The sky was a graveyard of shattered stars.
Thunder rolled like the roar of an ancient beast, tearing open the firmament. Purple bolts cracked across the heavens, each one sharp enough to split mountains, vaporize oceans, and erase the existence of any mortal who dared to face them.
But beneath this doomsday sky stood one man.
Bare feet planted on a blackened cliff. Long hair whipping in the violent winds. Eyes cold, ancient, and filled with defiance.
Arin Nightfall—the man the world called Calamity Demon, Heaven's Bane, The One Who Walks Against Fate.
A thousand years of cultivation had led to this moment: the Heavenly Annihilation Tribulation, the strongest punishment reserved for those who dared to challenge destiny itself.
"Come," Arin whispered, his voice calm despite the storm tearing the world apart. "This is the path I chose."
Lightning fell.
The world went white.
When the brightness faded, half the mountain was gone. A crater hundreds of meters wide replaced the ground where Arin had stood. Smoke curled from his shattered body—skin torn, bones exposed, blood evaporating under divine heat.
But he still smiled.
A cruel, mocking smile.
"So this is all Heaven can do?" he said, coughing blood. "After a millennium… you still fear me."
The clouds churned violently, as if angered by his words. A second bolt began forming—one vastly larger than the first. Its presence alone caused space to tremble, the air to distort, and distant lands to quake.
Arin lifted his head, eyes shining with ferocious pride.
"I have slaughtered ancient beasts… toppled empires… destroyed sects that worshipped you.""I have rewritten destinies Heaven wrote for others.""I have even fooled Fate's own mechanisms."
He lifted his trembling hand.
"And I will do it all again."
The heavens answered with silence.
Then—
BOOOOOOM!
The final bolt descended. It tore through his flesh, soul, and the very core of his existence. Every memory, every technique, every ounce of his cultivation collapsed instantly.
His body disintegrated into ash.
His soul was shredded into sparks of fading light.
Yet even as Heaven tried to erase him completely, Arin's final thought wasn't fear… or regret… or despair.
It was a laugh.
"Hahaha… If only… I had one more life…"
Darkness swallowed him.
His soul flickered—
—then something stirred within the void.
A tiny ember.A spark of black and crimson.A pulsing sphere—twisted, hungry, defiant.
The Calamity Core.
He had forged it centuries ago, a forbidden creation made from nightmares, destruction, and the essence of disaster itself. He believed it was destroyed along with him.
But now… it pulsed like a heartbeat.
Thump.
Thump.
The void cracked.
Reality twisted.
Time bent.
And the Calamity Core whispered—
"One more life."
A blinding flash swallowed Arin's soul.
The storm vanished.
The heavens vanished.
Everything vanished.
He fell through the abyss——and opened his eyes somewhere entirely different.
He had been reborn.
Five hundred years in the past.