The Illusion of Heaven
After three hundred years as a legendary grandmaster, Zhung Hang dies peacefully in his cultivation world—only to awaken in a modern hospital bed.
Doctors smile and tell him it was all a coma dream. Three centuries of cultivation, brotherhood, enlightenment—gone. Replaced by a reality where no one ever wanted him. Parents who saw him as a burden. A little brother who died forgotten. Love that was never love.
On a rainy night, he slits his throat with one final vow:
"If reality is crueler than any dream, I will carve the next one with my own hands, even if I have to become something neither demon nor saint."
Death refuses him.
He awakens a third time as an young boy named Zhung in a world far crueler than either before. Here, there is no qi, no spiritual roots, no merciful heaven. Power comes through the Nine Refinements of Will—a brutal path where mortals must drink the fresh blood of divine or demonic beasts to tear open an Aperture within their flesh.
In this world, Zhung has only one light: his mother Zheng Han, the third and only person across three lifetimes who has ever loved him without condition.
For sixteen years he hides behind a gentle smile, secretly feeding travelers to a beast in the forest cave, waiting for the day its blood will finally let him begin his path.
He does not walk the righteous path.
He does not walk the demonic path.
He walks the Broken Path—a third road forged from the refusal to ever again be heaven's tragic puppet.
This is a dark, slow-burn story of cosmic betrayal, quiet maternal love, and a soul that will gamble everything to protect the one person who never asked him to be anything more than her son.
The heavens wrote the first two tragedies.
The third one will be his.
Features: Morally grey MC, unique cultivation system, psychological horror elements, no harem, slow burn, Mother-son bond as core emotional anchor, and a protagonist who has already lived and lost everything twice.
CONTENT WARNING: This story contains graphic violence, morally questionable decisions, psychological trauma, and a protagonist who is neither hero nor villain.
There will be no sudden power-ups or plot armor. Tragedy is not just backdrop—it's structure. If you're looking for a power fantasy, this isn't it.
If you're looking for a story about what happens when someone refuses to let any world break them again—welcome.
Update Schedule: [Depends if I'm busy on school]