The sky over the Nine Provinces was not blue, nor was it grey. It was the color of bruised iron, swirling with the oppressive weight of the Heavenly Dao.
Ten thousand cultivators stood upon the floating peaks of the Azure Cloud Sect. They were pristine, robed in white and gold, their faces masks of righteous indignation. They were the "Righteous Path." They were the jury.
And Mo Tian was the condemned.
Chained to the Heaven-Suppressing Pillar in the center of the execution platform, Mo Tian looked less like a man and more like a ruined sculpture of meat and bone. His meridians had been severed, his dantian shattered, and his spirit root extracted by the Sect Master of the Azure Cloud Sect personally.
Yet, Mo Tian did not scream. He did not beg.
He raised his head, blood dripping from a missing eye socket, and stared directly at the swirling vortex of Tribulation Lightning gathering above him. His remaining eye, pitch black and devoid of light, held a calmness that unsettled the elders watching him.
"Mo Tian!" The Azure Cloud Sect Master, Ye Qingyun, projected his voice with spiritual pressure that caused the air to vibrate. "You have slaughtered three cities, refined the souls of ten thousand mortals, and practiced the Forbidden Blood Arts. The Heavens cannot tolerate you. Earth cannot bury you. Today, your soul shall be erased from the Cycle of Reincarnation!"
"Justice!" the crowd chanted. "Justice for the Nine Provinces!"
Mo Tian spat a mouthful of blood onto the pristine white jade floor. A dark, gurgling laugh escaped his throat.
"Justice?" Mo Tian rasped, his voice rough like grinding stones. "You call it justice because you won. If I had won... my slaughter would be called 'unification,' and my arts would be called 'sacred.' History is just the autobiography of the butcher who held the sharpest knife."
"Heretic to the end!" Ye Qingyun roared, raising his hand. "Summon the Ninth Heaven Tribulation! Erase him!"
The sky tore open.
It wasn't just lightning. It was a pillar of pure, white erasure. The will of the Heavenly Dao descended. It sought to scour Mo Tian's existence not just from the physical plane, but from the tapestry of fate itself.
So this is it, Mo Tian thought, the heat melting his skin before the bolt even touched him. I failed. Not because I was evil. But because I was weak. I calculated the variables, but I underestimated the hypocrisy of the so-called Righteous sects uniting against me.
As the white light consumed him, time seemed to stretch into infinity. The pain vanished, replaced by a sensation of absolute cold. His soul began to fray, dissolving into nothingness.
I refuse.
The thought was a singular point of gravity in the dissolving void.
I do not repent. I do not accept. If the Heavens want me dead, then the Heavens are my enemy.
In that nanosecond of absolute defiance, a fracture appeared in the fabric of his dissolving soul. A darkness deeper than the void seeped through.
[...Scanning Host's Will...]
[...Hate detected. Ambition detected. Logic detected...]
[...Criteria Met...]
A mechanical voice, cold and devoid of humanity, echoed not in his ears, but in the core of his crumbling consciousness.
[SYSTEM INITIALIZATION]
The Heavenly Dao desires your erasure. Do you desire the Heavenly Dao's destruction?
Mo Tian's soul, hanging by a thread, surged with a final burst of intent. Yes. I will devour it all.
[Directives Confirmed.]
[Installing: HEAVEN-DEVOURING VILLAIN SYSTEM]
[Status: ACTIVATED] [Intervention: Soul Retrieval in progress...]
The white light of the Tribulation Lightning blinded the ten thousand spectators. When it faded, the Heaven-Suppressing Pillar was empty. Not even ash remained.
"He is gone," Ye Qingyun announced, stroking his beard. "Dust to dust."
The Righteous Path cheered. They did not know that the dust had not settled. It had merely been moved.
The Corpse Pit
Mo Tian gasped, his lungs filling with the stench of rotting meat.
He jerked upright, his hands sinking into something soft and wet. Darkness pressed against him, thick and heavy. He was not in hell. Hell would be cleaner.
He was in the Mass Grave of the Azure Cloud Sect.
This was where the "Righteous" sect dumped the failures, the servants who died of exhaustion, and the rogue cultivators they secretly murdered for resources. It was a pit beneath the mountain, sealed away from the sun.
"I... live."
Mo Tian touched his chest. The gaping wound where his heart had been pierced was gone. His skin was pale, smooth, and cold. However, when he tried to circulate his Qi, he felt nothing. His Dantian was a dark, empty void.
I am a mortal? No... worse.
A translucent blue screen flickered into existence before his eyes, illuminating the gruesome pile of limbs and torsos he was sitting upon.
