The storm raged above the Shattered Peaks, lightning splitting the sky like the wrath of heaven unleashed.
Blood painted the mountaintop.
Bodies—hundreds of them—littered the ground. Their robes were torn, their weapons broken. Some still twitched, their golden cores extinguished.
At the center of it all stood one man.
His name had been erased from history.
His crimes were beyond counting.
And now, he stood at the edge of death.
"You cannot win."
The voice came from the Grand Elder of the Divine Sword Sect. His pristine white robes were stained crimson. His sword, Heaven's Judgment, trembled in his grip—not from fear, but from exhaustion.
Around him, the last of the Seven Celestial Sects' masters stood, their auras flickering like dying stars.
They had come to kill a monster.
And they had paid the price.
The man they surrounded merely laughed.
His body was broken. His meridians were shattered. His once-godly aura had dimmed to a flicker.
Yet he was still smiling.
"Win?" he rasped, blood dripping from his lips. "I stopped caring about winning centuries ago."
He took a step forward.
The masters flinched.
Even now, even like this—he was still terrifying.
The Grand Elder raised his sword. "Your forbidden arts are a stain upon the Dao. You have defied heaven, defied balance. Today, you die."
The man chuckled. "Defied heaven? No. I shattered it... and rejected its weak limitations."
He lifted his hand—fingers trembling, skin cracked and bleeding.
A pulse of dark energy flickered.
The masters braced.
Then... silence.
Nothing came.
The man sighed. "Ah. It seems even I have limits."
The Grand Elder's eyes hardened. "Enough. Die with what little dignity you have left."
The final blow came—Heaven's Judgment descended, a blade of pure divine law meant to erase even the soul.
The man didn't dodge.
He didn't resist.
Instead, he grinned.
"You think I didn't expect this?"
The sword pierced his chest.
Golden light erupted, tearing through his body, unraveling his very existence.
Yet his voice still echoed—mocking, triumphant.
"If I can't shatter the peak of godhood in this world…"
His body began to dissolve.
"...I'll do it in another."
Then—
Darkness swallowed him whole.
---
Lan stood shirtless before the floor-length mirror in his chambers, watching as the woman behind him dabbed a soaked cloth against his lacerated back.
The water in the basin had long since turned pink.
"You might have gone too far today," murmured Lady Seraphine, the royal physician. Her fingers—soft as silk but steady as a surgeon's—traced the whip marks with clinical precision. "Duke Veyl won't let his heir's death go unanswered."
Lan barely heard her.
Seraphine was beautiful in a way that made lesser men stutter. Golden hair coiled in elaborate braids, lips like crushed roses, and eyes the color of twilight—a woman so striking even the king had once joked about making her a concubine. But right now, Lan couldn't focus on the way her breath warmed his bare shoulder, or how her perfume (jasmine and something darker, like iron) clung to his skin.
All he saw were the scars.
Four years' worth.
Each lash mark from the Test of the Sun's Grace failures mapped his back like a ledger of shame. The freshest ones still wept crimson, but the oldest had faded to silver—a lifetime of weakness carved into his flesh.
Pathetic.
The word echoed in his skull, but it wasn't his own voice. It was his—the other him, the one who had lived centuries, who had torn gods from their thrones.
Xie Wuchen.
The Heaven's Dark Heretic.
And now, he was Lan.
Or perhaps Lan had always been him.
"Your Highness?" Seraphine's voice sharpened. "Are you listening?"
Lan blinked. The mirror showed her reflection hovering close, those violet eyes narrowed in concern.
"I heard you," he lied.
She clicked her tongue, pressing the cloth harder against a particularly deep cut. Lan didn't flinch. "Duke Veyl has already petitioned the king for justice. If His Majesty revokes your immunity as prince—"
"Then I'll handle it."
Seraphine froze.
Lan turned slowly, the movement making the candlelight dance across the hard planes of his torso. He caught her wrist before she could retreat, his grip featherlight but unbreakable. "Tell me, physician... do you think I went too far?"
Her pulse rabbited under his fingers.
For the first time in all the years she'd treated him, Seraphine looked at him—really looked—and saw something that made her breath catch.
The boy she'd known was gone.
The man before her smiled.
---
[ Memory Synchronization: 100% Complete ]
[ Interface Initialization in Progress ]
[...]
Floating screens materialized in Lan's vision, translucent and humming with latent power.
This system… this was the work he had given his former life to.
In his long years, Xie Wuchen had practiced countless forbidden arts—some so vile they were erased from time itself.
He hadn't just learned them.
He created some of them.
And this was the greatest of them all.
He called it—Absolute Dao.
An entity. A god, perhaps. It had seen, without exaggeration, everything. Every timeline. Every reality. Every world. Every cultivator. Every technique.
Withing it was the cumulation of infinite knowledge and capabilities.
And now, it was his.
With this as his companion, Xie could finally ascend beyond the martial peak.
[ Initialization Complete ]
---
—STATUS WINDOW—
Name: Lanard Solaris IV
Age: 19
Title: Fourth Prince of the Solaris Kingdom
Cultivation Path: —
Realm: —
Core: Shattered Dantian (Cursed Seal)
Bloodline: Solaris Royalty (Dormant • Locked)
Meridians Cleansed: 0 / 12
Spiritual Will: Ascendant (Suppressed)
Comprehension:
• Shadow Law: 0.0006%
• Royal Decree Authority: Active
• Sword Intent (Heretic emperor's Fragment): 0.01%
---
Lan exhaled through his nose.
"Ah, shit... to think I could ever be this weak again."
Seraphine misread his frustration. "The wounds will heal. But the political fallout—"
Another panel flickered to life before he could respond.
[ DAILY QUEST ISSUED ]
• Objective: Cleansed 1 Meridian
• Reward: Unlock "Bloodline Perception" (1st Stage)
• Penalty for Failure: —
Lan's smile turned razor-edged.
Politics? Fallout?
Meaningless.
He had a kingdom to reclaim.
A world to burn.
And a duke to break.