When Chen Xiao opened his eyes, everything before him was hazy. In a daze, he thought he heard a voice.
"Ah, the young master's awake! Master, Madam, the young master's awake!"
"Huh?" Chen Xiao slowly shook his head, trying to clear it a little. That voice had sounded vaguely familiar.
"Xiao'er, you're awake?"
Then a gentle, slightly anxious woman's voice reached Chen Xiao's ears.
"Mother?"
Chen Xiao's body jolted, and his eyes flew open, wide with disbelief as he stared at the woman before him.
It was really his mother. How could that be?!
Chen Xiao shook his head hard. Could this be a dream?
His family, his mother—they had been reduced to ashes fifty years ago. What... was going on?
"You good-for-nothing! You're only at the third layer of Qi Refining, yet you dared to fight Nangong Wenyue? You're lucky he showed mercy and didn't beat you to death!"
At that moment, a stern voice said angrily.
"Father..."
Chen Xiao felt his mind twist into a knot. His father... How could this be?
Suddenly, a long-buried memory surfaced in his mind.
When he was sixteen, he'd gotten into a fight with Moon-Gazing City's greatest prodigy, Nangong Wenyue, over some matter. The other boy had beaten him half to death, leaving him bedridden for half a month.
How closely this scene resembled what was happening now! Even his parents were saying exactly the same things they had back then.
Had I returned to when I was sixteen?
Chen Xiao was completely stunned. He had no idea what was happening or what had taken place.
He had just been undergoing his Heavenly Tribulation. Why had he ended up here, lying in his family's bed, with his father and mother beside him, watching over him with concern?
Could someone tell him what had happened?
Chen Xiao's head was spinning, yet he could clearly feel the concern in his mother's heart.
"Mother..."
His throat tightened, and tears blurred his eyes.
"Why are you crying? You dared to harass a girl from the Nangong Clan, got beaten up, and now you're the one feeling wronged?"
Chen Tiannan said, exasperated.
"Say a little less, will you?" Chen Xiao's mother, Su Mulan, glared fiercely at Chen Tiannan.
"You spoil him rotten!"
Chen Tiannan sighed, then walked out of the room.
"Xiao'er, get some rest. We'll talk about everything once you're feeling better." Su Mulan stroked Chen Xiao's cheek, tucked the covers around him, then left the room as well.
Even after they were gone, Chen Xiao could faintly hear his parents arguing.
Once Su Mulan had left, only Mengmeng, the maid who had just delivered the news, and Chen Xiao remained in the room.
"Sis Mengmeng, could you step outside? I'd like to be alone for a while," Chen Xiao said slowly.
Mengmeng froze. She hadn't expected the young master, who usually hit and scolded her at every turn, to speak to her this way.
But Mengmeng didn't say anything. She bowed slightly and left the room.
"Did I... really return to the year I was sixteen?"
Chen Xiao stared in disbelief. Enduring the pain throughout his body, he walked over to the mirror.
Reflected in it was a boy of about fifteen or sixteen, with handsome features, two sharply angled brows that swept toward his temples, bright, alert eyes, a high nose, and thin lips. The corners of his mouth tilted up slightly, giving his whole face a faintly wicked smile.
This was exactly what Chen Xiao had looked like at sixteen.
The only flaw was that his face was swollen and bruised, and his eyes were dark as a panda's. It was the handiwork of that prodigy from the Nangong Clan, Nangong Wenyue.
"I really have come back... Could it be that Heaven has truly given me another chance?"
Chen Xiao gazed blankly at his reflection, unable to stop a look of wild joy from spreading across his face.
He never would have imagined that life could begin anew—that he would be reborn at sixteen.
Chen Xiao knew that, before long, his family would face a terrible calamity: the destruction of his entire clan!
The one behind that calamity was the Nangong Clan of Moon-Gazing City.
As things had unfolded in his previous life, two years later, his grandfather, Chen Fengyang—the greatest cultivator in Moon-Gazing City and a late-stage Tribulation Realm expert—would fail his tribulation and die. In the chaos that followed, the Nangong Clan would seize the opportunity to invade the Chen Clan, slaughtering everyone except Chen Xiao.
The reason Chen Xiao had survived was that the maid who had just been here, Mengmeng, had detonated her Golden Core, giving him a slim chance to escape.
Later, after investigating repeatedly, Chen Xiao finally learned the truth: the Nangong Clan had been plotting against the Chen Clan for a long time. They had secretly stirred up trouble within the Chen Clan, and even the news of Chen Fengyang's failed tribulation and death was their doing. After the Chen Clan was wiped out, Moon-Gazing City naturally fell into the Nangong Clan's hands. A few years later, Nangong Wenyue had become the city's new lord.
The third young master of the Moon-Gazing City Lord, Chen Xiao was a notorious wastrel in the Immortal World's Glazed Heaven. From then on, he concealed his identity and vanished from the Immortal World. But he had never stopped yearning for revenge. His lifelong wish was to destroy the Nangong Clan and avenge his family.
Chen Xiao, who had never taken cultivation seriously, had needed only fifty years to rise from the third layer of Qi Refining to the late stage of the Tribulation Realm. He had planned to seek out the Nangong Clan and wipe them out after his tribulation. But he hadn't expected anything to go wrong during the tribulation.
While undergoing his tribulation, Chen Xiao hadn't even seen a glimpse of the lightning. A streak of nine-colored light flashed across the sky, and he lost consciousness. When he came to again, he was in the scene from just now.
