The story of Donghuang Taiyi

When Donghuang Taiyi was newly born he saw the demon hosts of the world scattered across the wilds, each bird and beast fighting alone and constantly harried by the Wu clan. He agreed with Dijun that they would gather them and make a clan that could hold its own.

The two raised halls in the heavens and took in every kind of bird and beast: this was the Yao Heavenly Court. Taiyi sat in its hall holding command over the demon hosts and was honoured by them as the Demon Emperor, with charge of campaigns and of the ordering of the clans.

Taiyi carried the Chaos Bell with him.

As the Yao Heavenly Court grew, Taiyi travelled its four borders, drilled the newly joined demon troops, and worked out the Zhou-Heaven Star Formation with Dijun and Kunpeng, choosing the station each star would answer to.

The Twelve Ancestral Witches held the land and harried the borders of the Heavenly Court again and again. Taiyi led the demon troops out to meet them many times, throwing their lines into confusion with the sound of the bell. The engagements went either way, and the grievance deepened.

Once Dijun had laid out the Zhou-Heaven Star Formation, Taiyi helped work it, moving between its eyes and posting demon generals at the crucial points, so that between them the two held everything inside and outside the Heavenly Court.

The Wu clan at last pressed forward with the Twelve Capital Gods and Demons Formation. The clans drew up across the world; Taiyi came out armed, stood before the lines with the Chaos Bell, and at its first note the three armies of the Yao clan advanced into a general engagement.

Several times during the battle Taiyi broke a hard Ancestral Witch assault with the sound of the bell. Something of the force of the primal world seemed to echo in it, and wherever it reached the Wu attack faltered and the Yao clan steadied its ranks.

The fighting locked and losses grew. Seeing Dijun refuse to give ground, Taiyi led the best of the Yao clan straight at the Wu centre and closed with several Ancestral Witches in turn, the bell never quiet.

When Dijun’s strength gave out and he fell, Taiyi, torn between grief and rage, held the Zhou-Heaven Star Formation alone and went on ringing the bell to drive the battle, trying to turn it; but the spirit of the Yao clan was no longer what it had been.

Seeing one of the enemy commanders dead, the Wu clan pressed harder. Taiyi held them off as long as he could, but could not stand against so many Ancestral Witches at once. He took a grave wound, and the sound of the bell grew faint.

At the last moment of the decisive battle Taiyi fought on to the end and fell where he stood. The Yao Heavenly Court had lost both its founders, the star formation collapsed, and its halls were left without a master.

After Taiyi’s death the Chaos Bell was lost. Some tellers say it sank into the wreckage of the battlefield with him, others that someone found it and carried it away from the Heavenly Court; after that there is no certain record, and the versions do not agree.

The Yao Heavenly Court came apart after Taiyi fell. The demon hosts either scattered across the world or attached themselves to old preceptors such as Kunpeng; the halls of that year fell into ruin and never looked as they had.

On Taiyi’s last battle the Honghuang novels differ: some have him and an Ancestral Witch destroy each other, some have him burst his own primordial spirit and the Chaos Bell to cover the retreat, and some write only that the bell fell silent and no body was ever found.

After the Wu–Yao war nobody in the world saw the Chaos Bell again, and no one succeeded to the seat of Demon Emperor. The site of Taiyi’s Heavenly Court sank slowly out of memory, leaving only the stories behind.