The people who came to take Lin Yuan paid him three taels of silver first.
It was his funeral money.
Every time black rain fell on Desolate City, twenty-seven lives had to be offered to the Heavenly King. Sixteen-year-old Lin Yuan had no fate mark, no sect, and ranked first on the sacrificial roster.
But he wasn't ready to die.
He had saved for three months, just enough to buy a ticket out of the city by boat and search for his grandfather, who had been missing for a year.
It wasn't until he was dragged onto the altar that he spotted the repair marks his grandfather had left on the suppressor plate that drained the crowd's vital energy.
The Heavenly King's sacrificial artifact, which everyone else believed could not be defied, had a fate pattern that could be altered, at least in Lin Yuan's eyes.
He pried it open.
The blood sacrifice stopped, and the shackles came loose. For the first time, the boy with a zero mark, judged forever incapable of cultivation, felt power remain within him.
He seized the suppressor plate, forced the priest to hand over the keys, and helped the sacrifices behind him rise to their feet, one by one.
Then he pointed at the old copper patch and asked:
"Where is the old man who repaired this?"
That question led him to a forbidden zone where the Nine Heavenly Kings forbade all people from setting foot.
