The storm had raged for nine days.
Li Wei knelt atop Stormpeak Mountain, his robes shredded, his skin cracked like sunbaked clay. Blood pooled beneath him, mingling with rainwater that hissed as it struck the molten stone around his knees. The heavens roared, their fury condensing into jagged arcs of lightning that split the sky—each strike a test of his resolve, his body, his very soul.
Ten thousand years of cultivation, he thought, teeth gritted as another bolt seared his spine. Ten thousand years to reach this moment.
He had climbed from the mud of mortal villages to the pinnacle of the cultivation world. He'd crushed demonic sects, unearthed forbidden relics, and dueled emperors who dared claim sovereignty over the heavens. Now, at last, the final Heavenly Tribulation was here. Nine bolts had struck. One remained.
"Come!" he roared, thrusting his sword toward the writhing clouds. The blade, Fenghuang's Cry, glowed white-hot, its phoenix-wing guard trembling as it drank the storm's energy. "Strike me, and I will carve my name into the stars!"
The tenth bolt descended—not lightning, but a column of liquid gold, brighter than a thousand suns. Li Wei laughed, spreading his arms. This is it. The last trial. The gateway to immortality.
But the light did not cleanse him.
It pierced him.
Agony unlike anything he'd known tore through his meridians. Not the purifying fire of tribulation lightning, but a cold, invasive force, scalpel-precise. His golden core—the condensed essence of his cultivation—shattered like glass.
"What… is this?" he choked, clawing at his chest. His blood evaporated before it could drip, becoming crimson mist.
The sky split. Not with thunder, but with a sound like grinding gears. Through the rift loomed a vast, obsidian eye, its pupil a swirling vortex of stars and circuitry. A voice boomed, genderless and glacial:
"Anomaly detected. Subject Li Wei. Cultivation Tier: Celestial Sovereign. Violation Code: Entropy-9. Sentence: Erasure."
"Erasure?" Li Wei snarled. "I am the Heavenly Sovereign! The heavens themselves bow to—"
Tendrils of black energy erupted from the eye, serpentine and hungry. They wrapped around his limbs, his throat, his golden core's remnants. He struggled, summoning qi that once could shatter mountains—but here, in the grip of this thing, it dissipated like smoke.
"No! I earned eternity! I—"
The tendrils yanked.
His soul tore free of his body.
Rebirth
Cold.
Li Wei's lungs burned as he lurched upright, slamming his forehead against glass. Blue-tinged fluid drained from the cryopod, leaving him gasping, naked, and disoriented. His new body trembled—a stranger's flesh, pale and wiry, marred by faint scars that glowed like circuitry under the skin.
This… isn't my body.
The chamber was small, walls lined with hexagonal panels pulsing faintly amber. A holographic screen flickered to life beside the pod, projecting jagged script he couldn't read. A melodic, synthetic voice spoke:
"Welcome to Neo-Xi'an, Citizen 8892-LW. Cryostasis duration: 1,402 years, 7 months, 3 days. Debt owed to Elysium Corporation: 8,992,345 credits. Reminder: Failure to repay within 30 days will result in asset reclamation."
"Debt? Reclamation?" Li Wei coughed, nanite-infused gel dripping from his lips. His voice was wrong—higher, younger. "What madness is this?"
The hologram shifted, displaying a woman with silver hair and eyes like fractured ice. "Director Veyra welcomes you to the future," the voice purred. "Your contribution to Ascension Protocol is appreciated."
He smashed the screen.
Shards of light scattered, but the voice continued, now warped and glitching: "—compliance is mandatory. Resistance will be… punished."
Silence fell.
Li Wei steadied himself, reaching inward to assess his cultivation. His dantian—the spiritual sea where his golden core once blazed—was a void. Yet… something flickered. A wisp of qi, faint but stubborn.
Impossible. My core was destroyed.
As he probed deeper, pain lanced through him. His veins lit up, silver particles swarming like angry fireflies. Nanobots, some detached part of his mind supplied. They attacked the qi, dissolving it.
"So this body fights me too," he muttered.
A flicker of movement caught his eye. In the chamber's corner lay a corpse.
The man wore a sleek black uniform, its collar stamped with a lotus encircled by thunderbolts—the symbol of the Heavenly Thunder Sect, Li Wei's first allies, annihilated millennia ago. The corpse's fingers clutched a jade pendant, its surface etched with a single word in ancient script: Traitor.
