes later with the two snakes.

There were some scratches on their bodies and they seemed to be unconscious. But other than that they were fine.

Hao Xuan placed his hand on their bodies and called them back into his mind palace.

Upon seeing Hao Xuan's expression ease up Ensis looked around.

"Master, this place is...?"

Hao Xuan also looked around, letting out a sigh.

"No idea. I was in a tomb of some sort before falling into a coffin of a creature called Sagax. This is somewhere underneath it all," he explained the situation.

Ensis frowned after listening to everything that had happened.

"What?" Hao Xuan asked upon seeing his face.

"I seem to...have some memories of this creature," Ensis replied.

"What?!" Hao Xuan's ears perked up instantly

"How?"

"The GodFiend. Some of its memories have awakened in the time I have been cultivating. It had several encounters with these creatures called Sagax," Ensis explained.

"Aha, I forgot about that. You will have memories of that douche too huh.. So what do they say? What is this creature? And any idea what this world is?" Hao Xuan's eyes glittered as he looked at him for answers.