"Ugh… my fucking head…"
Wei Yun—the Immortal Emperor of the Brilliant Heaven Realm, Eternal Lord of the Nine Heavens, and Sovereign over a hundred million mortal worlds—winced as consciousness returned to him like a physical blow.
The transition from the cold void of death back into the warmth of a living body felt less like a rebirth and more like being shoved through a meat grinder.
Fucking hell. What the fuck? Did I really just die and reincarnate… again?
He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to navigate the agonizing throb behind his skull.
Memories of his final moments began to flicker through the haze, vivid and terrifying.
He saw the Brilliant Heaven Realm, a place of jade palaces and eternal sunlight, being besieged by another realm.
But these weren't rival cultivators or rival emperors seeking his throne.
They were monstrosities. Abominations that defied the laws of the Heavens themselves.
The images burned in his mind: creatures with millions of unblinking eyes weeping black ichor.
Giant worms bristling with human arms that clawed at the air.
Headless humanoids that vibrated with a dissonant, sickening frequency.
They were revolting—creatures that turned the stomach of even the most hardened warrior—but their strength was the true horror.
Each one possessed the raw power of a Great Elder within his own sect.
He remembered the sky turning the color of bruised flesh.
The Nine Heavens had buckled and collapsed.
He had watched as millions of mortal worlds were snuffed out like candles in a gale.
As the Immortal Emperor, Wei Yun had burned his very soul, unleashing a final, catastrophic strike to hold back the tide and buy his realm a slim chance at survival.
And for what? he thought bitterly.
I sacrificed everything, and I still woke up in the dirt.
Fury boiled in his chest.
Wei Yun let out a snarl and punched the stone wall beside him with every ounce of his indignation.
The sound that followed wasn't the shattering of rock, but the sickening crunch of bone.
"AHHHH! FUCK! THAT SHIT HURTS!" Wei Yun howled, clutching his hand.
The agony was sharp, grounded, and disturbingly mortal.
"What the hell is this place?!"
He forced himself to look up, his vision blurring. His pupils constricted as the reality of his surroundings set in.
He wasn't in a palace, or even a modest healing hall.
He was in a dark, damp cavern.
All around him, humans dressed in little more than filthy rags were rhythmically swinging pickaxes.
They were hacking away at the stone, unearthing shards that pulsed with a dense, rhythmic blue glow.
A spirit stone mine? His mind raced.
Did I really just reincarnate as a fucking slave? Me?
The Brilliant Heaven Immortal Emperor?! FUCK!
The humiliation was worse than the broken hand.
He tried to scramble to his feet, his dignity demanding he stand tall, but his new body was weak and malnourished.
As he struggled to find his footing, a sharp crack hissed through the stagnant air.
TWHACK!
A leather lash tore across his shoulders.
"AH! FUCK! WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?!" Wei Yun roared, spinning around with a murderous glint in his eyes.
"Don't you know I'm in a bad mood?!"
He expected to see a mortal guard, someone he could eventually crush once he regained even a sliver of his cultivation.
Instead, he was met with another whistling strike.
Wei Yun's vision swam as he looked up, his eyes narrowing to slits.
Standing over him wasn't a man, but a towering wall of green, corded muscle.
The creature stood nearly eight feet tall, its skin the color of a stagnant swamp and covered in coarse, black hair.
Its lower jaw sported two massive, yellowed tusks that jutted upward, dripping with thick saliva.
It wore crude iron pauldrons and gripped a whip made of some sort of scaly, reptilian hide.
An Orc.
In his previous life, Wei Yun wouldn't have even deigned to look at such a lowly creature.
A single breath from him would have disintegrated an entire legion of these beasts.
But as he stared up into the Orc's bloodshot eyes, he realized with a sinking gut that this "lowly" creature currently held the power of life and death over him.
"What are you looking at, maggot?" the Orc growled, the stench of rotting meat wafting from its maw.
It raised the whip again, the leather whistling as it coiled in the air.
"Pick up the tool, or I'll peel the skin off your bones and eat it like pork rinds."
Wei Yun's blood boiled.
The "Immortal Emperor" within him screamed for vengeance.
His fingers curled into a claw-like shape, instinctively trying to channel his spiritual energy, a move that should at least have the power to level mountains.
Nothing happened.
There was no qi. No celestial energy. Only the dull throb of his broken hand and the stinging heat of the lashes on his back.
"You… you dare speak to me—" Wei Yun began, his voice rasping with a lethal edge.
"Boy, shut your mouth if you want to keep your tongue!" a frantic whisper hissed from his left.
An old man with matted grey hair grabbed Wei Yun's sleeve, his pickaxe never missing a beat against the glowing blue ore.
"Don't look at him! Just work," the man hissed, his voice trembling.
"That's Gruloch. He's already killed three men this morning. Start swinging or you won't see the sun."
The Orc loomed over Wei Yun, his massive shadow swallowing the former Emperor.
Wei Yun stared at his own trembling, malnourished hands.
The humiliation was a mouthful of jagged glass—a god of the stars threatened by a beast that smelled of sewers.
Patience, he told himself, the word tasting like poison.
If I die as a slave, the Brilliant Heaven Realm dies with me.
He forced his gaze to the dirt.
With slow, agonizing movements, he grasped the heavy iron pickaxe.
It felt disgustingly weighted in his weak grip.
"That's it, runt," Gruloch chuckled, a sound like grinding stones.
"Work. Maybe you'll get a bowl of slop tonight."
The Orc spat at Wei Yun's feet and lumbered away, the rhythmic crack of his whip echoing down the tunnel.
Wei Yun stood on shaky legs and swung.
Clang.
The vibration rattled his teeth, sending fresh agony through his broken hand.
Clang.
With every shard of spirit stone unburied, his rage distilled into a cold, hard diamond.
I will remember this, he thought, his eyes glowing with a faint, ghostly light.
When I regain my strength, I will wipe these filthy orcs from existence.