The sky was dyed red with the hue of the setting sun and the soil beneath the feet had turned crimson stained with the blood of the countless fallen experts. A metallic and nauseating smell wafted in the air, while several corpses could be seen piled up in the surroundings.
A bloodied man stood still in the center of the battlefield. His face had a smile despite his impending doom. Though most of the blood on his body wasn't his own, Pure Yang Lord himself was a spent force, just hovering with a last bit of energy left.
Panting heavily, he glanced at the few peak experts left on the battlefield in front of him and several others scattered far from him, too frightened to get close to him.
He sighed as if lamenting that he couldn't finish them all.
A sage-like old man stepped forward and spoke, his voice filled with disdain. "This man is no longer the Pure Yang Lord. He has turned into a bloodthirsty and evil beast with no path ahead of him and his soul is beyond redemption. He is just a shadow of his former self with no energy and hope left in his body."
His words brought courage to the cultivators hiding afar who moved closer to the center, eager to bask in the glory of killing a martial legend.
Internally, Pure Yang Lord was happy when the cowards hiding on the fringes stepped forward courageously to deliver the final blow. He wanted to reward their foolish bravery with his final act—a glorious explosion. He was preparing the final firework of his life by detonating his body and his most prized possession, the mystic sword.
It appeared as though he had completely resigned himself to his fate, but in secret, his soul began to unravel, releasing wisps of it, slipping away, hoping to at least enter the cycle of reincarnation. Yet, the strange Yin formation binding him trapped even his soul, making it unable to escape.
All kinds of attacks were thrown at him from all directions, yet his body and the mystic sword suddenly glowed with blinding light, exploding with a great force.
BOOOM!
The detonation brought destruction far greater than what the Pure Yang Lord had anticipated. It released a crack in the very fabric of the laws of the world itself, creating an enormous space-time vortex consuming everything for thousands of miles.
Strangely, a great suction forcefully dragged the final vestiges of his soul into the time-space turbulence, preventing it from death or moving to the cycle of reincarnation.
--------------------------
Pure Yang Lord woke up as if pulled from a deep slumber by an unseen force.
He felt sharp pain and dullness in his entire body. His mind spiraled into endless confusion as he remembered his last memory.
"Wait… Wasn't I fighting with peak experts in the world? Didn't I detonate myself… and the mystic sword?" He opened his eyes, only to find an empty sky that was familiar yet strangely unfamiliar. The only things he could touch and feel with his hands were loose stones and dirt—no mystic sword or blood.
"My body was destroyed in that desperate detonation. Even my soul got trapped in that Nine-nine Extreme Yin formation, unable to escape. But, how could I survive? Is this the afterlife? Heaven? Hell?"
He slowly stood up with great difficulty and noticed a large body of water with thick mist floating in front of him. Watching the water flow with a raging current, he realized it was a river and he was standing at the edge of a low cliff beside the river.
"I didn't die?"
He had unknowingly triggered a strong space-time turbulence when he detonated the mystic sword. He wouldn't have survived that destructive force even if he were at the peak of his power. His body was definitely destroyed in that attack. So, how come he's still alive?
"Wait a minute… my body!"
He was stunned looking at his own hands—long, pale, and smooth skin, bony fingers, that were even more exquisite than the delicate hands of the most beautiful women in the Pure Maiden Sect.
"What the heck… These are not my hands!"
As if realizing something important, he hurriedly grabbed his crotch and heaved a sigh of relief.
[Ding! Conditions matched! System binding in progress…]
[Initiating body synchronization…]
A strange sound echoed in his head, but when he looked around, there was only a thick forest and the raging river—with no other soul in sight. 'I might be getting off my rocker here,' he thought.
Suddenly, he felt a mild headache and memories that were foreign to him appeared in his mind. He realized this body's original name was Alister Maboric Grimshaw.
"What kind of parents name their child after the infamous Evil Tyrant?" he wondered, shaking his head in pity.
Further memories related to this body appeared in his mind, revealing his life that was very similar to the early life of the Evil Tyrant—an orphan, raised by an elderly couple in a declining clan and both of them passed away when the boy was in his teenage years.
He sighed. "Maybe the elderly couple gave him this name, hoping for him to have a great stroke of luck and talent like that of the Tyrant."
But unlike the tyrant, this boy was considered a mediocre talent, labeled as trash even in this declining clan. Moreover, he enjoyed no luck like the tyrant who snared a powerful and beautiful princess in love—who was far beyond his league at that time. Worse still, this poor boy's childhood sweetheart tossed him aside when her family arranged for her to marry someone better than him.
Unable to bear his childhood sweetheart being taken by another, he committed suicide by consuming poison and succumbed to it before he could jump off the cliff into the river. And due to some unknown reason, Pure Yang Lord got this body.
"So that's the reason why I'm feeling all these pain and body weaknesses." Pure Yang Lord realized the situation with this body.
"It's just some mortal poison… humph"
Pure Yang Lord looked down at the poison but suddenly he felt dizzy and his vision blurred.
"Damn it!"
With this, he realized the bitter truth that he wasn't the peak expert, Pure Yang Lord anymore. Now, he was a weak, unknown kid from a declining clan.
Reluctantly, he sat down cross-legged and focused on just suppressing this poison with his soul power. Because he didn't want to waste his last remaining soul power that could be a trump card for an emergency, to remove a mortal poison.
While suppressing the poison, he rejoiced as he realized something familiar but a bit different in this body—A Pure Yang body constitution. The achievements in his past life were all based on the constitution that he was born with. A flicker of hope sparked in his chest.
However, his excitement was cut short when the previous voice returned directly to his head with a screen:
[Welcome to the Evil Tyrant System, hostage!]