Chapter 1: Ashes and Ascension
The universe convulsed in a symphony of betrayal and annihilation. Jiu Tian, the Heavenly Demon Sovereign, stood at the apex of his power, his demonic form a constellation of wrath and dark glory that blotted out the very stars. The final barrier to the fabled God-Sovereign realm was thinning, a pane of glass before his infinite might. He could feel it—the ultimate power, the final secret of the cosmos, was within his grasp.
Then, the pain. A searing, soul-rending agony that did not come from the front, where the combined armies of the three Holy Lands and nine immortal dynasties fruitlessly hammered against his demonic shields, but from behind.
From the one place he had left unguarded.
He looked down, the infernos in his pupils dimming with a shock so profound it was colder than the deepest void. Protruding from his chest was the Heart-Severing Needle, forged from the weeping core of a dead star and gleaming with a familiar, intimate energy.
"Y-you..." The word was not a roar, but a whisper that shattered a thousand surrounding planets into dust.
Behind him, the Violet Sky Immortal Empress, her beauty still capable of halting wars and birthing new stars, wept diamond tears. Yet her hand was steady. Her gaze, though filled with a tragic sorrow, was resolute.
"Forgive me, Jiu Tian," her voice, once a melody that had soothed his primordial rage, now echoed with the finality of a tomb sealing shut. "But the heavens cannot bear a Demon God. Your path... ends here."
The moment of perfect vulnerability during his breakthrough was exploited with flawless, cruel precision. The armies of the righteous saw their opening. A cataclysm of light, the combined ultimate attacks of a hundred thousand saints and immortals, descended upon him.
His body, once indestructible, began to unravel. His demonic energy, enough to drown entire realms, erupted outwards in a wave of pure destruction. His consciousness, a flickering ember of unparalleled hatred and fury, was torn from its divine moorings and cast into the chaotic rivers of space and time.
The last thing he perceived was not the victory cries of his enemies, nor the cold satisfaction of the Violet Sky Immortal Empress. It was the sheer, universe-etching intensity of his own vow, a promise that would become a law of destiny itself.
"Violet Sky... All of you... I will return! I will tear down your holy mountains! Boil your sacred seas! Extinguish your bloodlines to the last mortal and grind your souls to dust for eternity! I swear this upon my name, Jiu Tian! I WILL HAVE MY RECKONING!"
---
Silence.
Then, not silence. A dull, throbbing, all-encompassing pain. A feeble, ragged rhythm that was a heart beating. Shallow, wet breaths that were not his own. The coppery taste of blood. The gritty feel of dirt against his cheek.
Consciousness returned to Jiu Tian not with a bang, but with a whimper of agony. This vessel... this shell... was pathetic. It was a prison of weak flesh, broken bones, and starved meridians. The spiritual energy of this world was so thin, so impure, it was like trying to breathe ash after a lifetime of consuming divine ambrosia.
Where... am I?
Memories that were not his own assaulted his fractured demon soul. A torrent of images, feelings, and petty grievances.
Luo Zhen. Sixteen years old. Young Master of the Luo Clan in Floating Cloud City. Father, Luo Tian, the clan leader, disappeared three years ago. A younger sister, Luo Qingwu, twelve years old, frail and sickly. The clan is weak, on the verge of being annexed by the Liu and Wang Families. An engagement token... a promise of protection from the Su Family... beaten... ambushed...
The memories coalesced. He saw it through the boy's eyes. Three figures. Liu Feng, the arrogant young master of the Liu Family, and his two lackeys. They had cornered him in this abandoned training courtyard on the outskirts of the city. They wanted the engagement token given to him by Su Mei'er, the young mistress of the Su Family. He refused. The beating was brutal, meant to humiliate and main. A kick to the back of the head. Darkness. Then... nothing.
Then... everything.
Jiu Tian, the Heavenly Demon Sovereign, now occupied the body of Luo Zhen. The original soul had been extinguished by the cowardly blow. A cosmic irony. The mightiest being in the universe, brought low by a sneak attack, now reborn in a body killed by the same.
