In the magnificent city of Dragon Abyss—a place where the residents' houses were lined with pure jade, the floors were spotless as if devoid of sin, and sturdy pillars stood tall—the majestic statue of the Heavens loomed over everything, a silent guardian against any external threat.
Hao Tian walked calmly. His footsteps were light, merging seamlessly with the hustle and bustle of the city. In his eyes, the people hurrying past were nothing more than fleeting decorations in a transient world.
"How can I let you all keep breathing?" he mused. A thin, cold smile curled on his lips. "Killing one person might be fun. But... why not everyone? Wait, if I end them now, wouldn't that be too quick for that old man?"
Hao Tian laughed softly, his voice buried in the city's noise. "Correct. You must watch it slowly, Heavens."
In an instant, his body vanished, reappearing at the peak of a mountain overlooking the city. The view below was clear—and so fragile.
"Hey, Old Man, look at this," he whispered to the darkening sky. Hao Tian's gaze swept across the city, searching for the first target to begin his performance. "Ah, you are worthy enough."
SNAP!
Hao Tian flicked his fingers. The sound was not a mere friction of skin, but a thunderous boom that echoed through every corner of the city, tearing eardrums apart. In the middle of the market, a man's head exploded with terrifying precision, leaving behind a mist of blood that sprayed in all directions.
"Help! Someone's down! Murder!" shouted a carriage driver, his face pale with horror.
The once peaceful city turned into hell in seconds. Panic spread like a plague. Hao Tian, watching from afar, could only sigh in boredom.
"So noisy. Is the show not good enough? How about another one?"
Hao Tian formed a complex ancient symbol with his fingers. Pitch-black energy began to radiate, swallowing the sunlight.
"Thousand Realm!"
"Now... let us go to hell."
Suddenly, nine massive, pitch-black gates appeared, surrounding Dragon Abyss. The gates resembled cursed temples, radiating an aura of absolute death.
"WHAT IS THIS?! WHAT ARE THOSE GATES?!" the terrified citizens screamed.
"That is no temple!" an ancient cultivator, who had lived for thousands of years, screamed with a trembling voice. "That is... that is the Calamity! RUN! SAVE YOURSELVES!"
Hao Tian merely smirked in mockery. "Run? You think you can run from me?"
He traced ancient script in the air with elegant movements. "OPEN."
The nine gates creaked open, creating an impossible gravitational pull. All life—humans, animals, even high-level cultivators—was sucked into the eternal darkness, vanishing without a trace. The City of Dragon Abyss instantly became a silent, dead wasteland.
"HAO TIAN! YOU HAVE GONE TOO FAR!"
The sky roared violently. Clouds formed a massive vortex, as if the gates of the Heavens themselves would open in fury.
"Old man, you are still as easily angered as ever," Hao Tian replied casually.
"You obliterated the city that worshipped me as a God!" the voice from the sky shook the earth.
"God?" Hao Tian burst into laughter. "Do not make me laugh with your jokes!"
"Kneel now! I shall spare your life!"
Hao Tian's expression suddenly shifted into a feigned submissiveness. "Oh, Great Heavens... forgive this humble servant. I am deeply sorry, I should not have..."
"Enough with your jests! Kneel and serve me now!" the voice interrupted arrogantly.
Hao Tian looked up, his eyes flashing with bloodlust. "I will kneel... but only after I have broken both of your legs."
"IMPUDENT!"
Golden lightning struck repeatedly behind the clouds. Yet, Hao Tian did not flinch. Instead, he clenched his fist toward the sky. Instantly, total darkness swallowed everything, as if the sun had been plucked from its throne.
"What are you doing?!" Heavens began to sound panicked.
"Me? You should ask yourself why you are such a useless old man. If you cannot even protect a single city, do not dream of protecting the entire Realm," Hao Tian said coldly.
"Brat! Know your limits!"
"How do you have the nerve to bark at me with a power that does not even equal the tip of my finger?" Hao Tian stepped forward into the air. "Try to punish me."
