The cold was relentless, biting into every fiber of his being, as if the very air conspired to steal what little warmth remained. But warmth was a distant memory now, like the fading echo of a long-forgotten song. The world he opened his eyes to was bleak, broken — a wasteland of ruins and shattered graves, buried beneath a suffocating gray sky that stretched infinitely, blanketing the earth in a shroud of despair.
He lay sprawled among fractured tombstones, ancient and cracked, overrun by creeping roots and thorny vines that twisted like serpents through stone and soil alike. The scent of decay mingled with the iron tang of old blood—remnants of battles long past, heroes long dead.
This was the Nameless Grave — a place whispered in legends as the resting ground of emperors and immortals who once shaped the heavens. Now, it was little more than a forgotten pit where time had stopped and hope had withered.
Yet, amidst this desolation, something stirred.
He blinked slowly, eyes opening to reveal pools deep and dark like obsidian mirrors. Within them danced shadows — flickers of memories, flashes of a past life he could not fully grasp but could sense like a heartbeat beneath the ashes. The fragments of a name, a throne, power, and betrayal all tangled in the threads of his soul.
Then, with startling clarity, a name emerged from the fog of amnesia.
Li Tianming.
It echoed within him like thunder through a canyon. His name. His true name.
The world did not wait for the weak. The wind howled, whipping around him, carrying whispers of forgotten fates. And through the noise, a voice — low, resolute, and ancient — resonated inside his mind.
"Fate is not given. It is seized."
He reached out instinctively, fingers brushing the cracked earth. Beneath the surface, he felt it — the pulse of something buried deep within: the Fate Furnace. An ember glowing faintly, hidden beneath layers of time and ruin.
Powerless but not broken.
The thread of his ambition had not been severed. Somewhere inside, a spark kindled, igniting the slow-burning fire of resolve.
He struggled upright, every movement aching like the weight of centuries. His clothes were tatters, his body thin and scarred, but his spirit burned fiercely. The sky above was a canvas of sorrow, but he would not bow beneath it.
There was work to do.
His eyes scanned the horizon. Beyond the graveyard lay the fractured world — ruined sects, scattered cultivators fighting for scraps of power, and the shadow of Heaven's wrath looming like a guillotine.
He did not know how long he had been trapped in this state, nor the extent of the calamity that had befallen the world. But one thing was clear: he was not here by chance.
His soul carried a secret weapon — the Threadstealer Gu, a parasitic entity fused with his bloodline, capable of ripping fate threads from others, bending destiny to his will. And more importantly, the Fate Furnace embedded in his chest, capable of absorbing and refining the stolen threads into raw power.
Yet these were tools — dangerous, volatile, and misunderstood even by him.
Slowly, he extended his senses outward. Invisible to most, the world shimmered with countless threads — golden, silver, and crimson — weaving between beings and objects, the intangible lines that connected all life and fate.
Some threads pulsed weakly, others vibrated with immense power.
His first task: capture enough threads to rekindle the Fate Furnace.
He focused, reaching out with the faintest flicker of his will. A thin silver thread shimmered nearby, belonging to a lone scavenger lurking among the ruins. With careful precision, the Threadstealer Gu slithered forward — a shadowy tendril unseen — and severed the fragile connection.
A surge of energy burst through him, the Furnace flickering to life with a low hum, warmth spreading from his chest. The taste of stolen fate was intoxicating, a mix of sweetness and bitterness, as if he had swallowed both hope and despair.
He smiled, a cruel curve of lips. This was just the beginning.
Footsteps echoed faintly in the distance — other survivors, cultivators drawn to the graveyard's grim reputation. Some were weak, broken like the world; others radiated strength and danger. Each was a thread to be plucked, a fate to be rewritten.
But survival demanded caution. The world was merciless, and the stakes had never been higher.
Li Tianming pulled his tattered cloak tighter and rose to his full height — tall, lean, his eyes gleaming with a fire that no ruin could extinguish.
"I will reclaim what was lost," he whispered.
With that, he stepped forward into the mist and shadow of the Nameless Grave — the first step on a path to defy Heaven, fate, and death itself.