My Supreme Bone Was Stolen at the Start, So I Drew My Sword to Prove Myself an Emperor

“Lin Yuan, you used to be a lofty inner-sect genius. Now look at you, groveling in foul mud like a dog with no shred of dignity!” “...” Zhao Hu’s coarse, unrestrained laughter thundered through the courtyard. Lin Yuan’s helpless silence, unable to fight back, was utterly deafening in its stillness. The bitter, freezing downpour lashed the lowly outer-sect servant quarters, while inside the warm inner-sect hall, music and dancing carried on as usual. Lin Yuan stared down at his own gaunt hands, caked with mud. They had once gripped a flawless, radiant Heaven-Rank spirit sword; now they could barely hold on to a feather-light blade of dead grass. His thin blue robe was already torn to shreds and offered no protection from the cold, yet the humiliation weighing on his heart was heavier than the most sumptuous brocade. Three years ago, he was the inner sect’s foremost sword prodigy, admired by all and shining like a star. Today, three years later, he was a lowly outer-sect nobody, ignored by everyone and despised by all. The enormous fall from the clouds into a bottomless abyss had not destroyed his steely resolve. If anything, he was more clearheaded now than at any moment during his triumphant past. Severe, tearing pain burned through his body like a raging fire, yet in the depths of his eyes lay a frost colder than the far northern wastes. He had lost every precious cultivation resource, but what remained was a resolve to exact revenge, more unbreakable than gold.