"In thirty days... you will surely..."
"Thirty days?" Hao Tian laughed mockingly. "You need a whole month just to decide a punishment for a villain? You are getting more interesting, you old fossil."
"Where did you send them?!" Heavens asked in a hoarse voice.
Hao Tian stared sharply at the sky, his thin smile returning. "Oh, I did not send them, Great Heavens. I... discarded them."
"How dare you, Hao Tian! You are allowed to live only by my permission!" Thunder crashed as the voice of the Heavens boomed with forced desperation.
Hao Tian lowered his head for a moment, letting his black hair veil his face. But a second later, he looked up. His eyes glowed a vibrant red, radiating pure madness.
"Heh..."
Then, he laughed. It wasn't a human laugh, but a maniacal cackle that seemed to tear at reality itself. The soundwaves of his laughter shot out from the Mortal Realm, piercing through the atmosphere, passing through thousands of alien realms, until they shook the golden pillars in the highest heaven—the Nine Heavens.
Inside a magnificent palace made of eternal crystal, Shangdi, the supreme ruler of all gods, frowned. The jade cup in his hand trembled violently.
"Who dares to laugh with such a maniacal tone? The sound even disturbs my meditation," Shangdi asked, his voice calm yet carrying an oppressive authority.
A divine attendant immediately knelt, his body shaking. "May Your Majesty live for millions of years! This servant... this servant does not know exactly what is happening. However..."
"However what?" Shangdi asked, his gaze sharpening.
"Reportedly, the first-level Heavens overseeing the lower planes has personally intervened in the Mortal Realm because of this. The entire system of balance down there is in total chaos."
"The Mortal Realm?" Shangdi was stunned. His mind drifted to a dark memory buried for millions of years. His usually calm face suddenly turned pale. "Don't tell me... No. That is impossible."
Shangdi muttered to himself, ignoring the confused gods around him. "Was He not annihilated by the alliance of the Ten Immortal Emperors? Was his soul not ground into star dust?"
His logic refused it, but the resonance of that laughter... it was a soul-signature impossible to forget. The signature of the Ruthless Immortal Villain who once nearly razed the heavens to the ground.
The laughter didn't just tear through the Mortal Realm; it pierced the sacred gates of the lower heavens. The lesser gods, who usually sat upon the clouds looking down on mortals as if they were ants, were now crawling on the floors of their own palaces.
"What is this sound?! My head... my head feels like it's going to split!" screamed a god in white robes, now soiled with dust.
"My ears! Argh! My ears are severed!" another god shrieked in hysteria as golden blood began to flow from his ear canals. The frequency of Hao Tian's laughter was too pure, too sharp for the "fragile" physical forms of the gods to endure.
Irony at its finest. Those who called themselves holy were now writhing like pigs at a slaughterhouse.
"This sound... why does it feel so familiar? Why does my soul tremble just hearing it?" whispered one senior god, his face ashen. He remembered the ancient legends of the 'Red Calamity' that nearly extinguished the light of heaven eons ago.
In the Mortal Realm, Hao Tian finally stopped laughing. The silence that followed was far more terrifying than any thunderstorm.
"Ah, that is enough," Hao Tian said softly, yet his voice was crystal clear in the ears of the Heavens. "Heavens! Let me tell you something. I can be born whenever and wherever I please. In all my lives, there has never been a single existence—be it on earth or in the sky—worthy of making me bow my head."
Hao Tian looked up. His gaze seemed to pierce through thousands of dimensions, staring directly into the core of the celestial consciousness.
"You wish to forbid me? You..." He smiled thinly, a smirk of absolute disdain. "...are still not worthy."
"Hao Tian! You have caused chaos across all realms! You even dare disturb the peace of the Nine Heavens!" the Heavens thundered, but this time, there was a tremor of doubt.
