Lord of the dead: Exiled by my sect

Slave Contract

Whoosh!

Li Tian plummeted through the freezing white mist of the lower fissure, his hair whipping wildly around his face.

His eyes, enhanced by his new cultivation base, pierced through the dark, immediately locking onto a massive, glowing red magic circle at the absolute bottom of the pit. Chained to the center of the array was a breathtakingly beautiful woman with long silver hair, her body tightly wrapped in thousands of ancient yellow sealing talismans.

As Li Tian descended like a falling star with his gray sword qi swirling around his fists, the silver-haired Empress looked up. The previous arrogance on her face completely vanished, replaced by genuine shock and panic as she realized he was diving straight for her throat.

But before Li Tian’s feet could even touch the ground of the sealing chamber, a deafening, world-ending BOOM echoed from the heavens above.

Thousands of tons of colossal sealing stones, infused with the Heavenly Sword Sect's entire mountain-flattening array, began raining down from the ceiling, completely blocking the exit to the mortal world and threatening to crush the entire underground realm into absolute nothingness.

The collapsing cavern roof roared like a dying god. Thousands of tons of reinforced sealing stone plummeted from the darkness above, crushing the remaining skeletal warriors into bone dust.

Li Tian didn't look up. His eyes remained locked on the silver-haired Empress chained to the glowing red array.

"Mortal, look above you!" she shrieked, her voice losing every ounce of its former ancient majesty. The silver runes across her body pulsed frantically. "The spatial matrix of this chamber is buckling! If those mountain-flattening stones land, both our souls will be ground to ash!"

"Then you'd better make yourself useful," Li Tian said, his voice flat and chillingly calm.

He hit the ground three meters from her pedestal, the impact of his new Foundation Establishment physique cracking the stone floor. He raised his right hand, the grey Primordial Death-Sword Qi humming violently around his fingers like a swarm of hornets. He didn't point the blade at the falling rocks. He pointed it directly between her eyes.

"Unseal me!" she demanded, her teeth clenched as a shadow the size of a city block loomed directly overhead. "Cut these talismans! My demonic aura can blast through the cave-in!"

[Ding! System Warning: The sealed entity is an ancient Nine-Tailed Demon Empress. If unsealed unconditionally, her current power level will instantly crush the Host.]

[Ding! System Alternative Detected: Special Slave Contract available. Would the Host like to enforce an absolute Soul-Binding Oath? (YES / NO)]

Li Tian’s lips curled into a cold, merciless smile. "You want me to let you out so you can tear my throat out the second you're free? Do I look like the elders of the Heavenly Sword Sect to you?"

"What?!" her silver eyes widened in genuine panic.

"Sign this, or we bury you right here," Li Tian snapped.

[YES!]

BOOM!

A massive, ink-black text scroll materialized between them in midair, burning with a suffocating, necrotic flame. Before the Empress could even read the ancient characters, Li Tian stepped forward, grabbed her chin with his bruised left hand, and forcefully bit his own thumb, smearing his fresh Foundation Establishment essence-blood across her forehead and slamming her face forward into the glowing black contract.

[Ding! Absolute Slave Contract established! Master: Li Tian. Slave: Nine-Tailed Demon Empress (Shao Qing).]

"You—you absolute bastard!" Shao Qing howled, her soul violently convulsing as the black runes of the system bypassed her yellow talismans, embedding themselves directly into the core of her origin spirit.

But she didn't have time to scream further. The first wave of massive sealing stones broke through the lower atmosphere of the chamber, the wind pressure alone shattering the obsidian pillars around them.

[Ding! Master-Servant Link active. Sharing 30% of the Slave's sealed Demonic Qi!]

VUUUUUM!

A terrifying torrent of violent, deep purple energy shot out from Shao Qing’s chains, drilling straight into Li Tian’s chest. The black vortex of his Death Core didn't just spin; it expanded, its outer ring turning a deep, demonic purple while the core retained the absolute golden sharpness of the Heaven-Breaking Jade.

