The Crucible's Silent Demon

Teng Kui's life seemingly ended when his meridians were shattered by an assassin while protecting his fiancée, Ming Xiya. Instead of gratitude, she betrayed him, kicking his paralyzed body into the Sunken Crucible - an abyssal forge meant to incinerate the sect's greatest sinners. He should have burned to ash. Instead, he wakes up completely unharmed in the impossible depths of the molten core. His missing mother’s jade pendant suddenly activates, awakening Jiao Zang, a greedy ancient dragon soul who refuses to offer martial guidance unless bribed with rare treasures. But the extortionist dragon brings a terrifying revelation: Teng Kui’s past incarnation engineered this exact betrayal. His meridians had to be shattered to break a heavenly cage, and his "tragic downfall" was merely step one of a violent, multi-lifespan master plan. Armed with forbidden arts and a debt-collecting dragon, Teng Kui crawls out of the abyss. As the Zenith Martial Assembly approaches, arrogant prodigies and his treacherous ex-fiancée await their crowning glory. They expect to step on the memory of a crippled ghost. But what happens when a supposed trash cultivator steps into the arena, armed with nothing but a wooden branch, and silently shatters the top seed’s legendary weapon?