Li Wei pried it free. The jade warmed at his touch, resonating with his residual qi. A memory surged forth—not his own.
Darkness. A spaceship's hull groaning. The same silver-haired woman, Veyra, smiling as she plunged a dagger into this man's heart. "Thank you," she whispered. "Your sect's secrets will make perfect fodder for the Ascended."
The vision vanished.
"Who are you?" Li Wei asked the corpse.
A gun cocked behind him.
"That's my line, lab rat."
He turned slowly. A woman leaned in the doorway, silhouetted by the hall's neon glare. She wore a tattered cloak that shimmered, its pattern shifting to mimic the walls. Her left eye was mechanical, its red iris contracting as it scanned him.
"Subject exhibits anomalous energy signatures," the eye droned. "Threat level: Amber. Recommend neural pacification."
"Easy, Zera," the woman said, tapping her temple. The eye dimmed. "He's not one of Veyra's puppets. Look at him—he's got the same lost-puppy stare as the others."
Li Wei straightened, channeling authority he didn't feel. "I am Li Wei, Heavenly Sovereign of the Azure Dragon Sect. Name yourself."
The woman snorted. "Sovereign, huh? Well, Your Majesty, you're in Elysium Corp's private resurrection lab. Which makes you either a VIP or a failed experiment." Her gaze dropped to the corpse. "Given the meat-puppet here, I'm leaning toward experiment."
She stepped into the light. Late twenties, her brown skin marred by a scar that curved from cheek to collarbone. Her right arm was flesh; the left, a sleek prosthetic ending in retractable claws.
"Name's Kara," she said. "Professional thorn in Elysium's side. And you're coming with me."
Li Wei's qi flared instinctively. The chamber lights exploded in a shower of sparks. Kara cursed, shielding her face.
"Stop that!" she snapped. "You want Veyra's drones swarming us?"
"You will explain where I am," Li Wei said, advancing. "What is this 'Neo-Xi'an'? Who created these abominable machines inside me?"
Kara's eye flashed. "Nanite density critical," it warned. "Hostile takeover imminent: 97 hours, 12 minutes remaining."
"Hear that?" Kara said. "Those 'abominable machines' are eating you alive. Come with me, and maybe I can slow them down. Stay here, and you'll be a mindless Ascended by week's end."
Li Wei hesitated. This woman reeked of deceit, but her pulse, faintly visible in her throat, raced. She was afraid—not of him, but of something worse.
A siren wailed. Distant footsteps echoed.
"Veyra's cleaners," Kara hissed. "Last chance, Cultivator."
He grabbed the dead man's uniform, ignoring how the fabric tightened against his unfamiliar frame. "Lead."
They fled into a nightmare.
The corridor beyond was a gutted artery, its walls peeled open to reveal throbbing cables and flickering holograms. One displayed a colossal dragon—not of flesh, but of molten steel and plasma—coiling around a spire that pierced the clouds.
"Ascension Protocol launches today!" a cheerful voice announced. "Embrace eternity within Elysium's datasphere!"
Kara yanked him into an elevator shaft. "Don't look down."
He looked.
Neo-Xi'an sprawled below, a labyrinth of neon and shadows. Skyscrapers bristled with docking bays for ships shaped like daggers. Bridges of light connected floating districts where figures too large, too wrong to be human lurked. And everywhere, the glowing lotus emblem of Elysium Corp.
"What is this place?" Li Wei whispered.
"A graveyard," Kara said. "Now move."
As they climbed, pain spiked in Li Wei's veins. The nanobots were multiplying, burning through his qi. He faltered, vision blurring.
Kara caught his arm. Her human hand was calloused, warm. "Stay with me. We're almost to the Undercity."
"Why help me?" he rasped.
She grinned, all sharp edges. "Let's say I'm curious. Elysium's been digging up old cultivation relics for years. But you… you're the real thing, aren't you?"
The elevator shaft trembled. Far above, something screeched—metal on metal, hungry and deliberate.
"Too late," Kara muttered. "They're here."
Silver figures dropped from the darkness, limbs elongating, faces smooth and blank.
"Director Veyra sends her regards," they intoned in unison.
Li Wei reached for qi he no longer had.
The hunt began.