The Only Answer is Death
The sky was not blue; it was a bruised purple, weeping veins of crimson lightning that tore through the firmament. Below, the world was a jagged landscape of shattered mountains and rivers of molten essence.
Li Yao stood at the center of the Heaven-Severing Formation. His robes, once white, were now so soaked in blood they appeared black. Around him lay the corpses of legends—venerables and sovereigns whose names had once caused the world to tremble. They had come to stop him, to preserve the "Order of the Heavens," and he had turned them into footstools for his final ascent.
But as he looked up at the swirling eye of the Great Dao, Li Yao felt no triumph. He felt only the cold, biting realization of a final barrier.
"To kill the Heavens... I must first kill myself."
His voice was a dry rasp. For three thousand years, he had schemed. He had betrayed mentors, slaughtered clans, and refined the souls of millions to reach this peak. All for one goal: Eternal Life. Not the longevity of a thousand-year turtle, nor the fragile immortality of an Immortal who could still be slain, but true, absolute, indestructible existence.
The Heavens, however, were not a being. They were a system. A cage. And Li Yao was the ultimate prisoner.
"He is attempting the Forbidden Paradox!" A voice thundered from the horizon.
Six streaks of light—the last of the World Guardians—descended. Their faces were etched with a mixture of terror and righteous fury.
"Li Yao! You have defied the cycle of reincarnation! You have drained the world of its spirit! If you go any further, the Dao will collapse!"
Li Yao didn't even look at them. He looked at his own hands. They were trembling, not from fear, but from the sheer weight of the Heaven-Killing Gu pulsating in his heart.
"The Heavens use us as fuel," Li Yao whispered, his eyes vacant yet piercing. "We cultivate to grow strong, only for the Heavens to harvest our essence when we die. To truly live forever, the harvest must end. The system must die. But the system is woven into my very marrow. To tear it out... I must erase the vessel."
"Stop him!" the Guardians roared. "We must kill him before he kills himself! If he dies by his own hand, he will trigger the Regression!"
The Guardians unleashed their ultimate techniques. Space fractured. Golden dragons of light and obsidian blades of shadow converged on the lone figure.
Li Yao smiled. It was a terrifying, hollow expression.
"You are too late. In this life, I was a monster. In the next... I will be a nightmare."
He didn't defend. Instead, he reached into his own chest, his fingers bypassing bone and meat to grasp the glowing core of his soul. With a roar that shook the foundations of reality, he crushed it.
BOOM.
The world didn't explode; it imploded. The light of the stars was sucked into a single point of absolute darkness. The screams of the Guardians were cut short as time itself began to fold backward, like a scroll being rolled up by a frustrated scholar.
The Weight of a Dream
In the vast, icy darkness of the void, a consciousness drifted.
Li Yao felt the sensation of his memories being stripped away by the winds of time. This was the risk of Regression. To go back, one had to shed the weight of their current power. He felt his Rank 9 Cultivation evaporate. He felt his legendary artifacts shatter into stardust.
Was it worth it? A voice echoed in the void.
Yes, Li Yao thought.
Why? To what end?
For the peak. For the view that never ends. For the freedom to never have to say 'enough'.
The darkness suddenly fractured. A pinprick of light appeared, growing larger and more blinding by the second. The coldness of the void was replaced by a suffocating warmth and the smell of... old wood and stale incense?
The Awakening
Li Yao's eyes snapped open.
He gasped, his lungs burning as they pulled in air that felt heavy and thick. His heart thundered against his ribs like a trapped bird.
He didn't move. He lay perfectly still, his gaze fixed on a ceiling made of rough-hewn cedar beams. Dust motes danced in a shaft of morning sunlight that pierced through a small, paper-covered window.
The smell... He recognized it. It was the scent of the Li Clan's dormitories in the Azure Mist Valley. A place that had been burned to ashes over two thousand years ago.
"I... succeeded."
He sat up slowly. His body felt disgustingly weak. His limbs were thin, his skin lacked the jade-like luster of an Immortal, and his internal sea was bone-dry. He was fifteen again. This was the day of the Spirit Awakening Ceremony.
He looked at his hands. They were small and uncalloused. To anyone else, this would be a moment of joy—a second chance at youth. To Li Yao, it was a profound humiliation. He had gone from a being who could pluck stars to a mortal who could be killed by a falling rock.
"Young Master Li Yao! Are you still asleep? The Patriarch and the Elders are already at the Ancestral Hall!"
A sharp knocking at the door broke his reverie. It was the voice of a servant—someone Li Yao had personally executed for theft decades later.
