The taste of blood filled his mouth as the righteous sword pierced through his chest, spiritual energy scattering like autumn leaves in a hurricane. Around him, the alliance of seven great sects pressed forward, their combined might finally overwhelming the defenses of his Crimson Bone Palace.
"Demon Emperor Moxuan," spat Sect Master Liu of the Heavenly Sword Sect, his blade still embedded in Moxuan's chest. "Your reign of terror ends today. Ten thousand innocent souls cry out for vengeance!"
Moxuan's lips curved into a blood-soaked sneer, even as his Nascent Soul flickered like a dying candle. Ten thousand? Such a pathetically small number. In his three centuries of existence, he had harvested the lives of millions, their spiritual essences fueling his ascension to power beyond mortal comprehension.
"Innocent?" His voice was barely a whisper, yet it carried across the shattered throne room with the force of a spiritual technique. "In this world, innocence is merely another word for weakness. I simply... harvested what was already meant to be consumed."
The alliance leaders surrounding him—Nascent Soul experts all—maintained their formation, spiritual pressure bearing down like mountains. Sect Master Chen of the Azure Heaven Sect stepped forward, her face a mask of righteous fury.
"You turned children into blood puppets! You consumed entire cities to fuel your breakthrough to Soul Transformation!"
"And yet," Moxuan coughed, crimson droplets staining his torn black robes, "I failed to reach that realm. How... amusing."
It was true. For all his accumulated power, all the forbidden techniques mastered and taboos shattered, he had never broken through the final barrier. His methods, while effective in the short term, had contained fundamental flaws that prevented true transcendence. The realization brought not regret for his victims, but bitter frustration at his own inefficiency.
I was too impatient, he thought as darkness closed in around the edges of his vision. Too crude in my methods. Power taken through slaughter alone has no foundation—it crumbles when faced with true opposition.
The alliance began chanting in unison, their voices weaving a complex sealing technique that would ensure his soul scattered to the winds rather than attempting resurrection through his prepared soul anchors. Clever of them. They had learned much about demonic cultivation methods over the centuries of their conflict.
As the sealing formation activated, Moxuan felt his consciousness beginning to fragment. Soon, there would be nothing left of the Demon Emperor who had terrorized the cultivation world. His empire would crumble, his subordinates would be hunted down and executed, and his name would become a cautionary tale told to frighten young disciples.
If I could do it again, he mused as the final threads of his existence began to unravel, I would be smarter. More patient. I would build true foundations instead of rushing toward power like a starving dog toward meat.
The last thing he saw was the satisfied faces of his enemies, righteousness blazing in their eyes as they witnessed the death of the greatest demon cultivator in a thousand years.
The last thing he felt was profound, overwhelming regret—not for his victims, but for his own spectacular failure.
Then, darkness.
Chirp chirp chirp.
The sound of morning birds filtered through wooden shutters, accompanied by the gentle warmth of sunlight across his face. Moxuan's eyes snapped open, his body jolting upright with cultivated reflexes that should have been impossible given his shattered cultivation base.
But that was wrong. His cultivation base wasn't shattered—it was weak. Pathetically weak. Third level of Qi Condensation, barely above a mortal's strength. The realization sent ice through his veins as he frantically examined his body with internal spiritual sense.
Narrow meridians. Blocked spiritual channels. The characteristic energy signature of a four-element spiritual root with poor affinity. Most damning of all, the familiar ache in his left shoulder where he'd injured himself practicing sword forms at age sixteen—an injury that had healed decades before his transformation into the Demon Emperor.
"No," he whispered, his voice cracking with youth and disbelief. "This is impossible."
But the evidence was undeniable. The room around him was achingly familiar: simple wooden furniture, cultivation manuals stacked haphazardly on a desk, practice robes hanging from wall pegs. This was his childhood bedroom in the Lin family compound, exactly as it had been thirty years ago.
Somehow, impossibly, he had returned to his past.
Moxuan—no, Lin Moxuan, he corrected himself with growing amazement—swung his legs over the side of the bed and examined his hands. Young, unmarked by the ritual scars and demonic cultivation stigma that had covered his body in his previous life. These were the hands of a seventeen-year-old who had never killed, never harvested spiritual energy from screaming victims, never delved into the forbidden arts that would eventually transform him into a monster.
A thousand questions flooded his mind. How was this possible? What force could send a soul backward through time? Was this some elaborate illusion created by his enemies before death? But even as he considered these possibilities, his experienced spiritual senses told him the truth—this was real. The sensation of morning qi flowing through the air, the subtle spiritual formations protecting the family compound, the distinctive energy signature of his birth home—none of it could be faked with such perfect detail.
"Young Master Moxuan?" A gentle voice called from outside his door, accompanied by a soft knock. "Your mother asked me to wake you for breakfast. The family will gather in the main hall shortly."
Old Chen. The family's head servant, a retired cultivator who had served the Lin clan for over two decades. In his previous life, Moxuan had barely acknowledged the man's existence, considering servants beneath his notice. Now, hearing that familiar voice filled him with emotions he hadn't experienced in centuries—warmth, security, belonging.
"I'll... I'll be there shortly," he called back, his voice steadier than he felt.
Footsteps retreated down the hallway, and Moxuan was left alone with the magnitude of his situation. Somehow, he had been given a second chance. Not just at life, but at everything. His family, who he had abandoned in his pursuit of power. His cultivation, which he could rebuild with three centuries of hard-won knowledge. His entire existence, which he could reshape with the wisdom of hindsight and the patience born of ultimate failure.
But most importantly, he had been given the opportunity to achieve what had eluded him in his first life—true transcendence. Not through the crude methods of demonic cultivation that had ultimately led to his downfall, but through careful planning, superior techniques, and the accumulated wisdom of both righteous and demonic paths.
Standing slowly, testing the limits of his young body, Moxuan began to smile. It started as a small curve of the lips, then grew into something predatory and filled with dark promise. The righteous sects thought they had won. They believed the Demon Emperor was finally dead, his threat eliminated forever.
How wrong they were.
This time, he thought as he reached for his practice robes, I will be patient. I will be subtle. I will build foundations that cannot be shaken and accumulate power through methods they will never see coming.
The boy who dressed that morning looked no different from the lazy, unmotivated youngest son of the Lin family that everyone expected. But behind his eyes burned the knowledge and ambition of the most feared cultivator in recent history—a man who had been given the ultimate gift of a second chance.
The righteous sects had made one critical error in their moment of victory. They had assumed that death was the end of the story.
They were about to learn how catastrophically wrong that assumption could be.
From outside, the sound of his family calling for breakfast grew more insistent. His mother's voice, warm with affection and concern. His father's deeper tones discussing sect matters with visiting guests. His younger sister Yuehua's bright laughter as she chattered about her cultivation progress.
Voices he thought he would never hear again. People who had loved him before he became something that could no longer be loved.
For just a moment, Lin Moxuan hesitated at his door, his hand on the wooden handle. In his previous life, these people had represented chains binding him to mediocrity. Now, they represented something far more complex—resources to be protected and utilized, but also... something else. Something that made his chest tight with unfamiliar emotion.
He pushed the feeling aside. Emotions were distractions. Weaknesses to be acknowledged but never indulged. His family would serve his purposes, and he would ensure their prosperity and safety in return. It was a fair exchange.
But as he opened the door and stepped into the hallway, heading toward the voices of people who thought they knew him, Lin Moxuan couldn't quite suppress the thought that this second chance might change him in ways he hadn't anticipated.
The question was whether that change would make him stronger—or simply give him different weaknesses to exploit.
Only time would tell. And time, for the first time in centuries, was something he had in abundance.