Donghuang City, the Nine Sects' Tribunal.
Nine Golden Core cultivators surrounded one Foundation Establishment cultivator at the peak of his realm. They fought for the time it takes an incense stick to burn, and still couldn't knock him down.
When it was over, all nine took the very same blows they'd just landed on him and sprawled across the ground.
Gu Jiuxiao got to his feet, spat out the blood in his mouth, and said three words: "I'll remember this."
Not one blow he took was wasted.
Every hit left a mark on him, and within three days, he could return that exact mark to its sender.
He didn't return the force. He returned the blow itself.
You slash me, and I'll make you feel your own blade.
But he didn't know who he was.
As far back as he could remember, he'd always been this way. No parents, no master, no family.
Everyone in this realm wondered how powerful the clan behind him must be.
The sect masters of the Nine Sects wouldn't dare meet him in person. Elders fell to their knees when they saw him, and anyone who'd lived for more than three hundred years fell silent at the mention of the one behind him.
He said, "There's no one behind me."
Not a soul believed him.
For nine hundred years, no one in this realm had ascended.
And he would fight his way up from the very bottom, all the way to Heaven's Gate.