A cold, mirthless smirk, utterly alien on the youthful, blood-smeared face, twisted Luo Zhen's lips. So, this was his new beginning. A trash young master in a backwater city in a lower realm he didn't even know existed. The humiliation was a fuel more potent than any spiritual energy.
"Heh... hehehe..." A low chuckle escaped his throat, raw and raspy, yet dripping with an ancient, sinister malice.
The sound broke the casual arrogance of the three bullies.
"Hey, what are you laughing at, trash? Did we finally beat the last bit of sense out of your head?" one of the lackeys, a pockmarked youth named Wang Kui, sneered. He raised his foot, aiming to stomp on Luo Zhen's head to silence the unnerving sound.
In that infinitesimal moment, the dynamic of the universe within that dusty courtyard shifted.
The broken body on the ground moved. It was not the movement of a beaten teenager. It was the uncoiling of a primordial predator, a motion of pure, refined killing intent that transcended muscle and bone.
A hand, caked in blood and dirt, shot up with impossible speed. It did not try to block the foot. It simply captured the ankle in a grip that felt like it was forged from mountain roots.
Wang Kui's sneer vanished, replaced by shock. "You—let go of me, you dog! Do you want another—AGHHH!"
His threat turned into a shrill scream of agony as Luo Zhen's fingers tightened. The sound of cracking bone was obscenely loud in the quiet yard.
CRACK!
It was the sound of his ankle shattering into a dozen pieces.
Before the scream could fully escape his lungs, Luo Zhen moved again. Using the grip on the ankle as a pivot, he propelled his broken body upward with a terrifying, grace. His other hand, the fingers curled into a claw, became a blur. It didn't strike. It pierced.
There was a wet, tearing sound.
Time seemed to freeze. Liu Feng and the other lackey, Li Hu, could only stare, their minds refusing to process what their eyes were seeing.
Luo Zhen stood, swaying slightly on his clearly broken leg, yet radiating an aura of absolute dominance. In his hand, held casually as if it were a piece of fruit, was Wang Kui's still-beating heart. It pulsed once, twice, in his palm, a grotesque rhythm of finality.
Wang Kui looked down at the gaping, bloody hole in his chest, his eyes wide with a profound, terminal confusion. Then, the light in them extinguished, and he crumpled to the ground like a sack of grain, his body making a soft, final thud.
The courtyard was silent except for the frantic, ragged breaths of Liu Feng and Li Hu. The air grew thick and cold, heavy with a pressure they had never felt before. It was a killing intent so dense it felt like drowning in ice water.
Luo Zhen dropped the heart. It landed on the dirt with a soft, sickening splat. He then turned his gaze towards the two remaining youths.
His eyes. That was what broke them. These were not the eyes of the cowardly, beaten Luo Zhen they knew. These were ancient, abyssal pools of darkness, swirling with faint, hellish crimson light. They held no anger, no rage. Only a cold, analytical assessment, the way a butcher looks at livestock.
"Y-You... demon! Monster! What are you?!" Liu Feng stammered, his bladder letting go, staining his expensive silk trousers. He stumbled backward, tripping over his own feet. Li Hu was simply frozen in place, trembling like a leaf in a hurricane.
Luo Zhen took a step forward. The bone in his leg grated audibly, but his face showed no pain. The faint, almost invisible black smoke that had begun to coil around him—the first awakening of the Nine Profound Heavens Demonic Art—seeped into the ground around Wang Kui's corpse. In seconds, the body desiccated, turning into a withered husk as every last drop of blood and vestige of life force was refined into pure, dark energy and absorbed.
Luo Zhen let out a soft sigh as the energy, pitiful as it was, flowed into him. The demonic art circulated automatically, a divine-level technique operating in the most pathetic of realms. The cracks in his bones sealed. His torn muscles knitted together. The bruises vanished. The weakness was burned away, replaced by a thrilling, violent power thrumming in his veins. His cultivation, originally at the third level of Pulse Condensation, broke through to the fourth level in an instant.
He flex his hand, feeling the new strength. It was less than a drop in the ocean of his former power, but it was a start. It was a spark in the kindling.
"You broke my bones," Luo Zhen's voice was still hoarse from disuse and injury, but it now carried a weight, an imperious resonance that seemed to vibrate in their very souls. "You spilled my blood. You ended a life that now belongs to me. A debt must be paid."
