The horizon was bleeding gold as the sun began its slow ascent over the boundless, shimmering expanse of the Upper Realm's Great Sea. The air was thick with the scent of salt and ancient spiritual energy. Atop a jagged, obsidian cliff that overlooked the crashing waves, the atmosphere felt peaceful—yet it was the calm before a celestial storm.
Two figures sat in silence. One was a young man clad in pristine white robes that seemed to glow against the morning light. His face was chiseled, possessing a masculine grace, but it was his eyes that truly defined him—sharp, piercing, and cold as a divine blade. This was Ye Chen, a man who had reached the 9th Level of the Supreme Martial Immortal Realm. In his arms, he held the woman he loved more than life itself, Lin Ruoxi. Her head rested gently on his shoulder, her delicate hands pressed against his chest. She was ethereal, with skin as white as finest jade and phoenix-like eyes that held a captivating allure. To any onlooker, she looked like a goddess who had stepped out of a master's painting.
"Ruoxi," Ye Chen spoke, his voice vibrating with deep affection. "Only two months left. When the Karachi Ruins open, I will risk everything to enter. I will gather the rarest treasures of the ancients. I am certain I will find the Nine-Lined Golden Leaf there."
He tightened his hold slightly, looking out at the vast sea with a smile of pure hope. "The moment I have it, I will return and refine the Nine-Lined Golden Life-Breaking Pill for you. It will allow you to break through two levels instantly, reaching the 8th Level of the Supreme Martial Immortal Realm. Soon after, you will stand at the very peak with me. Then, we shall travel together to the Forbidden Zone—the place they say holds the path to the even higher realms. We will face the future side-by-side, forever."
As he spoke of their future, a warm smile played on his lips. But in a heartbeat, the world turned cold.
A sudden, agonizing spasm ripped through his Dantian. Before he could even process the source of the pain, a violent force erupted against his chest. A palm strike, fueled by lethal intent, slammed into him with the force of a falling mountain. The impact sent Ye Chen hurtling backward, soaring hundreds of miles through the air until he smashed into a distant mountain range. The peak shattered into dust upon impact.
Ye Chen crawled out from the debris, his movements ragged and heavy. The strike had been precise; his heart was literally in pieces. But as he clutched his stomach, he realized the true horror. His Dantian—the core of his god-like power—had been completely destroyed.
He looked up, his gaze trembling with shock and rising fury, to see the beautiful Lin Ruoxi standing where they had just been embracing. Her face, once filled with 'love,' was now a mask of icy indifference.
"Why?" Ye Chen spat out the word, his voice thick with blood and hatred. "Why did you do this?!"
As a Supreme Immortal, Ye Chen knew that even a shattered heart could be healed through secret techniques. But a destroyed Dantian was a death sentence for a cultivator. He tried to circulate his internal energy to stabilize his wounds, but he froze in realization. His energy wouldn't respond. His eyes flashed with a different kind of fire—the realization of a Supreme Alchemist.
He had been poisoned.
His body began to tremble with a mix of rage and disbelief. Only one person had given him wine that morning—his beloved. He couldn't understand how, as the greatest Alchemist of the realm, he hadn't detected the toxin.
Lin Ruoxi looked down at him, her phoenix eyes devoid of any warmth. "Ye Chen," she said, her voice as cold as a winter tomb. "How could you ever think I truly loved you? To me, you were never more than a stepping stone—a path to reach the heights I desire."
She looked at him with pure disdain, as if he were nothing more than a broken tool. Ye Chen realized then that words were useless. He was dying, his power was leaking into the void, and his enemies would soon close in. But Ye Chen was not a man to die quietly.
He remembered a secret he had kept even from her. Twenty years ago, in ancient ruins, he had discovered a Nine-Story Pagoda. It was an artifact of unknown origin, so precious and dangerous that he had hidden its existence to protect her from his enemies. Now, it was his only hope.
Summoning every last ounce of his mental strength, Ye Chen performed a forbidden soul-rending technique. He forcibly tore his soul from his dying body—a pain so excruciating it felt like a thousand rusted blades were carving through his essence for an eternity. He channeled 99% of his soul into the Nine-Story Pagoda.
With the remaining 1%, he gathered the leaking energy from his shattered Dantian, igniting a forbidden sacrificial technique.
"Lin Ruoxi! I will not leave you alive!" he roared, his voice echoing like thunder.
He lunged toward her, unleashing a terrifying, space-rending attack. To Ruoxi, with his Dantian destroyed, this looked like a desperate, childish struggle. She easily prepared to dodge, but Ye Chen's mind was calculating at a divine speed. His real target wasn't her—it was the fabric of reality itself.
As he feinted, he concentrated his power on a single point in the air, creating a tiny Spatial Rift. With a flick of his will, he hurled the Nine-Story Pagoda into the crack in space. A small, triumphant smile touched his lips as the artifact vanished into the void, unnoticed by his betrayer.
Lin Ruoxi dodged his primary strike, and just as she prepared a counter-attack to finish him, a massive, shadowy blade-light descended from the heavens. It tore through the air with a deafening whistle, burying itself into Ye Chen's physical chest and shredding his remains into nothingness.
A dark, mocking laughter echoed across the cliffs. Ye Chen tried to see who the shadow was—the hidden accomplice—but his vision blurred. The world of the Upper Realm faded into blackness.
Part 2: Awakening in the Golden Star
Time lost all meaning. Deep within the cold, silent vacuum of the universe, the Nine-Story Pagoda drifted until it felt the pull of a lower-level world—the Golden Star.
In a desolate, overgrown wasteland far from any human civilization, the body of another young man lay amidst the thorns and dirt. His clothes were tattered, his skin covered in bruises and cuts. This boy, also named Ye Chen, had already breathed his last. He was a corpse abandoned by the world.
Suddenly, the sky above the wasteland shuddered. A rift opened with a sharp, metallic screech, and the Nine-Story Pagoda shot out like a bolt of lightning. It didn't hit the ground; instead, it sped directly toward the dead youth, embedding itself between his brows—at the very center of his forehead.
A second later, the "dead" boy's eyes snapped open.
At first, they were sharp and clear, filled with the wisdom of ages. But within moments, they turned a terrifying, blood-red hue. The sheer weight of the Monarch's rage flooded the new veins.
Ye Chen sat up, his movements stiff as the pagoda's energy began to forcefully jumpstart his cold heart. He clenched his fists, feeling the coarse soil of this weak, lower world beneath his fingernails. He ground his teeth, the sound like stones rubbing together.
"So, this is the reward for my love?" he whispered, his voice a low, dangerous growl that made the nearby bushes tremble. "Lin Ruoxi... just wait. Since I have returned from the gates of hell, I will become your eternal nightmare."
He stood up, looking at his new, frail reflection in a stagnant pool of water. "You thought I was dead. You didn't know that the countdown to your destruction has already begun. And to the shadow who struck me from behind... I will find you. I will find all of you."
He looked toward the distant horizon where the faint lights of a city flickered. "I am back. And this world will never be the same again."