Rain poured over Yun City in the Xuntian continent like heaven itself wept. Heavy torrents of rain poured as if heaven was trying to pour out all the rain for the whole year. Thunder clapped loudly like there was a celebration.
In the sprawling courtyard of the once-glorious Yun Clan, a place that even mortals would cry because of the beauty but here in this world,the building was third tier.
Several young people were kneeling down. A boy knelt down like the others, before the elders, men who were in charge of the affairs of the Yun clan with his tattered robes that was not befitting for a young master to wear. His knee bled. He was thin,weak and with bruises painting his skin like a canvas of humiliation. His name?
Yun Zhihao.
Once the hope of the Yun Clan.
Now, its greatest disgrace.
"Trash," Elder Yun Wujin spat from his high seat, his voice like thunder. His eyes narrowing to rest only at that boy.He looked at him with disgust. People who looked at him in high esteem when he was a baby now, looked at him with disinterest.
"Seventeen years old, and you still haven't awakened your spirit root. You are a waste of our resources. You shame our bloodline!",he thundered.
The other clan members nodded their heads in agreement, a few chuckling behind their sleeves. Even the servants looked at him with pity and disdain. None dared defend him. None remembered the boy who used to smile at everyone.
Zhihao's head remained lowered. The words even though he wanted to pretend was not hurting anymore,still stung him at his heart. His parents had died in a beast tide when he was ten. His parents were one of the best cultivators in the realm and they joined the fight against the beast tide. And since then, the clan had treated him like unwanted baggage that hung at their body.
Today was supposed to be different. Today was the Awakening Initiation.
Every youth from the Yun Clan had gathered, standing before the Spirit Awakening Crystal. One by one, they touched the crystal and watched with youthful expectations as their spirit roots light up. Some discovered they had the yellow roots, a few green. One genius had a rare red root, causing cheers to erupt. A genius has appeared.
His clan people wanted to know if he could be a cultivator because after the age of seventeen, a person who was unable to awaken their spirit root will end up choosing something else.
But in a world where cultivators are respected above others, privileges were given to them first.
Yun Zhihao touched it with his hope high like others,he had been told that he had a great potential when he was small, but nothing happened as he touched the crystal. His heart seem to stop beating for a moment. He thought that something was wrong with the crystal. He raised his hand and touched it again. The crystal remained dead. It didn't blink like it did when others tested it. Laughter erupted in the crowd.
"You no longer qualify to live in the inner court," the First Elder declared coldly. "From this day forward, you are banished to the servant quarters. Be grateful we let you live in the Yun clan."
The First Elder mercilessly denounce him without looking back or remembering their relationship.More laughter followed. Someone threw a half-eaten fruit at him. It hit his shoulder and rolled onto the muddy ground.
Zihao's shoulder slumped, frustration washed down his face.
He opened his mouth to say something but nothing came out.
---
That night, he lay alone in the cold servant shed.His life has shifted from riches to rag in the blink of an eye.Nobody to talk to him or even console him.His hands trembled, not from the chill but from helplessness.From rage. From humiliation too deep for tears.
"Why...?" he whispered to the heavens,with tears in his eyes. "Why let me live this long just to suffer like this?"
He opened his right hand to show a small pill. He closed his eyes and opened his mouth and swallowed it. The pill was a bitter one but it offered a painless death. He was just going to let sleep to take him, and perhaps never let him wake again.
But fate had other plans. He felt his breath slowly leaving him.
Pains.
A sharp pain stabbed into his skull. His body convulsed as ancient memories flooded his mind like a tidal wave. Names. Techniques. Wars. Realms. A foreign consciousness, a past life merged with his soul.
He saw a man standing atop the Nine Heavens, his white robe stained with blood, fighting gods and devils alike. A man whose name once shook the universe.
Mo Tianxue.
The Heaven-Reving Demon Sovereign.
"I died betrayed by those I trusted... and now I am born again? In this weak, broken body?"
Zhihao's eyes snapped open
No, Tianxue's eyes.
He sat up, gasping for breath. The air felt different. His senses were sharper. He could perceive even the tiniest noise. And in the center of his chest, he could feel it,a pulse. A dormant power awakening from its slumber.
"Hmph. Trash? I was a Sovereign. A mere mortal clan dares call me trash?"
A grin curled his lips,as if he was mocking the entire world.
"Fine. If the world loves to mock the weak, then I shall rise from the mud. I'll show them what true power is. I'll show them the price of humiliation."
He clenched his fist tightly and the air around it crackled with a faint silver light. His sovereign power was present but dormant in his dantian only wanting to be awakened.
---
The path to revenge had begun.
There was only one winner in this battle and the boy they once called trash… was about to make the heavens tremble and cause terror in the hearts of his enemies.