In a strange moment, Li Shan felt his body shift through time, as if the fabric of time itself had torn around him.
He opened his eyes to find himself in a world he could hardly believe existed, a strange world that did not resemble what he had imagined in his favorite novel "Dances of the Heavenly Dragons."
He was not the hero who would achieve glory, nor the villain whom everyone would oppose. He was merely someone else… one of the forgotten.
He was born in a forgotten era known only as "The Nine Heavenly Kingdoms", a period known by few, from many millennia ago.
An era that witnessed a fragile balance between the heavens and the earth, between humans and mighty creatures.
Here, in this lost time, Li Shan became one of the Six Emperors of jade, an immortal ruler who governed both the earth and the heavens.
His journey began as one of these emperors, where he founded a great sect and lived a life filled with power and prestige. He had many concubines, each more beautiful and powerful than the last.
Everyone around him bowed their heads in reverence to him, the one who ruled all.
But despite this outwardly dazzling glory, Li Shan always felt something deep within him, a feeling he could not explain, a sensation that grew with each passing year.
An inner emptiness that could not be filled by anything.
"Immortality… that is the mirage I have been chasing all this time." He thought to himself as he gazed at the stars from his floating palace.
"The closer I get to it, the more I realize it has no value. What does life mean if it has no end?"
He had lived through generations, gained boundless power
He had fought, ruled, and challenged, but none of it satisfied the void that grew in his heart.
"Has life become nothing more than an endless spiral? Do I want to be great forever?"
He felt a bitterness in his throat as he thought about it. "I have loved, but did I love for love's sake? Or did I want something to fill the emptiness?"
Then there were those he hated, those who challenged his authority, those who tried to obstruct him on his path. "They were mere tools... Tools for appearance, nothing more." But even in his hatred for them, he fulfilled his desire to prove his strength.
He fought for something, something he knew would never be achieved.
As time passed, he withdrew into the shadows of his own self, lost in deep thought about the goal he had been striving for.
What had he truly achieved in the end? Power, wealth, beauty? All of that stood against an astonishing emptiness. Immortality was not the answer, it was merely a trap, a trap to keep one in an endless cycle of ambitions.
"I think I've reached the furthest I can go." He spoke softly, but his words echoed throughout his palace. "I've reached the pinnacle of everything, and I no longer need anything else."
Then, the time had come…
In that moment, he took out the Eternal Moon Dragonfly from its secret place. A strange and ancient weapon, its blade shining like light piercing the darkness, a weapon capable of tearing the world apart if used in the right way.
"This weapon…" he whispered, as he watched the tool in his hand. "It is not just a weapon, it is a triumph over everything. Not just a knife, but a break in the chains of time itself."
The blade of the Eternal Moon Dragonfly had hidden in the Daoist temples for thousands of years, waiting for the moment it would be used. A weapon of unimaginable power, capable of reshaping the universe, but using it made the crossing to the end inevitable. Immortality could no longer have a place here.
"I will not be immortal anymore." He said, looking up at the sky, "I will not continue in this eternal battle."
In that moment, he decided to end it all.
"Forever, I will remain in this place… but with this weapon, I will leave it."
And so, he used the Eternal Moon Dragonfly, to put an end to the immortality he had long sought, and to travel into the future, where he would begin a new journey. This time, not to stay, but to destroy the path of immortality itself, and seek answers to questions that had tormented him through the ages.
"Immortality is not the end. It is the beginning… the beginning of the end."