[SYSTEM STATUS]
Host: Mo Tian Identity: Villain Emperor (awakening) Cultivation: Mortal (Crippled Dantian) Villain Merit: 0 Current State: Weakened
[Unique Trait Unlocked: Heaven-Devouring Foundation] The Host cannot cultivate spiritual energy from nature. The Heavens have rejected you, so you must reject the Heavens. You may only cultivate by plundering, devouring, and corrupting existing sources of energy.
[Beginner Gift Available. Open?]
Mo Tian stared at the screen. He was a scholar of forbidden arts before he became a warlord. He understood instantly what this was. A golden finger. A destiny-altering opportunity.
"Open," he whispered.
[Beginner Gift Opened]
1. Technique: [Corpse-Refining Heaven-Eater Art] (Grade: ???) Description: Absorb the Death Qi, Resentment, and residual Essence Blood from the dead to re-forge a Forbidden Foundation.
2. Item: [Eye of Truth] (Level 1) Description: See the hidden stats of living beings and the flaws in techniques.
Information flooded Mo Tian's mind. Complex geometric seals, meridian pathways that ran in reverse, and chants that sounded like the weeping of ghosts. The Corpse-Refining Heaven-Eater Art.
It was grotesque. It was blasphemous.
Mo Tian smiled. It was perfect.
"The Azure Cloud Sect thinks they have discarded their trash here," Mo Tian murmured, looking around at the thousands of rotting bodies in the pit. "But to me... this is a banquet."
He assumed the lotus position atop a pile of corpses. He didn't close his eyes. He activated the [Eye of Truth].
Suddenly, the darkness shifted. The corpses weren't just meat anymore. He saw wisps of grey smoke rising from them—Death Qi. He saw faint red glows lingering in the hearts of the fresher bodies—Essence Blood. He saw the jagged, black aura of Resentment from those who died screaming.
"Devour."
Mo Tian performed the first seal.
Whoosh.
A vortex formed in his lower abdomen, right where his shattered Dantian used to be. The grey mist of the pit began to swirl. The temperature dropped, freezing the rotting fluids on the ground.
The grey streams of Death Qi rushed toward him, entering through his pores. It felt like ice water pulsing through his veins, tearing open his collapsed meridians.
[Pain detected. Suppression initiated. Continue.]
Mo Tian didn't flinch. He channeled the energy, forcing it to spiral. Normal cultivators built a Golden Core. He would build a Black Hole.
The red Essence Blood floated up from the corpses, turning into a fine mist that he inhaled. His muscles knit together, becoming denser, harder. His bones cracked and reformed, turning from white to a metallic grey.
More. It's not enough.
He extended his will, grabbing the Resentment—the anger of the murdered disciples, the hatred of the forgotten.
"Your hatred is useless in death," Mo Tian whispered to the ghosts swirling around him. "Give it to me. I will use it to burn the sky."
The ghosts screamed and were sucked into the vortex.
[System Alert: Cultivation Increasing...] [Body Tempering: 1st Stage...] [Body Tempering: 3rd Stage...] [Body Tempering: 7th Stage...]
Time lost meaning. In the pitch-black pit, Mo Tian was a singularity. The corpses around him withered, turning to dry dust as he sucked every ounce of energy from them.
Crack.
A sound echoed inside his body. It was the sound of a limit breaking.
A surge of dark power exploded outward, blasting the piles of dry bones against the stone walls of the pit. Mo Tian opened his eyes. A faint, crimson light illuminated the dark.
He stood up. He was naked, covered in bone dust, but his body was etched with faint, black runic lines that faded under his skin.
[Breakthrough Successful]
Current Realm: Qi Condensation - Stage 1 (Forbidden Foundation) Attribute: Devouring / Death
[Notification] You have successfully taken the first step against the Heavenly Dao. The aura of the dead conceals you from Heaven's detection... for now.
Mo Tian clenched his fist. The strength flowing through him was different from the spiritual energy he used to command. It was violent, hungry, and subservient only to his will.
He looked up at the sealed entrance of the corpse pit, hundreds of meters above.
"Ye Qingyun," Mo Tian said, his voice echoing in the silence. "Keep my head warm on your pike. I'll be coming to collect it."
[Mission Generated: The First Blood]
Objective: Escape the Corpse Pit and kill the Guard Disciple stationed at the entrance.
Reward: 100 Villain Merit Points, [Soul-Binding Chain (Consumable)].
Failure Penalty: Erasure.
Mo Tian sneered. "A simple task."
He walked toward the wall of the pit. He didn't need to fly. He dug his fingers into the stone—it crumbled like tofu under his new grip—and began to climb.
The Villain Emperor had returned.