Cough… cough.
"Fuck… why me?" Mark muttered, blood dripping between his fingers. His chest heaved as if each breath was a battle. After years of sickness, he was nothing but skin and bones .
The doctors had called it blood cancer. To Mark, it was years of hospital visits, nights of burning lungs, and clumps of hair left on his pillow. His body had become fragile, his immunity shattered. Even a cold could have killed him. Every day felt like he was dying a thousand time .
His friends had stopped visiting . Teachers stopped mentioning his name . Even his parents began to look at him differently. They didn't see a son anymore - only a burden. Eventually, they stopped staying home to care for him.
The house grew quieter with each passing day . Left him to die alone .
This morning , he was alone again. The air was cold . He dragged himself to the armchair because lying in bed felt too much like surrender. His chest rose and fell in shallow, painful gasps .
He coughed again. Warm blood filled his mouth, bitter and metallic. It spilled down his chin as he stared at the stains spreading across the floor . No one came. No one ever would .
On the table sat a half-empty pill bottle. He picked it up and swallowed a few pills dry. Not for relief. Not for hope. Just out of habit—the last little thing that was still his decision .
Anger clawed at him from the inside . He thought of the pitying stares, how people were looking at him with nothing but pity , the way the world had simply moved on without him. Everyone had abandoned him . Left him to die alone .
"If there is another life," he whispered into the empty room, his voice aloud , "then I won't be weak again."
In his long hours of loneliness, Mark had often drowned himself in Xianxia novels. They were his escape. He loved the stories of strong cultivators who could shatter mountains with a fist, dystroying cities and kingdoms alike as they were nothing ,men and women untouched by any disease or weakness. When he read them, his heart raced. For a brief moment, he could imagine a life where he wasn't fragile, where death wasn't always waiting . Where he is the one that control his fate .
But then his fantasy would break, and he would laugh bitterly at himself. They were just stories. A joke. Nothing real. His suffering had twisted him enough that even dreaming of such things felt like madness.
The coughing came again—this time worse. His body convulsed, blood rushing into his throat until he couldn't breathe. His vision blurred. The world dimmed.
He collapsed onto the floor. The light from the window blurred into nothing.
No forgiveness. No peace. Only a single, burning promise seared into his last breath:
"I will not be weak."
Mark was eighteen when his body finally gave out.
< Darkness >
It should have been the end . Silent . Empty. But instead, awareness lingered.
Warmth spread through him—real warmth, not the heat of fever but something deeper, cleaner. His chest didn't ache. His body didn't tremble. For the first time in years, he felt alive.
His eyes snapped open.
Above him loomed a ceiling of carved stone, etched with glowing runes that pulsed like veins of light. He realized he was lying inside a jade coffin, its surface humming with power.
Mark sat up, stunned He saw his reflection in the polished jade wall
a young man, sharp-eyed, handsome, nothing like the sickly skeleton he remembered.
Then—
"Argh!"
Agonizing pain stabbed into his skull. He staggered, clutching his head as a flood of foreign memories poured into him like a raging tide.
Faces. Names. Places. The Greencloud Sect. The scorn of peers, the cold indifference of elders, the disappointment of kin.
Ninth level of Qi Condensation realm at eighteen years old. Among mortals, that would be a miracle. Here, it was nothing. A ceiling. A dead end. Others his age had already broken into Foundation Establishment, some hailed as prodigies destined for greatness.
Compared to them… the original Mo Tian was trash.
Blood trickled from his nose. His chest heaved as he fought to steady himself, the storm of memories finally settling. His hands trembled—but his eyes gleamed.
"So… this is the life I've inherited," he muttered hoarsely.
And then—
{ System initiating…}
Searching for compatible soul…
(Error)
(Error)
Suitable soul found.
Compatibility: 100%
{Heaven Defying Villain System is Activated]
A cold, mechanical voice echoed in his mind.
Mo Tian froze, then slowly laughed, his voice hoarse and broken yet filled with madness.
"Hahaha… don't tell me… those stories were real."
His voice echoed against the jade walls, ragged and sharp. For the first time in years, his lips twisted into a genuine smile—one born not from joy, but from madness