The sky was burning.
Above the Immortal Realm's fractured firmament, amidst pillars of heavenly flame and rivers of cosmic blood, Tian Yao stood alone—yet undefeated.
His robes, once white like fresh snow, were now soaked in ichor—divine blood from the thousand fallen beings who had dared to bar his path. Dragons, their scales shattered and eyes dimmed, lay coiled in ruin. Celestial phoenixes, their flames long snuffed out, lay buried under debris made from the bones of gods. Mystical beasts, angels, and immortal monarchs from the Twelve Heavens... none had survived.
They had called him a heretic.
They had called him a tyrant.
And now, they could call him God—if only they had lived.
The heavens above wept violet lightning.
He stood tall, unmoving, at the very edge of ascension. With each breath, reality buckled. With each heartbeat, laws of nature threatened to collapse.
All he needed was one more step.
His golden eyes flickered toward the shattered dome of the sky, where the Ascension Gate—a spiraling wheel of cosmic fire—began to part.
Then—
A cold wind kissed his back.
Something was wrong.
Before Tian Yao could turn, pain erupted through his spine.
His arms stiffened. His vision dimmed. His soul screamed.
A sword pierced through his chest from behind.
Not just any sword.
His own sword.
Fatebreaker, a jagged obsidian blade forged from the bones of time itself.
Its tip burst from his chest, crackling with a twisted version of his own Dao. The heavens halted their motion. The Ascension Gate slammed shut with a finality that echoed through all realms.
His hands trembled as he reached for the hilt.
"...You?" His voice rasped like a dying star.
Behind him stood a familiar figure—his disciple, the one he had raised like a son.
The one whose name he had carved into the Hall of Eternal Legacy.
The one who now wore a smile devoid of warmth.
"You taught me to reach beyond," the disciple whispered, his eyes glowing with a warped Dao. "But you never said what to do once I got there."
Tian Yao coughed, blood and starlight spilling from his lips.
His mind grew cloudy. His soul was being sealed.
Fatebreaker, now turned against him, was more than a weapon—it was a curse, and it devoured everything it cut.
Power drained from his limbs. The heavens, seeing his fall, roared in laughter—or was it grief?
"Even you...?" he murmured.
The traitor twisted the sword, and Tian Yao dropped to his knees.
Around him, the corpses of gods began to fade into motes of golden dust, returning to the cycle. But he—
He would be erased.
He saw it now. This betrayal had been planned for centuries. His rise, his rebellion, his war against the Celestial Order—all manipulated, all allowed... so that at the peak, when he grasped for the final spark of eternity...
He would be slain by his own hand.
But Tian Yao was not only a god.
He was a master of forbidden arts, a heretic of reincarnation, the creator of the unspeakable spell:
"Wheel of Samsara, heed my dying breath…"
"Return me to the cradle. Reset the flame. Let the memory and the will remain."
As his body crumbled, his heart exploded into ash.
The stars above ruptured.
The final fragments of his divinity ignited the sky in a cataclysmic burst.
And then—
Silence.
No sound.
No sky.
No gods.
Only a single wheel, glowing with the broken runes of fate, spinning beneath reality itself.
Tian Yao had died.
But death would not hold him.
---
The boy walked alone through the misty foothills of Mount Yungang, wearing a tattered robe and a look of complete indifference.
To the common eye, Jin Wu-ren was a nobody—an orphan from a fallen branch of the Jin Clan, a child barely strong enough to qualify for the Outer Sect Trials. His aura reflected that image perfectly: third stage of Body Tempering Realm, just above the threshold for eligibility.
That was the mask.
In truth, his soul burned with power enough to annihilate cities, and his cultivation had already reached the Nascent Soul Realm—the same level as the current Patriarch of the Jin Clan.
But Jin Wu-ren hid it.
He had hidden it from the moment he took his first breath in this world.
He had been reborn in the lowlands of Yu Province, into a minor offshoot of the Jin bloodline barely acknowledged by the main family. His father, Jin Yao, died before he was born—an expendable foot soldier whose name had already begun to rot in the clan's archives.
His mother, Jin Meng, died when he was seven. She had been sent on a suicide mission by the clan elders.
A convenient sacrifice. A way to erase unwanted branches without dirtying noble hands.
To the clan, her death was a small thing.
But to him, it was a matter of principle.
He did not love her. What mortal woman could move the heart of one who had ruled Heaven? But he respected her. She had fed him, clothed him, kept him alive through the pitiful indignities of mortal infancy.
And respect, once earned, came with consequences.
The first to die was the man who signed her deployment scroll.
The second was the woman who withheld the healing elixirs she needed.
Then the scout who leaked her path.
The junior elder who mocked her name.
And every single cultivator who set foot on that mission.
He killed them all. Quietly. Thoroughly.
Even their cats. Even their birds.
Nothing with breath or blood escaped his vengeance.
Their deaths were ruled as accidents, beasts, plague, misfortune.
But the sect's cultivators began to speak in whispers. Of black mist in the night, of eyes that watched through fire, of bodies twisted in fear, faces frozen mid-scream.
