Eight years ago, Li Chunfeng was framed by treacherous villains, branded as an unfilial parricide who murdered his own mother and elder brother—a crime universally condemned.
In a fit of fury, his father struck him down, crippled his cultivation, severed the root of his spiritual path, and cast him out of Tianchu City, forbidding him from ever returning for the rest of his life.
While wandering adrift as a cripple, he was targeted by a covert Dark Assassination. Perhaps his time had not yet come, for he managed to flee into the Nether Wasteland, one of the Three Forbidden Grounds of the Mutian Continent. This cut off the assassins' pursuit and allowed him to scrape by with his life.
Trapped within the wasteland for seven years, he hung by a thread countless times, nearly perishing amidst the mysteries of this desolate domain. Had it not been for his obsessive fixation on revenge, he surely would have given up long ago and become merely another skeleton among the countless bones scattered across the wasteland.
His mother was gentle and virtuous, one of the foremost beauties of the Mutian Continent. His elder brother was a modest and courteous gentleman, destined without a doubt to become the future head of the Li family in Tianchu City.
They had cherished him dearly, and he had deeply relished the warmth of their care and protection. Yet fate played a cruel joke on him: upon waking from a sleep, he suddenly found himself the murderer of his mother and brother.
How could it possibly have been him? And yet, when the members of the Li family probed his spiritual sense, the evidence was undeniable, clear and absolute.
He could never figure out the reason behind it, and he swore an oath to uncover the truth of what had happened—even when he was driven to desperation by assassins with no path to the heavens and no door down to the earth, clinging to his last ragged breath as he crawled into the Nether Wasteland.
Yet the dangers lurking within this wasteland were no different from the assassins outside; they were equally lethal.
Back then, drawing his final breath, he had gambled his destiny on this wasteland. Following a path paved with gleaming white skeletons, he ventured deep into its interior.
The wasteland was fraught with extreme danger. Cultivators who stepped inside easily had their minds disordered by miasma, inducing hallucinations and causing them to become hopelessly lost.
This miasma was utterly unique: the higher one's Illusion Power, the deeper the affliction. Yet if one suppressed their cultivation realm, they would be unable to defeat the demon beast roaming within, which was why countless practitioners turned back in despair.
Perhaps because the roots of his cultivation had been severed, Li Chunfeng ventured deep into the depths without suffering much of this adverse effect.
Ordinary mortals near the wasteland felt crushed by a suffocating pressure, making it hard to breathe. Although Li Chunfeng's cultivation had been ruined, his physical body was still protected across its meridians by the lingering Ling Yun of his past practice. This set him apart from ordinary people who had never cultivated, sparing him from that invisible oppressive weight.
At that time, he wanted only to live. Only by staying alive could he unravel the truth behind his mother and brother's deaths; only by staying alive could he personally slaughter his enemies.
Now, he had won his gamble. Not only was he still alive, but three years ago, he had encountered a fortuitous chance within this wasteland, reconnecting his severed roots and resuming his path of cultivation.
"Heaven refuses to destroy me, and this vengeance shall surely be exacted," Li Chunfeng muttered silently to himself.
Yes, he had waited far too long for this day. His mother and brother were the reasons he clung stubbornly to life. Looking at the path of bones beneath his feet, he firmly believed that, in some ethereal realm, his mother and brother were safeguarding his safety.
There were so many skeletons here. Some still possessed a faint, shimmering Ling Yun that flickered in and out of existence. When Li Chunfeng drew near, he could feel a trace of coolness that brought him a refreshing clarity of mind.
The owners of these skeletons were mostly figures of immense might—either elder-tier masters or Saintly Sovereigns.
Had he chosen to collect this Ling Yun, it would have been immensely beneficial to his future cultivation of Ling Yun.
Yet at this moment, Li Chunfeng had no heart to entertain such thoughts; making a swift departure from the Nether Valley was the only thing on his mind.