The sky shattered without warning.
There was no slow gathering of clouds, no gradual thickening of mist or darkening of the horizon. One moment, the green mountains stood beneath a clear blue expanse—ancient, silent, indifferent.
The next, the heavens collapsed.
Black clouds surged into existence as if dragged from nothingness, spreading outward in all directions with terrifying speed. Within a single breath, they stretched tens of thousands of miles, blotting out the sun, the stars, and even the concept of distance itself.
The world dimmed.
Then came the thunder.
Not sound—judgment.
A single bolt descended from the clouds, thick as a mountain range, white-blue light compressing space as it fell. It did not strike randomly. It chose.
The land screamed.
More than a thousand miles of forest, stone, and earth vanished instantly—not burned, not shattered, but erased. Mountains ceased to exist. Valleys were flattened into smooth, glass-like plains. Rivers stopped mid-flow, their paths cut off as though reality itself had been rewritten.
Silence followed.
Then another bolt fell.
And another.
Each strike annihilated a region vast enough to swallow nations.
This was not natural.
This was not weather.
This was Heaven drawing a line.
At the very center of the storm—where thunder refused to strike directly—stood a lone figure.
Dao Xuan Tian.
He hovered several meters above the ground, robes unmoved by wind, expression calm to the point of indifference. Beneath his feet, space itself was stable, untouched by destruction. The Void Core within him pulsed softly, an absolute absence that rejected all interference.
He looked up.
"So you noticed," he said quietly.
The system interface no longer whispered.
It did not advise.
It did not count down.
It remained silent—as though even it understood that this moment belonged not to systems, but to Heaven.
Dao closed his eyes.
His qi circulation shifted.
The stable equilibrium he had maintained since Chapter 8 fractured—not violently, but deliberately. His qi began compressing inward, folding layer upon layer, pushing beyond the limits of Qi Condensation.
This was it.
Foundation Establishment.
The moment a cultivator ceased being tolerated as mortal.
The moment Heaven began to care.
The clouds churned violently.
A presence descended—not a being, not a consciousness, but something colder. Something vast. The pressure alone crushed mountains into dust miles away from Dao's position.
The thunder paused.
Then—
A bolt fell directly toward him.
Dao did not move.
The lightning struck his chest.
And vanished.
Not deflected.
Not resisted.
Denied.
The Void Core pulsed once.
The bolt ceased to exist.
The clouds recoiled.
For the first time, the storm hesitated.
Dao inhaled slowly, his cultivation surging past the threshold. His meridians expanded further, reforged by pressure that would have reduced ordinary Foundation Establishment cultivators to paste. Bones, organs, flesh—everything aligned beneath his will.
His Spirit Food refinement activated instinctively, stabilizing internal fluctuations. His Enlightenment—Heavenly Grade—allowed him to understand the tribulation rather than endure it.
"This isn't a Foundation Establishment tribulation," Dao murmured.
The Infinity Eyes opened fully.
He looked one hour into the future.
And saw—
Nothing.
No survival.
No death.
Only blankness.
Dao's expression sharpened.
"…You're trying to erase me before the path forms."
The clouds answered.
A roar rolled across the heavens, layered thunder overlapping into a single, unbearable sound. Lightning gathered—not as bolts, but as structures. Vast lattices of energy formed within the clouds, compressing destructive force beyond anything previously unleashed.
This was annihilation.
Not punishment.
Dao extended one finger.
Space bent inward.
The next lightning strike descended—and stopped an inch from his skin.
The Void Core expanded slightly.
The lightning lattice collapsed into nothingness.
Immunity to all techniques.
Not defensive.
Absolute.
The clouds convulsed.
The pressure increased tenfold.
A third strike fell—not lightning, but law. The air crystallized, reality itself attempting to overwrite Dao's existence. Even the mountains miles away began to destabilize, space cracking like glass.
Dao exhaled.
"So you've decided," he said calmly.
His cultivation surged again.
Qi Condensation shattered.
The Foundation Establishment Realm opened—not as a step, but as a redefinition.
Dao's dantian expanded, reinforced by Void Core stability. His body ceased to be a vessel—it became a platform. Foundation was no longer something he built.
It was something he declared.
The storm unleashed everything.
Lightning fell continuously, no longer distinguishable as individual strikes. Entire regions vanished with each heartbeat. The world around Dao was reduced to an expanding void of destruction, a crater that stretched thousands upon thousands of miles.
Yet at the center—
Dao Xuan Tian remained untouched.
His Infinity Eyes tracked causality itself. He stepped forward once.
Just once.
The storm froze.
Thunder silenced mid-roar.
Lightning halted in the air like suspended veins of light.
Dao looked up at the clouds, his gaze piercing beyond them—beyond the sky, beyond the world.
"I am not challenging you," he said.
"I am passing through."
The Void Core resonated.
The clouds split.
Not dispersed.
Split—as though a blade had carved Heaven in two.
Beyond them lay nothing Dao could see.
The pressure vanished.
The storm collapsed inward, consumed by the Void Core's gravity. Thunder faded. Lightning dissolved. The sky cleared as abruptly as it had darkened.
Silence fell.
Dao descended slowly to the ground—what remained of it.
Where once mountains had stood, there was now a vast basin of smooth, untouched stone. The scale of destruction was incomprehensible. Tens of thousands of miles reshaped in moments.
Yet Dao stood unharmed.
The system interface finally appeared.
Breakthrough Complete.
Cultivation Realm: Foundation Establishment – Early Stage
Status: Perfect Foundation
Tribulation Classification: Heavenly Rejection Event
Outcome: Overridden
Dao looked at the words without emotion.
"So it has a name."
He clenched his fist gently.
The air rippled.
"…And this is only the beginning."
He turned his gaze back toward the direction of his former mountain home. It was gone—erased completely.
No regret crossed his face.
He had already seen this outcome.
One hour ago.
Dao Xuan Tian stepped forward, walking across a land that no longer obeyed natural law.
The heavens had refused him.
And failed.