Chapter 1: Funeral of the Immortal Emperor*
The Nine Heavens watched Xie Lian die.
It was not a quiet death. Thunder split the jade platforms of Taiyi Sect, and the sword that ran him through was his own. Frostfall, forged from his natal soul, buried to the hilt in his chest by the hand of Shen Yizhou — his shidi, his dao companion, the man he trusted with his back for 200 years.
"You were always too righteous," Shen Yizhou said, voice soft, like he was discussing tea. Blood ran from Xie Lian's mouth, but the blade in his chest burned colder. "The sect needs a new Heavenly Dao. You refuse to ascend and cut your emotions. So we will help you."
Around them, the elders stood silent. His disciples wouldn't meet his eyes. The grand array beneath his feet flared, chains of karmic law locking his cultivation, dragging his soul toward dispersal.
Xie Lian laughed. It came out wet, broken. Three hundred years of war, of dragging Taiyi Sect from a third-rate sect to the head of the righteous path. Three hundred years of shielding Shen Yizhou, giving him cores, giving him mercy, giving him everything.
And this was the repayment.
He looked past Shen Yizhou, to the execution platform at the edge of the array. A man in black knelt there, hair unbound, iron spikes through his shoulders. Rong Jue. The Demonic Lord of the Northern Wastes. The man Xie Lian had captured six months ago, tried, and sentenced to die today for "crimes against the Heavenly Dao."
Rong Jue was watching him, not the blade, not the elders. Their eyes met across the storm. There was no gloating in Rong Jue's face. Only something flat and tired, like he'd seen this play before.
"Xie Lian," Rong Jue said. His voice carried despite the thunder. "If there is a next life, don't be so stupid."
The array detonated.
Pain, then white, then nothing.
Xie Lian woke to the stink of blood and mold.
His chest heaved. No sword. No hole. His hands scrambled at his robes and found skin, unbroken. Young skin. Too young.
A cracked bronze mirror sat on the table. The face that looked back was his, but 300 years younger. Seventeen, gaunt, with the pale, sickly look of someone whose meridians had been crippled.
This was... the outer disciple dorms of Taiyi Sect. The year he turned seventeen. The year he was poisoned during the sect competition, his spiritual roots shattered, labeled trash and thrown into the Servant Peak.
He'd been reborn.
Three hundred years before his death. Before Shen Yizhou showed his face. Before Taiyi Sect became the number one sect. Before he made every mistake that led to that sword.
Xie Lian pressed a hand to his dantian. Empty. Shattered. In his last life, it took him 50 years to claw his way back from this, rebuilding his meridians inch by bloody inch.
He couldn't do it again. Not fast enough. Shen Yizhou was already in the inner sect, already building his network. The elders who betrayed him were already in power.
He needed strength. Fast. The kind that didn't follow righteous rules.
A memory surfaced. Rong Jue's words before the array took him: "If there is a next life..."
In this year, Rong Jue wasn't the Demonic Lord yet. He was a rogue cultivator, hunted by both righteous and demonic sects for stealing the "Inverse Scale Manual" from the dragon tomb. A manual that could reforge shattered meridians by using demonic qi to temper the body.
A manual Xie Lian had personally burned after executing him, calling it heretical.
Xie Lian stood. His legs shook. He was seventeen, crippled, and the entire sect thought he was worthless.
Good. No one would watch worthless trash leave the mountain.
He had three months before Rong Jue was captured by the righteous alliance in this timeline. Three months to find him first.
And this time, Xie Lian would not be the one holding the sword at his neck.
*End Chapter 1*
