At the summit of God Peak, the highest point of the celestial mountain, Jin Kai stood motionless against the biting wind. His long black hair danced wildly behind him, strands whipping across his sharp features. A faint, refreshing smile graced his handsome face as he gazed outward, his eyes tracing the endless sea of clouds that stretched toward the hazy horizon.
Far below lay the lower realms—vast, untamed, and brimming with the unknown. For the first time in centuries, a spark of genuine anticipation stirred within him. He was finally ready to leave this stagnant paradise behind.
Born into the God Realm as one of its thousand God Kin, Jin Kai had long been regarded as one of the strongest among them. Yet strength had brought him nothing but boredom. Life here was an endless repetition of the same ritual: cultivate, meditate, cultivate again. Most of his kin spent decades, even centuries, sitting motionless inside silent caves, drawing in spiritual energy like statues carved from eternity itself. They emerged only rarely, usually to measure their spiritual force against one another in brief, passionless contests that rarely escalated beyond a slight flinch or a flicker of power.
To Jin Kai, it felt suffocating.
The God Realm itself, despite its grandiose name, was little more than a colossal floating island suspended in the void. Its borders ended abruptly after roughly a thousand kilometers, beyond which lay only empty sky and the distant shimmer of lower worlds. With fewer than a thousand inhabitants, all born directly from the Heavens with innate knowledge of cultivation, there was no society to speak of, no cities, no markets, no laughter, no chaos. Just endless quiet and the soft whisper of wind across endless jade peaks.
While the others seemed perfectly content with this existence, Jin Kai had always felt like an outsider. An anomaly. Where they possessed only the singular drive to cultivate and grow stronger, he carried something else entirely: memories from another life. Memories of Earth.
Many years ago, the Heavens had birthed him into this realm, granting him the body of a God Kin and the foundational knowledge needed to survive. But something had gone wrong, or perhaps wonderfully right. He remembered his previous existence clearly. He had been Jin Kai, a young man from the 21st century, walking to his first day at a prestigious finance company in a bustling metropolis. Rain had slicked the streets that morning. He recalled the sharp scent of gasoline, the honking of impatient cars, and the hurried rhythm of city life.
Then came the bus.
The driver, devastated by his wife's sudden divorce, had drowned his grief in alcohol and lost control. The vehicle slammed into a wall at full speed, right where Jin Kai had been standing. Everyone else survived with injuries. He alone had died.
That single tragic moment had somehow followed him across worlds, embedding itself deep within his soul. It was the reason he was different. The reason he questioned everything.
"Would I be just like them if those memories of Earth had never remained?" Jin Kai murmured softly to himself, his voice nearly swallowed by the wind. "Content to sit in a cave for eternity… never wondering what lay beyond?"
He shook his head, a wry smile tugging at his lips. No point dwelling on hypotheticals now.
Turning away from the breathtaking view, he made his way back to the small, unchanging cave that had served as his home since the day he was "born." The interior was sparse—just smooth stone walls, a simple meditation mat, and the faint glow of natural spiritual veins running through the rock. He slipped the celestial ring onto his finger, feeling its familiar weight. Inside it rested everything he owned: a few artifacts, spare robes, and the modest accumulation of resources he had gathered over the centuries.
With a light leap, he soared back toward God Peak, the wind singing past his ears. At the very crest stood the ancient portal a swirling vortex of silver and azure light framed by towering runes that pulsed with primordial power. Two realm guardians sat cross-legged on either side of the entrance, their expressions serene and unreadable, bodies radiating an aura that could crush mountains.
Jin Kai offered them a respectful fist-and-palm salute, bowing slightly. "Elders."
They returned the gesture without a word.
As he stepped forward and his body began to merge with the shimmering portal, a tiny speck of golden light suddenly flicked from the left guardian's fingertip. It shot straight into Jin Kai's forehead before he could react.
Instantly, an ancient book manifested within his mind, its pages glowing with elegant golden script. The title read:
Rules of Those Who Descend
Your full power shall be completely restricted. Only remnant God Kin strength remains and it may be used no more than five times. You must cultivate once more, all the way back to the Imperial Immortal realm, before the portal will accept your return.Your unlimited lifespan is stripped away. It shall only be restored upon reaching the Imperial Immortal realm once again.
The knowledge settled heavily in his consciousness.
Before he could fully process the weight of those restrictions, the portal pulled him in completely.
Wind roared violently around him as he tumbled through the void. Colours blurred—azure, gold, and deep indigo swirling together. Then gravity took hold. He was falling.
Far below stretched an endless, unknown sea, its surface glittering under an alien sun. Jin Kai tried to steady himself mid-air, but the descent was too fast, too chaotic. He slammed into the water with bone-shaking force and was immediately knocked out.
Darkness swallowed him whole.