"Could that rainbow light have brought me back fifty years?"
Chen Xiao murmured to himself. Then a determined look flashed in his eyes. "Since I've been given another chance, I'll change my fate. If the Nangong Clan is plotting against my Chen Clan, then... this young master will have some fun with you."
Chen Xiao took a deep breath.
Then he returned to the bed and sat cross-legged.
"Hmm?"
When Chen Xiao focused inward, he couldn't help but freeze.
At this point, his cultivation should have been at the third layer of Qi Refining, with a small vortex of energy in his dantian. But now, his dantian was completely empty.
"What's going on? Back then, although Nangong Wenyue beat me badly, I still had my cultivation. Why is it gone now...?"
Suddenly, Chen Xiao's divine sense stirred, and a ray of nine-colored light appeared in his dantian.
The Nine Heavens Thunder Virtue Universal Transformation Art.
All at once, an ancient thought echoed through his mind.
Ancestor of Heavenly Tribulations, sovereign of thunder. Nine thunders, nine tribulations; all laws cannot touch you. Boundless merit, all tribulations return to the source.
Nine Heavens Thunder Virtue, nine transformations, nine cloud realms. Nine transformations of merit, nine clouds of tribulation.
In a flash, a spark of insight flickered in his mind. An inexplicable cultivation art surged forth. The pitifully little true essence within Chen Xiao began to circulate slowly according to that art, the Nine Heavens Thunder Virtue Universal Transformation Art, forming a Greater Celestial Circuit through his body.
Nine Heavens Thunder Virtue, the Nine Cloud Realms.
First Realm, Red Cloud Realm, presiding over the Tribulation of Spirit-Object Transformation.
Second Realm, Orange Cloud Realm, presiding over the Living Ascension Tribulation.
Third Realm, Yellow Cloud Realm, presiding over the thousand-year tribulation of Loose Immortals.
Fourth Realm, Green Cloud Realm, presiding over the tribulation of all immortals passing through the world.
Fifth Realm, Cyan Cloud Realm, presiding over the tribulation of all immortals' status.
Sixth Realm, Blue Cloud Realm, presiding over the tribulation of all beings breaking through the void.
Seventh Realm, Purple Cloud Realm, presiding over the immortality of all beings.
Eighth Realm, Void Cloud Realm, shattering the tribulation of eternity across ten thousand ages.
Ninth Realm, Tribulation Cloud Realm, all tribulations return to the source.
Boom!
The next moment, Chen Xiao heard a thunderclap beside his ear. Before he could even understand what those nine realms meant, the scene before his eyes had changed.
"Where is this?"
Chen Xiao was dazed. He could no longer sense his body—or perhaps the whole world was his body. An endless feeling of fullness surged through him, making him want to throw back his head and roar.
Above Chen Xiao stretched an endless starry sky, every star radiating dense spiritual energy. Below him lay a boundless forest.
"The Fallen Forest? The Fallen Forest west of Glazed Heaven? How did I get here?"
When Chen Xiao recognized the forest, his heart gave a little jolt.
The Fallen Forest was one of Glazed Heaven's great forbidden zones, teeming with demonic beasts. Not even Mahayana Realm cultivators dared venture into it lightly. But in his previous life, Chen Xiao had entered the Fallen Forest many times to hone himself and hunt demonic beasts.
Below Chen Xiao was a clearing, not especially large. At its center stood a gigantic lion, its body three zhang long and wreathed in flames. A pair of horns resembling dragon horns grew from its head.
The Blazing Dragon Lion, a legendary supreme-grade demonic beast. Ordinary demonic beasts could undergo tribulation and transform once they reached the Golden Core Realm. But because of its powerful innate bloodline, the Blazing Dragon Lion had to reach the Division Spirit Realm before it could transform!
Chen Xiao examined the Blazing Dragon Lion carefully. Its cultivation was at the peak of the late Out-of-Body Realm, just short of the Division Spirit Realm—the threshold for undergoing tribulation and transforming.
At that moment, the Blazing Dragon Lion gazed fearfully at the pair of enormous eyes in the sky, its heart full of despair.
Heaven's misfortune might be survived, but one's own misdeeds were fatal! Why had I killed so many living beings for no reason? Other seniors had only needed to pass the Four-Nine Heavenly Tribulation to take human form, but my tribulation had drawn the Eye of Heavenly Punishment! If only I'd known better!
The Blazing Dragon Lion wailed inwardly without end.
But the Eye of Heavenly Punishment in the sky merely watched it in silence, showing no sign of doing anything. Even though the Blazing Dragon Lion feared nothing under Heaven, faced with the legendary Eye of Heavenly Punishment, it was as docile as a kitten.
"Heavenly Thunder Tribulation, Four-Nine Heavenly Tribulation, Six-Nine Heavenly Tribulation, Nine-Nine Heavenly Tribulation, Thousand-Crush Heavenly Tribulation, Ten Thousand Demons Refining World Tribulation..."
"Blazing Dragon Lion, five hundred and thirty-eight years of cultivation. Undergoing its transformation tribulation. Its slaughter has been excessive; it shall be struck by the Six-Nine Heavenly Tribulation."
As Chen Xiao watched the Blazing Dragon Lion, a glimmer of understanding arose in his heart.
"It should face the Six-Nine Heavenly Tribulation, but... can I strike it with a different tribulation?"
Suddenly, the thought came to Chen Xiao's mind.
Boom!
A bolt of purple lightning descended from the sky.