XUAN
"On your knees". The voice echoed in the air. The word pressed down on me with a weight that felt otherworldly. The sky above the ruins of the Lin Clan churned violently. Dark clouds spiraled into a massive vortex, while golden lightning clustered at its core like a living serpent ready to strike.
I remained standing. My blood still stained my robes. Ash clung to my skin. The jade fragment burned in my palm, its surface pulsing in rhythm with my heartbeat; no... it overpowered it.
"Kneel," the voice repeated, colder this time. The pressure intensified.
The stone under my feet cracked. The corpses around me sank deeper into the ground as if the heavens demanded it.
'Heavenly will.' I had heard elders speak of it before the natural suppression that descended upon those who defied the Dao.
But I had never cultivated, I had never drawn Qi from heaven and earth. So why…Why was it targeting me?
Lightning flashed, illuminating the shattered courtyard in blinding white. For a split second, I saw everything clearly—my father's lifeless body, the collapsed ancestral hall, the dark stains where my sister had been.
Rage should have filled me. Hatred should have consumed me. Instead, something much calmer rose in me. I've finally accepted my fate.
The heavens had watched my clan burn. They had not intervened. But the moment I reached for power outside their order, they responded.
"You did nothing when they died," I whispered hoarsely, staring upward. "But you come for me?"
The jade burned into my flesh as if reacting to my defiance.
For the third time, the voice came down, and I could feel it descend. "Kneel… and disperse the forbidden Qi."
Forbidden? So that was what this was all about. It was a cultivation method that did not rely on heaven's blessing but instead fed on what heaven discarded.
I laughed, though it sounded ragged and broken. "I have nothing left to kneel for."
Lightning struck in a way that scared me. It did not fall like ordinary lightning, It descended as a judgment. A pillar of golden light tore through the sky and slammed directly into me.
Agony beyond anything I had ever known exploded through my body. Every nerve ignited. My vision turned white as the tribulation lightning flowed through my newly formed meridians.
This was not normal lightning. It was a heavenly punishment. It aimed to erase, purify, and annihilate me.
I felt the Devouring Qi within me recoil violently, hissing like a life serpent. The black jade pulsed wildly, absorbing a fraction of the lightning while the rest ravaged my body.
My knees buckled, not in submission but in survival. I refused to let my forehead touch the ground.
The lightning did not stop. It burrowed deeper, seeking the source of corruption within me. I felt it find the twisted pathways in my meridians, where dark currents wove together with resentment and death.
And then...Something unexpected happened. The tribulation not only destroyed me, but it also fed me.
The portion of lightning absorbed by the jade fragment transformed as it entered my body. The golden light dimmed, darkening to a stained hue, reshaping into something I could consume.
The Devouring Path was adapting, using heaven's punishment as a sustenance.
The pressure in the sky changed. The vortex tightened and I sensed the disturbance.
"How dare you challenge me?" the voice murmured and another bolt of lightning clustered. This time it was larger, denser. This one would not only test my submissiveness, but it would also destroy me.
My body was already failing, my flesh burned and my blood seeped from my reopened wounds. The courtyard had the smell of ozone and charred skin.
I could release the Qi. If I expelled the Devouring energy now, the heavens might withdraw.
And I would survive, but I'll be weak, empty and powerless and most importantly...alive.
My gaze drifted to Lin Yue's body. I remembered her last voice when she called me. I remembered the trust in her eyes. If I abandoned this power now, I would stay with what I had always been...Nothing.
The demonic cultivators would keep slaughtering, the righteous sects would keep ignoring and the heavens would continue to judge without offering protection.
My fingers tightened around the jade. "I will not kneel."
The second bolt fell again. This time, it pierced straight through my chest, and I felt something inside me shatter—not my bone, or muscle, but a barrier—The invisible line that separated mortals from cultivators.
Qi flooded into my body violently but it was not the heavenly Qi. It was darker and heavier.
The tribulation lightning howled as it collided with the Devouring Path, and instead of destroying me It was drawn inward and swallowed inside of me.
The sky trembled, clouds split apart unnaturally, revealing a glimpse of a vast golden eye opening within the heavens that was watching me.
I felt a pressure greater than anything before descend. The ground opened under my feet. The eye then narrowed. "You are not meant to exist."
The jade fragment cracked in my hand as I heard the sound and for the first time, fear pierced through my consciousness.
If the jade shattered completely, the Devouring Path might collapse or maybe even worse, consume me entirely.
The third bolt began forming but it was no longer golden. This time it was black. The Tribulation lightning is tainted by my own corruption.
Heaven was adapting too. If that bolt struck, I might not survive it. The golden eye in the sky widened, and within it, ancient runes began to rotate, forming a symbol.
It was no longer trying to kill me. It was trying to erase me from my fate, to ensure I had never existed.
Then I heard a whisper. The voice was not from the heavens, it was not mine either. It came from the black jade. The crack along its surface spread as it pulsed deliberately as if something was trying to free itself. "Let me out."
The final lightning clustered again, ready to descend.
The whisper from the jade grew clearer now."Erase the heavens, do not give them what they want."
The black tribulation bolt fell on me again and the jade shattered.