(Narrator voice: So there he was — floating half-dead in the sky, shirtless, hair on fire, and still somehow smirking like a man who just dodged his in-laws.)
Li Yun Wao was in the middle of his ninth heavenly tribulation.
Ninth.
Because apparently, the heavens had beef.
Thunder roared. Clouds twisted like angry beasts. Purple lightning crashed down like divine slaps from a very irritated god.
But Yun Wao? He was busy styling on them.
"Deploy artifact number seven," he muttered, tossing out a jade talisman.
BOOM — a golden barrier flared to life.
"Artifact eight, now!"
BOOM — flaming lotus petals exploded around him like fireworks at a fancy funeral.
"Artifact nine—wait, is this the one that backfires—"
Too late.
KABOOM.
> (Narrator: He may or may not have singed off his eyebrows. Again.)
Still, Yun Wao grinned.
He wasn't just fighting the heavens. He was mocking them.
"You call this a tribulation?" he shouted at the sky, eyes bloodshot but bright. "My aunt yells louder than this when I forget to visit!"
The clouds responded with another bolt of pure cosmic wrath.
CRACK— it struck his chest. He coughed blood. He laughed harder.
Because pain meant progress.
This was it. The edge of the next realm. The barrier between mortality and something far more dangerous.
He floated higher. Wind spiraling around him. The earth shook. Trees bent. Birds noped out of existence.
Then—silence.
The tribulation ended.
Yun Wao stood in the sky, robes torn, body steaming, hair wild like a demon's halo.
> (Narrator: And let's be honest — the man looked like a villain about to drop a fire mixtape.)
His eyes narrowed. The smirk faded.
He looked down at the horizon. Somewhere beyond those mountains, across rivers and ruins, was the place he once called home.
The Li Clan.
His family. His people. His roots.
But all that remained now was silence.
"Who did it…" he whispered, voice cracking through the calm. "Who burned my city… who killed them all…"
He clenched his fists. The heavens may have stopped striking, but his own thunder was just beginning.
Power surged in his veins, swirling like a vortex of wrath and memory.
He raised his hand to the sky — not to beg, but to declare.
> "Now I'm ready…"
"To find out who did this—"
BOOM.
The skies exploded again — this time from his energy.
And just like that…
The world would never be the same.
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> (Narrator: Yeah, you better hold onto your spirit pants. Because the real story just started.)
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