The Final Path to Enlightenment

In the year 4,800 of the Dao calendar, the last wisp of spiritual energy in the human world is about to fade away. Xuan Chen, the last Daoist of Kunlun Ruins, keeps watch over the ancestral temple, long abandoned and crumbling into rubble. Every day, he merely sweeps the fallen leaves and waits for the end. The sect’s scriptures are coated in dust, its ritual implements are dull and lifeless, and meditation no longer lets him sense the circulation of the cosmos. This is an age when Daoist arts have vanished, the gods have withdrawn, and mortals no longer believe in miracles. Then a blood-red meteor fell into the forbidden zone known as the Demon-Burial Abyss. The last faint trace of spiritual energy in the world was rapidly drained away, while from within the abyss came the roar of an ancient demon, one that should have been sealed away for good by the forebears. Xuan Chen understood that the end of the age of declining magic was not the end of all things, but the beginning of a true calamity. The demons that had escaped complete extermination in the prosperous days of the Dao were preparing to return while the world was at its weakest. Without spiritual energy, there could be no magical power. Without magical power, how could he subdue demons? Yet a Daoist’s duty was to uphold what was right and repel evil, even if all he had left was his battered body. He took out the peachwood sword passed down by his master, long since faded and dull, and resharpened it with ordinary iron. He brought out the last remaining talismans, faintly tinged with spiritual energy, and used his own withered blood as ink. Then he set out toward the abyss that devoured every glimmer of light. Behind him lay the bustling mortal world, which had long since stopped believing in gods and demons, and the people he had to protect, even if he lost all his power. This was a road to certain death, known to no one and remembered by no one. In the age of declining magic, the last Daoist would slay the final demon for all living beings and shed his last drop of blood. Though the Dao may be waning, the righteous are never alone. (Later on, Jiangnan makes a brief guest appearance for fun.)