Lord of the dead: Exiled by my sect

Sovereign Domain

Li Tian slammed his mental fist onto the flashing selection screen.

"YES!"

[Ding! Command received. Activating Sovereign Domain: Resurrection of the Ten Thousand!]

The black screen exploded into millions of microscopic dark runes that shot directly into the stone floor of the palace. The ground didn't just shake; it broke apart like a brittle wafer.

The World Devourer’s mountain-sized claw was already inches from Li Tian’s face, the suffocating wind from its descent ripping his tattered robes away and drawing blood from his skin.

BOOM!

Before the claw could crush him into a paste, the obsidian floor between them erupted. A wall of ancient, armored skeletal arms shot out from the dirt, instantly interlocking their bony fingers to form a massive, multi-layered shield of pure bone.

The claw slammed into the skeletal wall with the force of a falling meteor.

CRACK!

Thousands of skeletons shattered into white powder under the immense weight, but the wall held. The World Devourer’s momentum stopped dead. The beast roared in frustration, its crimson runes flaring as it tried to push down harder.

[Ding! 1,200 Low-Grade Skeleton Soldiers destroyed. Remaining Undead Minions: 8,800.]

[Warning: The World Devourer is an ancient Chaos-class beast. Normal physical attacks cannot pierce its scales!]

Li Tian spat out a mouthful of black, congested blood, his eyes burning with a manic light. The system’s warning didn't terrify him; it gave him an answer. Physical attacks wouldn't work, but he wasn't a normal cultivator anymore.

"Get up," Li Tian snarled, his voice carrying the absolute authority of the Death Core spinning inside his chest. "All of you, get up and rip that thing to pieces!"

From the deep fissures around the palace, the remaining eight thousand undead poured out like an unstoppable, rotting tide. These weren't fresh corpses; they were ancient warriors dressed in rusted, thousands-of-years-old armor, their empty eye sockets burning with the same crimson fire that filled Li Tian’s left eye.

They didn't feel fear. They didn't feel pain.

Like a swarm of starving locusts, the undead army leaped onto the mountain-sized claw, climbing up the light-absorbing black scales. They didn't use swords; they used their bare, decaying hands to tear at the edges of the scales, digging into the seams where the crimson runes glowed.

The World Devourer thrashed, slamming its massive arm against the palace pillars to shake them off. Each impact pulverized hundreds of skeletons, but for every hundred that died, three hundred more climbed higher, clawing their way toward the monster’s thick neck.

"Boy! Use my sword intent!" Jian Wudi’s phantom roared from inside Li Tian’s consciousness. The founder had managed to break through the suppression, his blurry form shifting rapidly. "The system's dead army can distract it, but only a sharp enough edge can cut through those divine seals on its skin!"

Li Tian didn't hesitate. He reached inward, grabbing the piercing golden light of the Heaven-Breaking Jade and violently shoving it directly into the center of the spinning black Death Core.

VUUUUUUM.

The friction between the two opposing forces nearly made Li Tian pass out. His veins swelled, turning a horrifying metallic gray beneath his skin. But the result was instantaneous. A brand-new, lethal energy poured down his arms—The Primordial Death-Sword Qi.

Li Tian extended his right hand. The grey energy condensed, stretching outward until it formed a six-foot-long blade of absolute, lightless gray light. The edge of the blade didn't reflect light; it seemed to slice the very air around it, creating small, localized vacuum tears.

"Protect the Master!" an ancient, raspy voice bellowed from the undead horde. A giant, seven-foot-tall skeleton king wearing a shattered crown stepped forward, wielding a rusted greatsword. He threw himself directly under the beast’s chin, forcing the World Devourer to snap its jaws shut on his own bony torso.

The sacrifice gave Li Tian his window.

Using the sudden burst of power from his newly reformed meridians, Li Tian kicked off the ground, leaving a crater in the obsidian floor. He flew upward, trailing a streak of grey mist, and appeared directly in front of the World Devourer’s massive, glowing crimson eye.

"You're just a dog on a leash," Li Tian whispered, his gray sword pointing straight at the iris. "And your master isn't here anymore."

He drove the blade forward with all his strength.

SHUCK!

The Primordial Death-Sword Qi cut through the beast's natural spiritual defenses like hot iron through lard. The gray blade buried itself up to the hilt inside the monster's eye.

The World Devourer unleashed a shriek so loud and high-pitched that the sound waves physically threw Li Tian backward, sending him crashing into a distant pillar. The monster’s crimson runes began to violently fluctuate, changing from a steady glow to a chaotic, flickering mess.

[Ding! Critical strike achieved! The World Devourer's soul array is destabilizing!]

[Activating Devour Function: Extracting Ancient Chaos Qi!]

