When Gu Tianlan was three, his innate Dao embryo was gouged out in front of everyone, and he was cast into a place of death.
Everyone thought he was dead. Only he knew that the "root of genius" stolen from him had never been a blessing. It was a shackle the Heavenly Dao had placed on all living beings. Gu Yao, young master of the Gu clan, advanced by leaps and bounds with his grafted Dao embryo and stood unrivaled among his peers, unaware that he was merely a vessel raising a shackle for the Heavenly Dao. The ancient monster Yuan Chen won ten battles in ten, a "one beyond tribulation," a perfect puppet of the Heavenly Dao, so powerful that his peers despaired.
The path of cultivation in this world is full of shackles: cultivation methods with parts removed, thought cultivation banned, the rules of heaven and earth disguised, and all living beings kept in captivity for eons. Gu Tianlan is determined to undo these shackles one by one: first defy fate, then defy heaven, and finally overthrow the unseen hand behind it all.
When someone asks him what gives him the right, he has only one answer: "The path no one has dared to open for eons? I, Gu Tianlan, have opened it. Heaven, if you object, come and crush me."
So, at the Prodigy Tournament, he crushes the borrowed genius head-on. On the day of the bridal kidnapping, he changes a "marriage ordained by heaven" in front of the entire world. On the night the Dao shatters, he opens a starry Dao of his own and draws down the Nine-Star Heavenly Punishment. In the battle to break the cage, he destroys his own Dao foundation to cleave open the prison that has confined all living beings for eons.
He topples the ancient Dao enforcers who built the cage. Even "Heaven" must yield.
The cage is shattered, and the Dao is open. From now on, all living beings will walk their own path for ages to come.