He took another step towards the paralyzed Li Hu. "Your lives are too worthless to cover the principal. Let us start with the interest."
Black tendrils of smoke, visible now and hungry, shot from Luo Zhen's fingertips. They ignored Li Hu's feeble attempts to block and pierced directly into his dantian, his sea of energy.
Li Hu's scream was not of physical pain, but of existential horror. It was the sound of a lifetime of cultivation, of dreams and status, being violently torn away from him. He could feel his spiritual energy, his very life force, being siphoned out, refined into a pure, dark essence, and devoured by the demonic figure before him. His body withered, his hair turned white, his skin sagged. Within moments, he was a frail, ancient-looking man, his cultivation base completely eradicated. He collapsed, unconscious or dead, it didn't matter.
Liu Feng could only watch, weeping openly, snot running down his face. He was the proud young master of the Liu Family, but in that moment, he was less than an insect.
Luo Zhen turned his hellish gaze upon him. "Your turn."
"No! Please! Spare me! Luo Zhen—no, Young Master Luo! Lord Luo! It wasn't my idea! It was my cousin, Liu Yuan! He told me to do it! The Su Family... they hinted they would look favorably on us if the engagement was... dissolved! Please! I'll give you anything! Spirit stones! Pills! My sister! She's beautiful! Take her! Just let me go!"
Luo Zhen listened to the pathetic pleas with utter disinterest. He placed a hand on Liu Feng's forehead. The same black tendrils burrowed in. Liu Feng's body convulsed as his cultivation, the fifth level of Pulse Condensation, was violently ripped from him. The process was slower, more thorough. Luo Zhen was experimenting, learning the limits of this new body and this weak world's energy.
When it was done, Liu Feng was a hollow shell, drooling on the ground, his eyes vacant. He was alive, but he was nothing. A mortal, and a broken one at that.
Luo Zhen stood tall. The energy from two cultivators, meager as it was, stabilized his fourth level and pushed him firmly into the fifth level of Pulse Condensation. His body was completely healed, stronger than it had ever been. His senses were sharpened. He could hear the ants crawling in the dirt, see the individual motes of dust floating in the air.
He looked down at the three figures: one dead, one a withered husk, one a mindless cripple.
"Remember this feeling," Luo Zhen said, his voice cold and absolute. "This is the price of touching what is mine."
He then leaned down close to Liu Feng's ear, his whisper a venomous promise that would forever be etched into the boy's shattered psyche. "Go. Crawl back to your family. Tell the Liu Clan. Tell the Su Clan. Tell everyone who will listen."
He paused, letting the weight of his words sink into the void that was Liu Feng's mind.
"The Luo Clan has a new master. The debt collection has just begun. The interest... will be paid in blood."
With that, he stood up. He found the engagement token—a jade pendant with a su character carved into it—on Liu Feng's person. He pocketed it. It was a triviality, but it was his triviality now.
He then methodically searched all three bodies, taking their money pouches and a few low-grade spirit stones. Resources were resources. Finally, he straightened his tattered, bloodstained robes as best he could and walked out of the abandoned courtyard without a backward glance.
The sun was beginning to set, casting long shadows through the narrow, muddy streets of Floating Cloud City's outer districts. The air smelled of cooking oil, waste, and a faint, underlying tension. People glanced at him—a disheveled youth with blood on his clothes—and quickly looked away, not wanting trouble. They saw Luo Zhen, the trash young master, and assumed he'd gotten into another fight and lost.
None could perceive the ancient, demonic soul that now resided within him, already plotting the subjugation of this city, this realm, and eventually, the very heavens that had betrayed him.
His first destination: the Luo Clan compound. According to the memories, it was a dilapidated estate on the verge of being seized by creditors. He had a "sister" there. The memories associated with her were some of the few bright spots in the original Luo Zhen's life—a fierce need to protect her.
A weakness, Jiu Tian thought coldly. But perhaps a useful one. A figurehead. A symbol to rally the clan. Or simply the first member of my new household, a precious treasure to be collected and owned.