"Oh? The Ninth Level? You mean that old man Shangdi?" Hao Tian smirked. "What is it, Old Man? Surprised? Consider the fact that the Nine Heavens still stand today as a form of my past mercy."
Heavens fell silent. Hao Tian's words were no mere bluff; they were a statement of fact from someone who had once stood at the pinnacle of everything.
Tap.
Hao Tian stepped forward. Just one step, yet space and time seemed to fold beneath his feet. In the blink of an eye, he stood directly before the manifestation of the Heavens' light. They were mere inches apart.
"Hao Tian! You—!"
"Shhh... you are too noisy, Old Man," Hao Tian interrupted coldly. He turned around, folding his hands behind his back with the elegant poise of a senior lecturing a foolish junior.
"Enough. Find the best way to punish me. I give you thirty days. Only thirty days for me to play around with you. If you fail within that time..."
Hao Tian glanced back slightly over his shoulder, his eyes cold enough to freeze hellfire.
"...it will become very interesting. Do not disappoint me."
Instantly, Hao Tian's body faded, merging with the darkness and vanishing without leaving a single trace of energy. He left the Heavens frozen in the void, and the entire universe began to be gripped by the terror of the return of the Most Ruthless Immortal.
Across the Mortal Realm, regions and cities seemed to weep after hearing that voice. Pillars of houses cracked, pavilions felt as if they would collapse, and streets shattered. Cultivators meditating in mountains and rivers were disturbed—worse, they felt threatened. The cities of Qingyang, Linghai, and others could no longer find peace.
In the Nine Heavens Realm, Shangdi summoned the ancestors from both the upper and lower heavens. The Nine Heavens, usually magnificent with pillars of pure gold, floors reflecting life itself, silver rivers, and floating mountains, were now shrouded in confusion.
The massive bronze bell at the gates of the Nine Heavens tolled nine times—an emergency signal not heard for ten epochs.
Inside the Ancestral Hall, the atmosphere was suffocating. The celestial ancestors, entities who usually spent thousands of years in meditation without blinking, now gathered with faces that could not hide their anxiety. They sat upon cloud thrones surrounding Shangdi.
"Do you feel it?" Shangdi's voice broke the silence, heavy and pressurized. "That soul resonance... that laughter."
An old ancestor with a white beard reaching the floor, known as Venerable White Crane, exhaled deeply. "Your Majesty, is it possible the seal in the Endless Void has shattered? There is no one else in this multiverse with an aura as wicked and arrogant as... Him."
"We all saw him destroyed!" another ancestor shouted, masking his fear. "Ten Immortal Emperors sacrificed their essence to burn him with the True Solar Fire! How can dust rise again?!"
"But the reality is, Dragon Abyss is gone," Shangdi stood, his golden robes fluttering despite the lack of wind. "The lower Heavens couldn't even put up a fight. Hao Tian has returned, and he has given us thirty days."
"Thirty days for what, Your Majesty?"
"To punish him," Shangdi laughed bitterly, a laugh full of self-derision. "He is playing cat and mouse with us. He wants to see if, after millions of years, we are still the same ants in his eyes."
Meanwhile, in the Mortal Realm, the effects of Hao Tian's appearance spread like poison. In Qingyang City, the bells in the temples of the Heavens cracked spontaneously. The water in the Linghai River turned pitch black for several minutes before returning to normal, leaving a stinging stench of death.
Cultivators from various great sects emerged from their seclusion. They stared at the sky, which still held the lingering black energy of the Thousand Realm technique.
"The dark age has arrived," whispered a sect leader, staring at his trembling hands. "Not because the sky will fall, but because the demon the Heavens fear most has come home."
Far from the crowds of the Nine Heavens and the terror of the cultivators, Hao Tian stood by a quiet lake in a desolate land. His face looked like that of an ordinary, harmless youth again, yet his eyes reflected a void that could swallow light.
"Thirty days," he murmured, plucking a lotus flower that instantly withered in his hand. "Let us see who will be the first to deliver their life into my hands."