Rebirth

"My beloved is a peerless protagonist. One day, he will don golden sacred armor, tread upon seven-colored clouds, and come to kill me beneath the gaze of all!"

Yuanyang Continent was a world where martial arts were cultivated!

Legend had it that an ancient, mysterious power had split the continent into five regions!

In the Far West Land of the Eastern Continent stood the True Martial Sacred Sect, a colossal force that ruled over the surrounding ten thousand miles of mountains and rivers.

Within the True Martial Sacred Sect, white cranes cried in unison, auspicious clouds descended from the heavens, and spiritual springs surged skyward like a vast sea.

Cultivators rode upon swords, crossing ten thousand miles in an instant.

Burly men swung their fists, turning black iron martial stones into fragments that filled the sky amid explosions.

Yan Nan Peak stood at the very center of the True Martial Sacred Sect. The thousand-zhang peak rose like a tower, piercing the clouds.

White clouds drifted around its summit, while mist curled and wound about it.

Xu Zimo wore white robes whiter than snow. His scattered hair fluttered in the cold wind, and his eyes were boundlessly profound.

His slender figure stood at the cliff's edge as the breeze whipped his white robes into sharp rustling sounds.

"So this counts as reincarnation, huh?" Xu Zimo said in stunned disbelief. He fell silent for three minutes, then another three.

"Isn't reincarnation supposed to be the protagonist's trope? But fucking hell, I'm set up as a villain!"

Xu Zimo began examining his condition. What had happened to him should count as his soul crossing into another body.

This body was so frail it was almost unimaginable. He was certain that he had returned to the year he was fifteen, to the very day he was about to begin cultivation.

Yet this reincarnation had given him more than all the memories of his Previous Life. It had also given him...

Inside his abdomen, a sphere condensed from laws floated silently. Its light was restrained, and its surface appeared utterly ordinary.

But upon closer inspection, one would discover that the sphere contained a world of its own—rays of rosy light stretched ten thousand zhang, grass glistened with morning dew, and the Rising Sun climbed into the sky.

Endless transformations took place within the sphere. The mere trace of pressure it leaked seemed capable of flattening the mountain beneath his feet.

Xu Zimo sensed a familiar aura within the Round Bead. His eyes suddenly widened as if he had thought of something utterly unbelievable.

The Round Bead was something he had obtained by chance in his Previous Life. Its use had remained unknown, but it possessed a special ability to help tear through space.

Xu Zimo still remembered the day of his defeat. He had poured all of his Divine Meridian Realm cultivation into the Round Bead, intending to use it to rip open space and escape. Yet he had never expected to be reborn in his youth.

At last, he understood why the Round Bead felt so familiar. The energy within it was precisely the full Divine Meridian Realm cultivation he had infused into it in his Previous Life.

Xu Zimo trembled from head to toe with excitement. He was confident that, given one year, he could use this energy to return to the Divine Meridian Realm.

The path of martial arts was difficult!

As difficult as ascending to the azure heavens!

Every step led to another azure heaven!

Humans began cultivating from the Mortal Realm, tempering their flesh and blood, honing their sinews and bones, and refining their skin.

Internally, they trained the five viscera and six bowels; externally, they trained skin, flesh, sinews, and bones.

Once the body had been fully tempered, one had to open the body's Meridian Gates, commune with the spiritual energy of heaven and earth, and enter the Spirit Vein Realm.

Mortal Realm, Spirit Vein Realm, Condensed Vein Realm, True Vein Realm, Void Vein Realm, Venerable Vein Realm, Emperor Vein Realm, Saint Meridian Realm, Divine Meridian Realm.

These nine realms were known as the Nine Ascension Meridians.

Xu Zimo gazed toward the distant horizon. He could now freely draw upon the energy within the Round Bead. With merely a thought, he could complete the tempering of the Mortal Realm and directly reach the Spirit Vein Realm.

Absorbing all this energy within a year and ascending once more to the Divine Meridian Realm would be no difficult task.

But he was in no hurry. First, he was currently within the True Martial Sacred Sect, and his father cared deeply about his cultivation. He did not want anyone to notice his abnormality.

As for the second reason, Xu Zimo was not eager to raise his cultivation. He cherished this atmosphere.

Everything was still here. Everything could still be salvaged.

His father, Ru Hu, Xiao Ding Tian, and that girl by the Willow River, standing in the wind with tears streaming down her face as she cried that she wanted to spend an ordinary lifetime with him.

In the end, he had let them all down. After surviving nine deaths and one life, he had ultimately still fallen beneath the sword of the protagonist, Chu Yang.

Xu Zimo looked into the distance. His white robes blended into the mist, and the wind seemed to be growing ever stronger. There was a hint of madness in his smile.

"Chu Yang, in my Previous Life, I was merely a somewhat larger stone on your path to the summit.

Elder Samsara, the old grandpa cheat tool of the protagonist—I was only an insignificant chess piece on your board.

But in this life, I will leap beyond the board. I will surely seize the chess pieces, take all living beings as my pieces and heaven and earth as my board, and hold dominion over eternity."

Xu Zimo's courtyard lay halfway up Yan Nan Peak. Medicinal herbs bloomed on both sides of the path, blue rainbows interwoven with purple streaks. Auspicious beasts raced into the distance, their bodies blazing with rosy light.

The vivid fruits on the spiritual trees lining both sides were spiritual fruits that ordinary people would fight until their heads bled for if even one were placed outside.

Yet here, they were merely ornaments embellishing the scenery along the road.

When Xu Zimo arrived at the courtyard, the guard Zhang Chongtian had long been waiting at the entrance.

"Young Master, the Vice Sect Master just sent word through someone. He said that if you have nothing to do, you should visit him. He has something to discuss with you," Zhang Chongtian said respectfully.

"Understood." Xu Zimo nodded and headed toward Qingshan Peak with Zhang Chongtian beside him.

Three years ago, the current Sect Master of the True Martial Sacred Sect had reached the peak of the Saint Meridian Realm. In pursuit of that final sliver of hope to enter the Divine Meridian Realm,

he handed authority over to Vice Sect Master Xu Qingshan and went alone to the Mortal World, hoping to seek a breakthrough by returning to truth through the ordinary.

From then on, Vice Sect Master Xu Qingshan became the True Martial Sacred Sect's greatest authority, and Xu Zimo was Xu Qingshan's only son.

It would not be an exaggeration to call him the Crown Prince of the entire True Martial Sacred Sect.

Xu Zimo knew that his father had likely called for him now to discuss cultivation.

He was only fifteen this year, precisely the age when he could step across the basic threshold of cultivation.

Before the age of fifteen, a human's meridians, five viscera, and six bowels had not yet fully formed. They were relatively fragile and unsuitable for cultivation.

Basically, everyone on Yuanyang Continent began their path of immortal cultivation at fifteen.

Xu Zimo arrived atop Qingshan Peak. As the residence of the True Martial Sacred Sect's greatest authority, it was not filled with dazzling splendor, towers, pavilions, and lofty halls.

There was only an ordinary Wooden House, a slow and clear little river, and a middle-aged man in a green robe sitting on the ground by the riverbank.

Xu Zimo stood by the river, silently watching his father.

He did not speak, and neither did Xu Qingshan.

Father and son shared an extraordinary tacit understanding.

After a long while, a wisp of breeze in the air seemed to break the rare silence, and Xu Qingshan slowly raised his head.

He was a very ordinary middle-aged man, dressed in a simple green robe, with no particularly terrifying aura about him.