The demonic art thirsted for more. More energy, more blood, more souls. The Liu Family would come for revenge. The Su Family would likely disavow him. The Wang Family would see an opportunity.
Good, he thought, the sinister smile returning to his lips. Let them come. They are not enemies. They are merely the first deliveries of nourishment on my path back to the top.
He turned a corner, and the Luo Clan compound came into view. It was as dilapidated as the memories suggested: faded paint, a crumbling wall, a main gate that hung slightly off its hinges. Two clan guards in worn-out armor leaned on their spears, looking bored and defeated.
They saw him approach and their eyes widened. They straightened up, a mix of surprise and pity on their faces.
"Young Master! You're back! We heard there was trouble... your clothes... are you hurt?" one of them asked, stepping forward.
Luo Zhen stopped before the gate. He did not look at the guard. His eyes were fixed on the compound beyond, seeing not the decay, but the potential. A base of operations. A nest for a rising demon.
He ignored the question entirely. His voice, when he spoke, was flat and carried an unconscious authority that made both guards flinch.
"Where is my sister?"
The guard who had spoken, a grizzled man in his forties named Luo Shan, blinked in confusion. The Young Master's tone was... different. It wasn't the hesitant, defeated mumble they were used to. It was a cold, sharp command that brooked no hesitation. It reminded him uncomfortably of the old Clan Leader, Luo Tian, in his prime.
"Sh-she's in her chambers, Young Master," Luo Shan stammered, his earlier pity replaced by a prickle of unease. "She's been asking for you all afternoon. She was worried—"
Luo Zhen was already moving, sweeping past them without another word. The two guards exchanged a bewildered look, their eyes tracing the bloodstains on his tattered robes.
"Did you see that?" the younger guard, Luo Wei, whispered. "His eyes..."
"I saw," Luo Shan muttered, his hand tightening on his spear. "Something's changed. Something... dangerous."
The interior of the Luo Clan compound was even more disheartening than the exterior. Weeds pushed through the cracks in the courtyard flagstones. The training dummies were splintered and rotten. The air, once thick with the vigorous shouts of disciples training, was now silent and heavy with despair. A handful of clansmen, mostly the old and the very young, moved about listlessly. Their gazes, when they fell upon Luo Zhen, were a mixture of sympathy, resentment, and hopelessness. He was the symbol of their decline.
He paid them no mind. Their petty emotions were beneath his notice. He was a hawk surveying a coop of chickens. Their only value was if they could be made useful.
He moved through the familiar-yet-alien corridors with purpose, his new-found senses mapping everything. The structural weaknesses, the faint traces of old protective formations that had long since lost their power, the whispered conversations behind closed doors.
"...heard the Liu boys ambushed him again..." "...should just give the Su Family what they want and be done with it..." "...if the Clan Leader were here..." "...we'll be serving the Wang Family by next season at this rate..."
Their words were the buzzing of flies. Annoying, but insignificant.
He arrived at a modest door at the end of a quiet hallway. This was Luo Qingwu's room. Pushing the door open, he stepped inside.
The room was sparse but clean, a stark contrast to the neglect outside. The air smelled faintly of medicinal herbs and a subtle, sweet fragrance. Sitting on a simple wooden bed, hunched over a piece of embroidery, was a girl.
She was small for her twelve years, pale and delicate like fine porcelain. Her features were exquisite, hinting at a breathtaking beauty to come, but now they were drawn with a constant, faint pain and deep worry. Her large, clear eyes were red-rimmed from recent tears. This was Luo Qingwu. His "sister."
She looked up as he entered, and her face instantly lit up with a relief so pure and potent it was almost a physical force. "Brother!"
She scrambled off the bed, wincing slightly as her frail body protested the sudden movement, and rushed towards him. She stopped just short of hugging him, her eyes widening as she took in the state of his clothes and the flecks of blood on his face.
"You're hurt! What happened? I told you not to go out alone! Was it the Liu family again? Those villains!" Her voice was a mixture of fear, anger, and fierce protectiveness. Her small hands clenched into fists. "I'll... I'll tell Uncle Bo! He'll... he'll..."
Her bravado faltered, crumbling under the reality of their powerlessness. Uncle Bo was the clan's elderly steward, and he was as helpless as the rest of them.