His cultivation base, which had just stabilized at Foundation Establishment Stage One, began to violently throb.

[Foundation Establishment Stage Two!]

[Stage Four!]

[Stage Seven!]

[Peak Foundation Establishment!]

"Jian Wudi! Give me every ounce of your sword intent!" Li Tian roared into his own consciousness.

"Take it, boy! Slice the heavens open!" the phantom founder laughed maniacally within his mind, transforming his entire remaining golden soul essence into a single, blinding streak of absolute sword light that poured down Li Tian’s right arm.

The gold of the Jade, the black of the Death Core, the purple of the Demon Empress, and the blinding white-gold of the Sword God fused together. The Primordial Death-Sword Qi grew from a six-foot blade into a thirty-meter-long pillar of absolute, chaotic gray devastation. The edge of the blade was so sharp that the space surrounding Li Tian's arm began to visibly crack and splinter like broken glass.

Li Tian leaped into the air, driving the massive gray pillar upward against the falling mountain.

"Sect Master! Grand Elder Wu!" Li Tian’s voice echoed through the fissure, amplified by his peak Foundation Establishment strength until it sounded like thunder. "You wanted to bury me?! Open your eyes and watch me pull your mountains down!"

He swung the blade.

SWISH—BOOM!

The thirty-meter pillar of gray energy cut upward in a perfect crescent arc. The thousands of tons of falling sealing stones didn't just shatter; the moment they touched the Primordial Death-Sword Qi, they were cleanly sliced into microscopic dust particles. The massive, mountain-flattening array the sect elders had poured their life force into was cleaved completely in half.

The gray beam didn't stop. It tore through the cave-in, pierced through the three layers of the Abyss, and shot straight toward the surface.

Up on the Judgment Plaza, Grand Elder Wu was still laughing like a lunatic, his hand firmly pressed onto the Earth-Sinking Formation's control pedestal.

"It's over! It's completely sealed!" Wu shrieked, spit flying from his lips. "The spiritual vein is collapsed! The boy is dust!"

Zhao Feng lay in the dirt ten meters away, blood dripping from his mouth, staring blankly at the broken sword statue.

Suddenly, the ground beneath their feet stopped shaking. The howling wind from the pit went completely dead.

"See?" Wu sneered, turning to the terrified core elders. "My formation is flawless. The Heavenly Sword Sect is—"

SCHWACK.

A single, hairline fracture of absolute gray light split the center of the Judgment Plaza.

Before Grand Elder Wu could even blink, the gray line expanded into a massive, miles-wide pillar of sword energy that erupted directly from the mouth of the Abyss. The light didn't just pierce the sky; it completely obliterated the entire cloud layer over the Eastern Continent, turning the night sky into a vacuum of absolute silence.

The backlash from the shattered Earth-Sinking Formation hit Grand Elder Wu instantly.

BANG!

His right arm, which was still touching the pedestal, exploded into a shower of bloody mist. The old man screamed, stumbling backward as his meridians violently snapped one by one, his Core Formation cultivation base instantly plummeting down to the Qi Condensation realm.

"No! No! My cultivation!" Wu wailed, clutching his bloody stump.

Zhao Feng’s breath hitched. He looked at the giant, smoking crater where the plaza used to be.

From the absolute darkness of the newly cleared pit, a figure slowly floated upward. Li Tian’s tattered white robes had turned completely charcoal black, his hair drifting in a phantom wind. His left eye burned with a hellish crimson, his right eye shone with an ancient gold, and floating right behind him was the spectral, silver-haired form of a breathtaking demoness whose eyes were filled with absolute, submissive terror.

Li Tian landed softly on the edge of the ruin, his gray sword qi scraping against the dirt. His gaze swept over the kneeling disciples, passed right over the weeping Grand Elder, and finally stopped on Zhao Feng.

"Brother," Li Tian said, his voice entirely devoid of human emotion. "I'm back."