A massive, thick stream of dark crimson energy violently ripped out from the beast's wounded eye, shooting across the chamber and slamming directly into Li Tian’s chest.

BOOM!

Li Tian’s body convulsed as the ancient, dense energy flooded his shattered dantian. The black vortex inside him began to spin at a speed that threatened to tear his torso apart.

[Cultivation Base breaking through!]

[Qi Condensation Stage One!]

[Stage Three!]

[Stage Six!]

[Stage Nine!]

[Breakthrough achieved: Foundation Establishment Stage One!]

His bones popped, resetting with a strength that felt denser than iron. The weakness from his public execution on the Judgment Plaza vanished, completely replaced by an explosive, violent power that made his skin hum with static electricity.

The World Devourer’s massive body began to shrivel, its mountain-sized form rapidly losing its volume as the system ruthlessly sucked its life force dry. Within ten breaths, the legendary beast that had terrified the gods was reduced to a mountain of brittle, grey ash.

Jian Wudi’s phantom form drifted down beside Li Tian, his jaw literally dropped. The legendary sword god looked at the mountain of ash, then at the young man whose aura was now fluctuating with the heavy weight of the Foundation Establishment realm. "Twelve thousand years... and I have never seen anyone refine an ancient chaos beast in seconds. What kind of monstrous treasure is in your head, boy?"

Before Li Tian could answer, the ground beneath them didn't just crack—it completely collapsed.

CRASH!

A massive, bottomless fissure tore open directly underneath the mountain of ash, creating a violent vacuum that dragged everything downward.

SHUCK!

From the absolute dark of the new fissure, two pristine, blindingly white hands shot upward. They didn't look like the decaying limbs of the undead; they looked like the flawless, porcelain hands of a young woman.

But the moment those hands clamped around Li Tian’s ankles, the skin on his legs instantly turned black from frostbite. The freezing pressure didn't just lock his physical body; it pierced straight through his flesh and clamped down on his newly formed Death Core, stopping its rotation instantly.

"An inheritance from a dead lord, a broken sword god, and a magical screen?" A woman's smooth, chilling voice echoed from the deep dark of the fissure. It was melodic, beautiful, and dripping with an ancient, suffocating cruelty. "Hand them over, and this Empress will grant you a swift death."

Li Tian’s gold and crimson eyes flashed with absolute, freezing disdain. He had just slaughtered a god-level beast; he wasn't about to be robbed by a ghost in a hole.

"A locked-up bitch dares to threaten me?" Li Tian sneered. He didn't waste a single word. He forced his grey Primordial Death-Sword Qi down into his heels and stomped downward with the weight of his new Foundation Establishment strength.

BOOM!

The white hands instantly blew apart into a cloud of black mist. A sharp, blood-curdling screech echoed from the depths of the fissure as the entity suffered a violent soul backlash.

"You miserable mortal! Just wait until this Empress breaks the sealing talismans—!"

"I don't wait," Li Tian interrupted coldly. "Because I'm coming down to slaughter you right now."

Without a shred of hesitation, Li Tian threw himself face-first into the bottomless fissure, diving straight down into the howling dark toward the source of the voice.

Meanwhile, on the surface, the Heavenly Sword Sect was burning from the inside out.

The ancient bronze bell atop the peak didn't just crack; it violently split down the middle, sending massive chunks of metal crashing into the plazas below. In the sky, the floating golden text grew so intensely bright that several hundred inner disciples dropped to their knees, clutching their bleeding eyes: 【THE TRUE HEIR HAS AWAKENED.】

"Grand Elder! The primary mountain defensive grid has completely snapped!" an enforcer screamed, coughing up black blood as the spiritual backlash hit him.

The Judgment Plaza was splitting in two. The massive stone sword statue at the center—the literal symbol of the sect's power—tilted sideways, its tip burying into the dirt before shattering.

Grand Elder Wu’s face was completely white, his eyes bulging with an unhinged madness. "Activate the Earth-Sinking Formation! Drop the sealing stones! Cave the entire mountain range into the Abyss! Destroy the spiritual vein! We must bury that boy permanently!"

"Grand Elder, no!" Zhao Feng stumbled forward, his face pale and his hands shaking as he clutched his sword. "If we destroy the spiritual vein, the sect's foundation is ruined! We will lose our cultivation land forever!"

"If he walks out of that hole, we won't have lives to cultivate with!" Grand Elder Wu roared. He turned and backhanded Zhao Feng across the face, the force throwing the young man ten meters across the dirt. "He has the Jade, Zhao Feng! He knows what we did! Do you think he'll spare you because you played the reluctant friend?"

Zhao Feng clutched his bleeding cheek, staring into the shaking, black void of the Abyss. He finally realized the sheer scale of the nightmare they had manufactured.