Luo Zhen looked down at her. The memories of the original owner surged: teaching her to read, sharing meager treats, standing guard over her sickbed, a fierce, desperate love. Jiu Tian observed these memories with the detached curiosity of a scholar studying ancient texts. A fascinating, inefficient emotional response.
Yet, he could not deny her value. She was a key to stabilizing his position here. A symbol of continuity. And, he had to admit, looking at her... she was a flawless jewel. Even in her sickness and poverty, she had an otherworldly quality. A treasure. And the Heavenly Demon Sovereign was a consummate collector of treasures.
His expression, which had been a mask of icy indifference, softened by a fraction of a degree. It was a calculated move, a manipulation as natural to him as breathing.
"It is nothing," he said, his voice quieter than before, though still lacking the brotherly warmth she remembered. "A few insects were buzzing too loudly. I dealt with them."
Luo Qingwu stared at him. This wasn't her brother's usual response. He would usually try to hide his injuries, downplay the trouble, and comfort her. This... this was different. Cold. Certain.
"Dealt with them?" she echoed, confused.
"They will not buzz again," he stated simply. He reached into his pocket and pulled out one of the money pouches he had taken from Liu Feng. It jingled with a satisfying weight of spirit coins. He tossed it onto her bed. "Use this. Buy better medicine. And new clothes."
Luo Qingwu's eyes went as wide as saucers. She stared at the pouch as if it were a venomous snake. Spirit coins were a rarity in the Luo Clan these days. Where could her brother, who was bullied out of his meager allowance daily, have gotten such a sum?
"Brother... where did you get this? You didn't... you didn't do anything foolish, did you?" The fear in her eyes was now for him, not for their situation.
A faint, almost imperceptible smirk touched his lips. "Foolish? No. I merely collected on a debt." He turned to leave. "Rest. I have matters to attend to."
"Brother, wait!" she called out, her voice trembling. "You're... you're different. What's wrong?"
He paused at the door, not looking back. "What was wrong is being made right," he said, his tone final. "The Luo Clan will no longer be the prey. Starting today, we are the hunters."
With that, he left her standing in the middle of her room, staring at the door with a heart full of confusion, fear, and a tiny, forbidden spark of hope.
Luo Zhen's destination was the clan's main hall. It was time to establish his authority.
The hall was vast and echoing, built for a clan hundreds of times its current size. A few elderly clansmen and a handful of dejected younger members were gathered around a large table, arguing in hushed, desperate tones. At the head of the table sat an old man with a kind, weary face—Steward Luo Bo.
"...the Wang Family is demanding repayment of the loan by the end of the week. They're offering to 'forgive' the debt if we cede the western mineral vein," Luo Bo said, his voice heavy with defeat.
"The western vein is the only thing of value we have left!" a middle-aged man slammed his fist on the table. "Without it, we're finished!"
"And if we don't give it to them, they'll use the debt as an excuse to move against us directly! The Liu Family will join them! We can't fight them!" another countered.
The argument ceased the moment Luo Zhen entered the hall. All eyes turned to him. The usual looks of pitying disregard were there, but now they were mixed with curiosity about his disheveled state.
Luo Bo stood up, concern etched on his face. "Young Master Zhen! Thank the heavens you're safe. We heard there was an incident. Are you well?"
Luo Zhen ignored him. He walked directly to the head of the table. He did not sit. He simply stood there, his hands clasped behind his back, surveying the room's occupants as if they were particularly dull specimens.
"The western vein will not be ceded," he stated, his voice cutting through the silence like a blade.
A stunned silence followed.
The middle-aged man who had protested, Luo Cheng, frowned. "Young Master, with all respect, you don't understand the situation. The Wang Family—"
"I understand that you are all cowards," Luo Zhen interrupted, his tone flat and utterly devoid of emotion. "You see threats. I see opportunities. You see a debt. I see a test."
Luo Bo looked pained. "Young Master, please. This is not a game. The survival of our clan is at stake."
"The survival of a weak clan is meaningless," Luo Zhen retorted. "Only the strong deserve to survive. The Luo Clan will become strong. Stronger than the Wang, the Liu, and the Su combined. They will not be our problems; they will be our resources."
