Lord of the dead: Exiled by my sect

Raising the Ancestors

Li Tian didn't hesitate for a single microsecond. He turned his heel and slammed his black boot directly down onto Zhao Feng’s neck.

CRACK.

The brother who had betrayed him for ten years didn't even have time to scream. His windpipe shattered like dry twigs beneath Li Tian’s peak Foundation Establishment strength.

[Ding! Slain a Qi Condensation traitor! Extracting blood essence and soul fragment!]

A thick strand of dark soul energy violently ripped out of Zhao Feng’s twitching corpse, flying straight into Li Tian’s chest. The black vortex of his Death Core hungrily devoured it, sharpening the gray Primordial Death-Sword Qi humming around his knuckles.

"Master, the invaders' spatial arrays are locking onto this coordinate," Shao Qing hissed, her foot still crushing the Sect Master's throat. Her silver hair whipped wildly as the shockwaves from the distant golden war vessels rattled the plaza. "Those three old monsters at the front... their cultivation base has touched the laws of Spirit Severing. Even with my shared demonic qi, your current mortal body cannot withstand a direct strike from them."

"Then I won't use my own strength," Li Tian sneered, his gold and crimson eyes flashing with absolute malice.

He looked down at the broken Sect Master beneath Shao Qing’s boot. The man was trembling, his eyes wide as he watched his top disciple die like a dog.

"You said I colluded with demons to destroy the sect's honor?" Li Tian whispered, driving his gray sword qi straight through the Sect Master’s dantian.

SHUCK!

"AAAGHH!" the Sect Master howled as his Nascent Soul base violently imploded, the raw energy being forcefully siphoned into the system.

[Ding! Sacrificing a Nascent Soul Cultivator to activate the Ancestral Necromantic Array!]

[Target Locked: The Heavenly Sword Sect’s Imperial Tombs!]

"Jian Wudi!" Li Tian roared inside his mind. "Show me where your old friends are buried!"

"Behind the third peak, boy! Let's shake the dust off those hypocrites!" the phantom founder laughed maniacally, pointing a golden spiritual finger toward the back of the mountain range.

Li Tian slammed both his palms flat against the bleeding stone floor of the Judgment Plaza. "Sovereign Domain... RISE!"

BOOM—!

The entire back mountain of the Heavenly Sword Sect didn't just shake; it exploded skyward. The ancestral tombs—where generations of supreme elders, grand masters, and peak sword cultivators had been laid to rest in sacred jade coffins—burst open like overripe fruit.

The thousands of massive golden war vessels from the five rival supreme sects were already hovering directly over the perimeter, their spirit-annihilating cannons glowing with a blinding, city-erasing light.

"Fools of the Heavenly Sword Sect!" a booming, ancient voice echoed from the leading flagship. An old man dressed in violet dragon robes stood at the bow, his eyes radiating the cold laws of a Half-Step Spirit Severing expert. "Your spiritual vein has collapsed! Your protective array is dust! Hand over the Heaven-Breaking Jade, and this Ancestor will leave your female disciples alive!"

"You want my Jade?"

Li Tian’s voice, amplified by the system and ten thousand dead souls, cut through the sky like a razor blade. He stood at the edge of the ruined plaza, his charcoal-black robes flowing, as a terrifying, pitch-black fog poured out from the destroyed ancestral peak behind him.

Inside that fog, thousands of rotting, skeletal figures clad in ancient, dust-covered Sect Master robes rose into the air. Some were missing limbs, others were riding the skeletal remains of spiritual beasts, but every single one of them carried a rusted sword that hummed with a terrifying, blood-stained sword intent.

Three hundred dead Nascent Soul ancestors. Twelve dead Core Formation grandmasters.

"What... what is that?!" the violet-robed supreme ancestor stammered, his majestic composure instantly shattering as his spiritual sense swept over the rising army of dead legends. "That... that's Sect Master Mo from eight hundred years ago! And Grand Elder Core-Cleaver! They're... they're supposed to be corpses!"

"They were corpses," Li Tian shouted, his gray Primordial Death-Sword Qi slashing upward to point directly at the leading war vessel. "But now, they belong to me. Slay them all!"

The three hundred dead ancestors opened their empty, crimson-burning eye sockets in unison.

SWISH—!

