Rain.
It came not gently, not in soft drizzles, but in furious sheets that tore across the jade-tiled plaza of the Celestial Court like an army of steel needles. Wind howled like the cries of ancient spirits, sweeping through the stone pillars that bore the carved names of emperors long passed. Their faces—etched into the heavens in divine relief—seemed to weep with the skies, though none wept more bitterly than the youth who knelt at the centre of the storm.
He was a prince—Xiao Ren, the seventh son of the Celestial Sovereign.
But at this moment, he was no more than a criminal in shackles.
His once-pristine robes of imperial crimson hung in tatters, stained with dried blood and the muck of the dungeon floor. His raven-black hair, usually tied with a jade clasp denoting royal blood, was dishevelled and matted with rain. His bare hands, pale from blood loss, were dug into the cracked tiles beneath him.
He did not raise his head.
Not when they brought him into the square like a condemned beast.
Not when they stripped his name from the golden register.
Not even when they declared his sentence.
"—For crimes against the Empire, for the unlawful slaughter of foreign envoys, for the desecration of the ancestral tombs, and for consorting with demonic energies... The Seventh Prince, Xiao Ren, is hereby stripped of all titles and privileges. His meridians shall be destroyed, and he shall be cast from the empire."
The voice rang out clear and cold, lacking even the formality of ceremony. It belonged to Grand Elder Lu, chief of the Imperial Sect and closest confidant to the emperor.
The emperor—Xiao Ren's father—sat in silence atop the highest dais, beneath the grand Celestial Canopy that shielded him from the rain. His golden robes were immaculate. His expression, unreadable. Not once did his gaze drift down to the broken figure kneeling below.
It was as if his son did not exist.
The gathered ministers and noble families—dozens of them—watched with cold eyes. Some whispered behind sleeves. Others looked on with smug satisfaction. Xiao Ren had long been the subject of mockery in the palace. A "trash prince", they called him. Untalented. Illegitimate. A child of low birth who somehow bore the imperial bloodline.
No one stepped forward for him.
Not even his mother.
She stood behind the throne, face hidden behind the veil of an imperial concubine. Her hands trembled beneath her sleeves. Her nails bit into her palms. She dared not speak, not with so many watching.
She knew the rules of the court. Speak out of turn, and you share the sentence.
But a single tear escaped her eyes.
Xiao Ren did not see it. His head remained bowed.
He had long stopped expecting mercy.
He remembered the tomb—how he'd uncovered the seal carved into the walls, the black mist curling from the hidden chamber. He remembered the moment he saw them—two envoys of the Eastern Heaven Sect, whispering to a cloaked figure from the Wraith Domain. Traitors. Collaborators.
He acted.
He struck first. And in doing so, he violated the sacred grounds of the tomb.
But the truth was never welcome when it came from the mouth of a bastard prince.
Now, he knelt in judgement.
One of the guards stepped forward, a cultivator of the Golden Core Realm. He unsheathed his sword, a blade of spiritual jade that hummed with suppression energy. The punishment was not death—that would be too kind. It was spiritual destruction—the systematic obliteration of a cultivator's dantian and meridians, severing them from the Dao forever.
A fate worse than death.
Xiao Ren raised his head at last.
His lips were cracked. His voice is hoarse.
"I did what was right," he said. "You... all of you… You're blind. You think me the traitor, but it is the empire that has been betrayed."
No one answered.
The emperor raised his hand.
The sword fell.
Pain—blinding and absolute—flooded every nerve of his body.
His scream was silent. The energy blade cut not through flesh but through the very rivers of spiritual qi within him. His dantian cracked. His meridians shattered. Years of cultivation—painful, hard-earned, and lonely—turned to dust in a single moment.
And yet, even in that pain, he remained upright.
He glared up at the emperor, blood trickling from his lips.
"Father", he rasped, "someday... you will regret this."
The emperor did not flinch.
With a wave of his sleeve, he turned his back.
"Banish him."
That nightGrave of Fallen Immortals – Northern Borderlands
Wind scraped the jagged stones like the moans of lost souls. This land was cursed—untouched by life, drowned in death qi and ancient hatred. No man willingly stepped into the Grave of Fallen Immortals, where even the heavens refused to shine.
Xiao Ren's body was thrown onto a shattered altar of black stone, half-buried in the bones of long-dead cultivators.
There was no ceremony.
No words.
Just abandonment.
He did not move.
His body was broken, breath shallow. His spirit core was gone. His meridians—those sacred paths of cultivation—were empty canals. He could no longer feel qi. The world was silent, as if it had closed itself to him.
And yet... he did not die.
Lightning cracked the sky.
Not once.
Not twice.
Three times.
Each bolt descended not upon the earth—but upon him.
The first struck the altar.
The second shattered the clouds.
The third... entered his chest.
His body convulsed.
A searing heat tore through him, devouring what remained of his insides. And yet, rather than turning him to ash, the lightning fused with his blood.
His consciousness slipped.
Darkness fell.
In the void, he heard a voice.
Cold. Ancient. Like stone scraping against stars.
[System initializing...][Detected Host: Xiao Ren – Status: Condemned, Abandoned, Marked by Heaven][Classification: Heaven-Defying Variant][Triggering Protocol: Reclamation of the Original Dao][System Authorization: Granted]
A soft chime echoed.
And then a screen appeared—not before his eyes, but within his mind:
[Welcome, Chosen One of the Rejected Path. You have touched the Forgotten Lightning. The heavens have cast you out. But the True Dao remembers.][Objective: Reclaim your name. Transcend Heaven. Rewrite the Code.][New Path Unlocked: Heaven-Defying Sovereign Art][First Step: Reconstruct Meridians using Primal Lightning Essence. Process beginning...]
His body convulsed again.
But this time, he screamed.
The pain returned—not from the outside, but from deep within. Bones snapped and realigned. The empty channels of his meridians lit up like veins of fire. Each thread of lightning carved a new path through his soul, replacing what had been broken with something... older. Wilder.
He was no longer a cultivator in the traditional sense.
He was something else.
A being beyond classification.
He did not know how long it lasted. Minutes? Hours?
But when it ended, he lay still.
The storm had calmed. The clouds parted, revealing a sliver of moonlight.
He opened his eyes.
They were no longer the dull grey of a ruined prince.
They were burning with arcs of violet-blue light.
Memories returned.
His mother, on a cold winter night, holding his fevered body close to hers.
"Ren'er… There may come a day when Heaven turns its back on you."
He had laughed then. "Then I'll turn my back on Heaven."
She smiled, bittersweetly. "No. You'll make Heaven kneel."
Present.
He stood slowly, barefoot upon the ruined altar.
The grave wind blew around him, carrying whispers of the dead.
His robes flapped against his legs, torn and soaked with blood.
But his spine was straight. His gaze unwavering.
He looked east.
Toward the empire.
Toward the family who cast him away.
Toward the emperor who chose politics over his son.
And he whispered—
"Thank you... for killing me."