The clansmen stared at him as if he had lost his mind. Luo Cheng's face reddened with anger and embarrassment. "Have you been hit on the head too hard, boy? We are facing annihilation, and you speak like a child dreaming of glory! We need a solution, not fantasies!"
"Your 'solution' is to surrender and die slowly," Luo Zhen said, turning his hellish gaze upon Luo Cheng. "My solution is to conquer and live forever."
He took a step forward, and the temperature in the room seemed to drop. The black smoke of the Nine Profound Heavens Demonic Art coiled faintly around his boots, a barely visible threat.
"I am not asking for your opinion," he said, his voice dropping to a deadly whisper that seemed to slither into their ears. "I am stating the new reality. I am the master of the Luo Clan. My word is law. Your only choice is to obey, or to be removed from my path."
The pressure of his killing intent, though a mere fraction of what it once was, was enough to crush the spirits of these already broken men. They broke out in a cold sweat. Luo Cheng took an involuntary step back, his anger evaporating into primal fear.
This was not the trash young master. This was someone, or something, else entirely.
Luo Bo, though terrified, was loyal to the core. He saw the change, the terrifying power in the young man's eyes, and a insane thought occurred to him: What if it wasn't madness? What if it was a miracle?
He was the first to kneel. His old bones creaked as he bowed his head. "The Luo Clan has awaited your awakening, Young Master," he said, his voice trembling but clear. "This old servant awaits your orders."
The others, shocked by the steward's actions and cowed by Luo Zhen's presence, slowly, one by one, followed suit. Even Luo Cheng, after a moment of furious internal struggle, knelt. Survival instinct trumped pride.
Luo Zhen looked down at the kneeling forms. It was a start. A pitifully small and weak foundation, but a foundation nonetheless.
"Good," he said. "First, you will cease all negotiations with the Wang and Liu families. You will tell them nothing. Second, you will bring me the clan's ledger and all available spirit stones and cultivation resources. Every last one."
Luo Bo looked up, confused. "Young Master, for what purpose?"
A cruel, hungry light flickered in Luo Zhen's eyes.
"Purpose? I am going to cultivate."
---
The ancestral shrine of the Luo Clan was the quietest and most secure place in the compound. The air was thick with the scent of old incense and dust. The tablets of past ancestors lined the walls, their names forgotten by most.
Luo Zhen sat in the center of the room, cross-legged. Before him was a pitiful collection: a small pile of low-grade spirit stones, a few vials of low-quality Qi Gathering Pills, and the clan's ledger, which was a chronicle of poverty and decline.
It was nothing. Less than nothing. To his past self, it would have been an insult.
But to the fifth level of Pulse Condensation, it was a feast.
He closed his eyes and began to circulate the Nine Profound Heavens Demonic Art. The air around him distorted. The faint black smoke poured from his pores, enveloping the pile of resources. The spirit stones dimmed, their energy violently ripped out and refined into pure, potent demonic energy that flooded his meridians. The pills dissolved into ash as their essence was consumed.
The energy was raw and violent, screaming through his pathways, expanding them, forging them into something tougher, darker, more capable of handling the horrific power of the art. His cultivation base surged.
Pulse Condensation, Sixth Level!
The process was brutally efficient and utterly wasteful. A normal cultivator would absorb perhaps sixty percent of the energy from these resources. Luo Zhen took one hundred percent, and the demonic art refined it into something ten times more potent.
He opened his eyes. The resources were gone. He had reached the sixth level. It had taken minutes.
A normal cultivator might take years to progress this far. He had done it in an afternoon.
But it wasn't enough. Nowhere near enough. The art thirsted for more. It whispered to him of faster paths. Of blood. Of souls.
A slow smile spread across his face. The Liu Family would be coming soon. They would have questions about their young master. They would be angry. They would be... full of energy.
He stood up and walked to the window. Night had fully fallen, shrouding Floating Cloud City in darkness. The perfect hunting ground for the newly awakened Sovereign of Eternal Night.
"Come soon," he whispered to the darkness, his eyes glowing with a faint red light. "I am hungry."