The world ended not with thunder, but silence.
Ren Kairo stood atop the Skyshatter Altar, robes torn, blood soaking through the nine layers of ceremonial silk. Lightning danced across the heavens—divine tribulation lightning meant to test Ascendants. But this wasn't a test.
It was a murder.
"Kairo of the Ninefold Sky, in the name of the Five Great Clans, your ascension is hereby revoked," a cold voice rang out from the void.
They didn't even try to hide it.
Standing in the clouds above him, the so-called Elders of Heaven had already moved beyond pretense. No jade decrees. No celestial verdicts. Just a verdict of blades, lightning, and betrayal. Ren Kairo stared up at the figures that once toasted to his genius.
Now? They looked down like executioners.
"Why?" he asked, voice cracked, dry. "I upheld the Balance. I shattered the Sky Curse. I—"
"You dug too deep," came the reply from Elder Mo Yanzhen of the Heaven Gate Sect. His smile was as soft as a lie told with love. "You found a Throne that should not exist."
Ah,So that was it.
Not power. Not arrogance. Not jealousy.
Fear.
Ren Kairo staggered backward. The altar beneath his feet cracked from the pressure of suppressed divine essence. Thunder stirred in the skies like a brewing funeral hymn. He had mastered Nine Dao Aspects before the age of thirty, rewritten two foundational cultivation manuals, and even purified an ancestral bloodline by hand.
And still, none of it mattered. The heavens themselves feared the truth he'd uncovered.
Far above, the Celestial Spear shimmered—Heaven's final judgment. A divine weapon that fell only once per century. Normally, it struck cultivators too arrogant to know their limits.
Today, it would strike the only one who knew too much.
Ren Kairo laughed.
Not the laugh of a madman. Not yet.
But something was cracking beneath his skin, under the weight of betrayal that couldn't be expressed in screams.
He'd warned himself not to trust the Clans. He'd even written it down. Carved it into the bone of his own shadow when he felt suspicion stir years ago.
But who could prepare for betrayal not from an enemy… but from heaven?
The Celestial Spear pulsed. The world dimmed. And Ren Kairo whispered the only words that mattered now.
"I refuse."
His soul exploded.
Or should have.
But instead of dispersing, his consciousness was caught—hooked by something ancient, cold, and endless. A voice echoed in the shattered remains of his soul, not spoken but etched into the folds of his fading mind.
[Voidheart Codex Activated.]
[Bearer: Ren Kairo. Status: Terminated. Initiating Forbidden Rewind Sequence.]
[Warning: Temporal Authority Breach Detected.]
[Truth Transfer Commencing.]
[Brace for Memory Collapse.]
The world shattered into a thousand mirrors.
Each fragment showed him a moment in time: His first sect duel. The day he formed his first throne. The bloodied face of Lian Yue whispering "They're coming." The way Xue Ran's eyes didn't shake when she plunged the blade in his back. The burning archives of the Hollow Heavens. The Throne That Should Not Be.
The Void Throne.
And in the center of it all—a single chair of obsidian glass, cracked through the middle, floating in a realm of ash and silence.
It stared at him. Not with eyes. Not even with presence. Just truth.
And truth… hurt.
He woke up screaming.
Not on a mountain. Not amidst divine tribulation but in a dark, musty stone chamber that reeked of incense and rot.
Ren Kairo blinked, chest heaving. His hands—Small and Soft.
No calluses. No blood. No Dao runes.
Just the trembling hands of a twelve-year-old.
A memory surged, raw and jagged: the year his clan exiled him for possessing a "fractured soul." The year he failed his Awakening Ceremony. The year they branded him with a silencing curse for daring to speak against the clan elders.
The year everything started.
Ren Kairo stumbled to his feet, staring into the cracked bronze mirror across the chamber. A young boy with stormy eyes and raven-black hair stared back.
"No, how could this... impossible" he whispered.
But the answer had already arrived.
[Voidheart Codex Stable.]
[You have regressed.]
[System will not assist you in cultivation.]
[System will reveal only truth.]
[Truth is a curse. Proceed?]
He laughed again. This time, fully.
"Proceed."
Because truth was all he had left.
His door burst open. A rotund boy with crooked teeth and a look of permanent confusion stumbled inside.
"Hey shitty dog, kairo! Elder Mo wants you to scrub the Spirit Latrine again—said something about 'teaching humility'!"
Kairo blinked.
Zhao Ping. Sect lackey. Future traitor. Died horribly during a beast tide two years from now. If he remembered right, Zhao would soon try to frame Kairo for theft in exchange for brownie points with the inner disciples.
Ren Kairo smiled.
"Sure," he said calmly. "But just so you know…"
He stood and stared Zhao Ping straight in the eye.
"…the golden ferret you stuffed under your robe three days ago? It was the Sect Master's pet."
Zhao paled.
Then bolted.
Ren Kairo sat back down, grin fading. He reached deep within himself—not for Qi, not yet—but for that terrible cold sensation humming in the marrow of his bones.
The Voidheart Codex, It was there.
Not as a panel, not as a screen but as etched truth whispering behind his thoughts.
[Detected: Spirit Cleansing Manual – Version 7.]
[Flaw Analysis: Reverse Qi Flow at 3rd Cycle causes meridian scarring. Correction suggested: Reposition breathing pattern into inverted spiral rhythm.]
His eyes widened.
He remembered this manual. Every outer disciple in the clan practiced it. By design, it stalled progress beyond the 3rd layer, forcing dependence on elder "corrections."
They crippled them from the start.
His fingers tightened.
"Then we start here," he muttered.
With one breath, he began to reverse the spiral flow. Pain flared through his veins—meridians groaning under strain. But the Codex hummed again.
[Correction Successful. Hidden Dao Spark ignited.]
[Path deviation registered: You are no longer on the Heavenly Dao.]
[You walk the Path of Ash.]
Outside, the bell for morning drills rang hollow.
Ren Kairo didn't move because He was too busy laying the foundation for the first throne.
And this time?
He wouldn't build it for heaven.
He would build it to burn them.