The skies wept crimson as the Divine Flame consumed the world.
Ash fell like snow.
Mountains cracked. Oceans boiled. The very fabric of reality trembled beneath the fury unleashed atop the shattered peak of the Eternal Heaven Sect.
Where once stood a glorious sanctuary of cultivation jade towers touching clouds, phoenixes circling the sky, divine bells singing across valleys there was now only ruin.
Bodies littered the broken earth. Burned elders. Mangled inner disciples. Spirit beasts reduced to scorched husks.
All dead.
Except one.
At the summit of this apocalyptic battlefield stood a man barefoot, blood-soaked, wreathed in flickering divine fire.
Qin Zhen, the Heaven-Slaying Emperor, stood tall among the corpses, body trembling but unyielding, his gaze blazing with defiance.
Half his face had been torn open in the battle, exposing bone and seared muscle. His black hair, once flowing like a waterfall of night, was now matted with blood and ash. His robes formerly woven from Celestial Silk hung in tatters, clinging to him like funeral wrappings.
Across the sky hovered the nine traitorous sects once his allies, now executioners. Their leaders hovered midair in divine flight, their aura a suffocating storm of spiritual power.
"Look at you," mocked a man in golden robes, hovering above on a flying beast clad in thunderclouds. Sect Master Huang Tianlong of the Thunder-Eclipse Sect. "The once-mighty Heaven-Slayer, now reduced to a cornered dog."
Qin Zhen spat a wad of blood onto the ruined marble.
"Dog? If I'm a dog, what does that make you? A flea that bit its master the moment Heaven barked?"
A ripple of disdain and unease ran through the gathered sects.
"Blasphemer," growled Mu Yuelan, Matriarch of the Ice Orchid Palace, her breath forming frost even in the burning air. "You dared strike Heaven itself. That alone is unforgivable."
Qin Zhen chuckled, the sound wet and broken. "Forgive me? You mean betray me. You stood beside me when I shattered the Sky Gate. You sang praises when I defied the Celestial Orders. Now that the Heavens retaliate, you cower like rats in holy robes."
He swayed, nearly falling, but planted his broken blade into the stone to steady himself.
A moment passed.
Then the sky cracked.
BOOM.
A jade-green rift tore across the heavens like a celestial wound. From it descended an enormous divine artifact an ethereal jade seal, vast as a mountain, pulsating with ancient runes. Each glyph burned with the authority of creation itself.
It radiated judgment. Finality.
"QIN ZHEN OF THE NINE ABYSSES," a voice thundered from the skies, echoing across realms, "YOU DEFIED THE HEAVENLY MANDATE. YOU CONSPIRED TO TEAR DOWN THE DIVINE ORDER. YOU SHALL BE ERASED SOUL, NAME, AND DESTINY."
The words carried not mere sound, but force. Mountains buckled. Stars dimmed.
Even the traitor sect leaders bowed their heads.
But Qin Zhen?
He laughed.
A deep, rumbling, mocking laugh that echoed louder than the heavens' decree.
"Erase me?" he rasped, dragging one bloodied hand through his hair, smearing it with red. "You think this is the first time Heaven tried?" He raised his hand middle finger extended toward the seal above.
"I already killed Heaven once."A pause.
His lips curled into a savage grin."I'll do it again."
The jade seal shone with blinding light. A divine beam, condensed from heavenly law itself, lanced downward.
Qin Zhen didn't flinch.
He didn't beg.
He stood tall, arms wide, as the world shattered around him.
A golden explosion engulfed all.
The heavens roared.
Silence. Cold. Darkness.
Then
Air.
A gasp.
Sharp. Ragged. Desperate.
Qin Zhen jerked upright, lungs convulsing, heart pounding like a war drum. Sweat poured down his back, soaking rough cloth beneath him.
He blinked.
Gone was the sky-fire. The divine seal. The corpses.
Instead, he found himself lying on a cracked stone floor, inside a crumbling hut. The scent of mold and rot choked the air. Moonlight streamed through holes in the roof, casting long, skeletal shadows on the dirt walls.
He looked down at himself.
Thin, malnourished limbs. Scarred wrists. Calloused palms from hard labor. No hint of divine qi, no trace of his once-vast cultivation.
"What… is this?"
A splinter of pain lanced through his skull.
Memories. Foreign ones. Crashing into him like a tidal wave.
A new name.
A new life.
Qin Zhen. Age 17. A cripple from the declining Qin Clan of the Northern Wastes. Born without a dantian. Beaten by cousins, mocked by elders, abandoned by the clan patriarch. A life of shame.
Today… he had been beaten half to death by his cousin, Qin Long, for "shaming the family name" in front of outer sect recruiters.
Choked with a rope and left to die in this hut.
"So… I died," he murmured, voice hoarse.
A pause.
"No. I lived. Again."
Rebirth.
Not as a god. Not as the Heaven-Slayer. But as a boy with nothing.
Yet inside his chest… a flame flickered.
Suddenly
DING.
A cold, mechanical voice echoed in his mind, smooth and inhuman.
[Heaven-Slaying System Activated]
Welcome back, Abyss Emperor.
Synchronizing past-life cultivation archive...
Rebuilding dantian core...
Integrating kill-path matrix...
Calculating karmic backlash resistance...
Mission: Slay the Path to Heaven Again
A pulse of warmth surged through his body.
He gasped as the seal of the Nine Abysses a dark sigil shaped like a spiral sunflashed faintly on his palm. Unseen by mortal eyes, it pulsed with ancient power.
His dantian stirred.
Just a flicker.
But it was enough.
Qin Zhen grinned.
A quiet, dangerous grin.
He stood slowly, shakily and looked around the hut. Broken furniture. Rusted pots. A cracked basin with muddy water. His prison. His tomb.
Not anymore.
He stumbled to the doorway and pushed it open.
Outside, the wind howled over the frost-bitten plains of the Northern Wastes. Jagged peaks loomed in the distance, and in the valley below, the flickering lights of the Qin Clan compound cast an eerie glow.
He narrowed his eyes.
In this life, the Qin Clan was no imperial powerhouse it was a dying family barely clinging to relevance. Its elders squabbled over scraps. Its young masters fought like dogs in the snow.
And they had tried to kill him.
Again.
A second chance.
A new path.
He clenched his fist. The seal on his palm pulsed once more.
"Not this time."
His voice was low. Cold. Resolute.
"There will be no mercy. No hesitation. No bonds. I will climb the heavens again."
A cold wind blew, fluttering the rags on his body.
He stepped into the night.
And behind him, the ruined hut collapsed shattered by an unseen pulse of energy.