Jin Wu-ren said nothing.
He didn't need to.
He had merely cleaned the filth beneath his feet.
And now, at ten years old, he stood once more on the edge of action.
The Outer Sect Entry Trial was held annually—an opportunity for all branch families and servants to offer their best youths to the martial path. The minimum requirement was the third stage of Body Tempering. Wu-ren made sure that's exactly what the elders would see.
To them, he was an ant.
To him, they were gravel.
He didn't join to rise through ranks.
He joined because he was bored.
Ten years had passed since his rebirth. In that time, he had remained low. Silent. Detached. Mortal power struggles were too dull, too small, to hold his attention.
But even gods feel the itch of tedium.
He stood beneath the cracked stone gate of the trial grounds. Other children gathered around, laughing, whispering. Some mocked his worn robes, others sneered at his lack of connections.
He didn't look at them. He didn't care.
He simply watched the mountain wind curl through the trees, waiting.
"Perhaps today something interesting will happen," he thought.
The Outer Sect Trial would change nothing in the grand scheme. But perhaps, just perhaps, it would stir up ripples in this stagnant pond.
And when the ripples became waves, he would ride them to the heavens once more.
Above the mountain, dark clouds gathered unnaturally. The birds fell silent. Even the wind slowed.
Fate had shifted.
A god had awoken.
---
The trial grounds of the Jin Clan's outer compound were vast—an open stone field carved into the side of Mount Yungang. Young hopefuls gathered in loose groups, their laughter echoing against the cold mountains.
Most were ten to twelve years old, their robes clean, their eyes full of dreams and shallow ambition.
Jin Wu-ren stood among them like a ghost that hadn't yet decided whether it would haunt or stay silent.
He did not speak. He did not greet. He merely waited.
A bell rang, low and heavy. The first trial began.
A test of strength.
Each participant had to strike the Stone Drum—a massive artifact designed to gauge raw physical power. The stronger the strike, the louder the echo and the higher one's rank.
First went the sons of the inner family. Their techniques were solid, their forms decent. Cracks of sound rang out, drawing scattered applause.
"Seven pulses! Good for a boy of eleven!"
"Eight pulses! Elder Jin Rou's son is truly talented!"
Then came the branch families. Fewer cheers, more indifference.
Finally, it was the orphans' turn.
Jin Wu-ren walked up when his name was called. His robes were still dusty. His feet still bare. The stone beneath him barely noticed his weight.
The overseer barely looked up. "Third stage Body Tempering? Be quick. Don't hold up the others."
Wu-ren nodded.
He raised a hand… and lightly tapped the stone.
A soft thump. A single echo.
The overseer smirked. "One pulse? Tch."
But something was strange. A hairline crack had appeared down the side of the drum.
He blinked. Rubbed his eyes. Looked again.
Gone. No crack. The artifact looked fine.
"Must be seeing things," he muttered.
The second trial followed immediately after.
A test of speed and agility.
An obstacle course of shifting platforms, spinning spears, and jade flame traps. The path was designed to weed out weaklings and fools.
Wu-ren moved like water poured over stone—no wasted motion, no flare. His pace was lazy, almost bored.
He didn't dodge the fire. It missed him on its own.
He didn't leap between blades. They turned aside a hair before contact.
He didn't race to finish. He strolled.
By the time he stepped off the course, three other names had been called before him, making it seem like he was simply slow.
The rankings board placed him near the bottom.
Perfect.
"And now," called the elder atop the podium, "the final trial! A test of will!"
A crystal slab floated in midair. The Mirror of Spirit Roots. It shone with faint white light, waiting to reveal the inner nature of those who stepped into its field.
One by one, the children approached. Most showed pale colors—gray for mediocrity, green for basic spiritual roots, blue for minor talent.
Only two had yellow light, marking them as mid-grade cultivators in the future. The elders nodded at them with polite interest.
When Wu-ren's turn came, he stepped in silently.
The crystal flared—
Then immediately dimmed.
"Gray," the scribe announced without emotion. "Low-tier root. Unremarkable."
The crowd barely noticed him as he stepped back.
No one saw how the Mirror's inner light had turned black for a heartbeat, then snapped to gray like a caged dog obeying a cruel command.
No one heard the faint crackle as the crystal's base burned with frost before healing itself.
No one but Wu-ren.
"Still too early," he murmured to himself. "Still sleeping."
When the trials concluded, the rankings were posted. His name appeared near the bottom, listed as "Jin Wu-ren – Grade Three Tempering – Gray Root."
Perfect.
Let them forget him. Let them mock. Let the insects crawl, unaware they danced over a god's skin.
The top candidates celebrated. Their parents beamed. The elders handed out tokens of entry.
Jin Wu-ren took his without comment, then turned away toward the setting sun.
He didn't even look at the mountain, though he felt it watching him.
Far above, hidden behind arrays of protective formation and cloud-veils, a primordial beast coiled in its cave felt a tremor in the air—and did not dare to breathe too loudly.
The Tyrant had entered the sect.
And the world, unaware, continued spinning toward its reckoning.