A tidal wave of black and golden sword qi, thick enough to blot out the sun, erupted from the skeletal horde as they charged straight into the sky, tearing into the frontline of the invading fleet.

The three hundred dead ancestors moved like a localized typhoon of black bone and rusted iron.

SCHWACK—!

Before the invading fleet could fire a single spirit-annihilating cannon, Sect Master Mo—dead for eight hundred years—appeared directly on the deck of the leading flagship. His jawbone clattered as his skeletal sword cut a clean, vertical line through three Core Formation elders, turning them into a spray of red mist.

"Deploy the shields! Deploy the—!"

BOOM!

A rain of black and golden sword qi pulverized the violet-robed flagship's defensive barrier within seconds. The three hundred undead Nascent Soul masters swept through the 50,000 invading cultivators like a harvesting scythe through grass. Airships collided, their golden hulls snapping in half and raining burning oil and screaming bodies down onto the mountain peaks.

[Ding! Slain 4,200 Qi Condensation Invaders! Extracting Death Essence!]

[Ding! Slain 800 Foundation Establishment Cultivators! Extracting Soul Fragments!]

A massive, raging hurricane of dark crimson and purple energy swirled from the slaughtered fleet, forming a physical vortex that funneled straight down into Li Tian’s sternum. The black core inside his chest didn't just spin; it began to solidify, compressing the raw energy into a dense, metallic sphere.

"Die, you foul necromancer!"

The sky tore open. The three Half-Step Spirit Severing Ancestors bypassed the skeletal army entirely, descending upon Li Tian from three directions. The violet-robed old man unleashed a spectral dragon made of violet lightning, while the other two summoned a mountain-sized frozen palm and a sea of corrosive black fire. The combined spatial pressure locked the air around Li Tian, threatening to turn his bones to powder before the attacks even landed.

"Master, let me—" Shao Qing stepped forward, her silver hair flaring.

"Stay back," Li Tian growled, his face twisting into a savage grin. "They came for me."

Instead of dodging, Li Tian compressed every ounce of his Primordial Death-Sword Qi into his own right arm. He reached into his chest and forcefully dragged the golden core of the Heaven-Breaking Jade into the center of his cracking meridians, completely overloading his human limits.

[Ding! Warning! Host's body cannot contain Spirit Severing energy! Overload imminent!]

"Break for me!" Li Tian roared.

BOOM!

The metallic sphere in his chest completely shattered and reformed. A massive, world-splitting grey shockwave exploded from his body, instantly vaporizing the lightning dragon, the frozen palm, and the black fire.

[Breakthrough achieved: Core Formation Stage One!]

[Stage Three!]

[Stage Six!]

The sheer kinetic backlash of his breakthrough sent the three Spirit Severing Ancestors flying backward, their robes shredded and their mouths spewing blood. They stared at the twenty-year-old boy in absolute, horrified disbelief. He had just broken through to the Core Formation realm by forcefully devouring their attacks.

"Monster... you are an absolute monster!" the violet-robed ancestor gasped, coughing up pieces of his own lungs. "Retreat! All vessels, retreat!"

"You think you can just leave?" Li Tian whispered, his voice vibrating directly in their souls.

He didn't chase them. He simply raised his right hand and pointed his index finger at the sky, channeling his new Core Formation strength. The remaining 35,000 invading cultivators were completely pinned in the air as a massive, translucent gray system barrier enclosed the entire ten-thousand-mile territory, locking them inside a giant cage of death.

"Refine them all," Li Tian commanded the system.

The gray barrier began to contract, grinding the airships and the surviving cultivators into a giant, swirling meat grinder of blood and bone essence.

But just as the three Spirit Severing Ancestors were about to be crushed into dust, the sky above the system barrier violently shattered like brittle glass. A giant, blood-red eye—larger than the entire mountain range—opened within the void, staring directly down at Li Tian.

The pressure from that single eye was so immense that Li Tian’s newly formed Core Formation base instantly cracked, and his undead ancestors fell from the sky like dead flies.

From the void, a voice older than the continent itself echoed, freezing the blood in Li Tian's veins. "Who dares to touch the livestock of the Upper Realm?"

A massive, pale finger descended from the crack in the sky, pointing straight at Li Tian's forehead with a speed that bypassed the concept of time.