Li Yao stood up. His legs wobbled, but his eyes remained as cold as a winter moon.
"Coming," he said. His voice was high-pitched, a teenager's voice, but the tone held a weight that made the servant outside freeze in inexplicable fear.
Li Yao walked to a small, cracked mirror in the corner of the room. He stared at his reflection. The face was soft, almost innocent. But behind those eyes sat a soul that had seen empires fall and heavens bleed.
"Eternal Life," he whispered to the reflection. "This time, I won't just reach for it. I will seize it by the throat."
The Philosophy of the Predator
He walked out of the room, ignoring the trembling servant. As he traversed the stone paths of the Li Clan manor, he observed the people around him.
They were laughing, gossiping, and worrying about trivialities—money, marriage, the favor of the Elders. They were like ants building a mound on the edge of a volcano, blissfully unaware of the fire beneath.
Most people are born to be grass, Li Yao mused. They grow, they soak up the sun, and they are eventually eaten by the cattle. The cattle are then eaten by the wolves. The wolves die and return to the soil to nourish the grass. A perfect, disgusting circle.
He passed a group of his "cousins." One of them, Li Chen, a boisterous youth with a high-grade talent, tripped Li Yao as he walked by.
"Still dreaming, Yao? Don't be late. Even a piece of trash like you needs to witness how real geniuses are born today!"
The group erupted in laughter.
In his previous life, Li Yao would have felt a burning humiliation. He would have fought back, or perhaps slunk away in shame. Now? He didn't even feel anger. Does a man get angry at a pebble that rolls under his shoe?
He simply stopped, looked at Li Chen for a brief second, and memorized the exact location of the boy's carotid artery.
Li Chen. Talent: Grade A. Potential: Rank 4. Death: In three days, his blood will be used to moisten my first Spirit Gu.
Li Yao didn't say a word. He continued walking.
The Ancestral Hall
The hall was packed. The air was thick with the scent of burning spirit-incense. At the center stood a massive stone basin filled with Spirit-Awakening Water.
The Patriarch, a man of Rank 3 cultivation who thought himself a god among men, stood with his arms crossed. "Today, you determine your destiny! The Heavens grant us the gift of Spirit Essence. Those with high aptitude will lead the clan to glory. Those without... will serve!"
Li Yao stood at the back of the line. He watched as youth after youth stepped forward.
"Li Feng! Grade C talent! You shall be a guard!"
"Li Meiling! Grade B talent! You shall enter the Alchemy Hall!"
The crowd cheered and groaned. To them, this was the most important day of their lives. To Li Yao, it was a farce. Aptitude was merely the size of a cup. Even with a small cup, if one knew how to steal the entire ocean, the size of the cup didn't matter.
"Li Yao! Step forward!"
The hall went quiet. Li Yao was known as the son of a disgraced branch. People expected nothing.
He walked to the basin. He dipped his hands into the cool, glowing water. He felt the Spirit Essence trying to enter his pores, testing the strength of his "Aperture."
In his first life, he had a Grade D talent—the lowest of the low. It had taken him centuries of suffering to overcome that limitation.
But this time, he knew a secret. He knew the Breath-Holding Technique of the Void.
As the water reacted, Li Yao didn't let it flow naturally. He manipulated the essence, forcing it to vibrate at a frequency that mimicked a higher grade. He didn't want to be a "trash" protagonist this time—that attracted too much unnecessary trouble. He wanted resources. He wanted the clan to feed him.
The water in the basin began to glow with a brilliant green light.
The Patriarch's eyes widened. "This... this is..."
The light stabilized.
"Li Yao! Grade A talent! 82 percent purity!"
The hall gasped. The cousins who had mocked him were suddenly pale. Li Chen's jaw dropped.
Li Yao withdrew his hands. He looked at the Patriarch, his expression one of "shocked humility," while internally, he was calculating the most efficient way to drain the clan's treasury.
The Heavens want to play a game of fate? Fine.
I have died once to kill the Heavens. I will kill everything else as many times as necessary.
He bowed deeply, concealing the cold glint in his eyes.
"Thank you, Patriarch. I will not disappoint the clan."
I will not disappoint the clan, he thought. I will use every brick, every soul, and every drop of essence in this place as a stepping stone. Because the road to Eternal Life is paved with the silence of those who stood in the way.
The ceremony continued, but Li Yao was already mentally miles away. He was looking at the horizon, where the great sects and hidden demons of this era were still in their infancy.
The lion had returned to the tall grass. And he was very, very hungry.