The Shining Star Above The Heaven-Chapter 607: The Past

Year 2035, on a blue planet called "Earth."

Zhang Haoran was a 35-year-old handsome man living in the city of Shanghai, China. He lived with his little sister in a normal household. They no longer had any parents, as their parents had left them when they were young.

There was nothing particularly conspicuous about him on the outside, he looked just like an ordinary handsome man. His sister also lived a normal life, working as a secretary at a corporation.

However, behind that handsome and seemingly ordinary appearance, Zhang Haoran lived a life far from normal, one that even his sister didn’t know about. Behind the scenes, he was actually an important member of a mafia group.

Having once sought a way to earn money, he had become trapped in the world of organized crime.

He was one of the best henchmen under the boss of that mafia group and eventually became the brain behind their operations. His contributions to the organization were immense, allowing the group to grow at a tremendous rate. They began absorbing many smaller gangs and even destroyed rival mafia groups, causing their influence to expand rapidly.

This rapid growth alarmed the other groups in the surrounding regions. Feeling threatened, multiple mafia groups across China joined forces and launched a coordinated attack, ultimately destroying Zhang Haoran’s group and leaving only a few survivors.

He was captured by one of the enemy groups, who saw his value and decided not to kill him. Instead, they chose to use him as much as they could. Knowing how important he was, they threatened him with his sister’s safety, forcing him to work for the very group that had destroyed his own.

Year 2040.

He had helped the mafia group grow even larger and more powerful. However, he had lived like a dog all this time. Even though the group relied on his value, they never treated him like a colleague. Instead, he was treated like an animal on a leash, forced to obey, with his sister’s life as the chain around his neck.

His sister, unaware of any danger, lived her life normally. She didn’t know that the mafia group was constantly watching her, using her as leverage to keep him under control.

He desperately wanted to escape and take his sister far away from the city, but the group never gave him the chance. He couldn’t even tell her the truth, afraid that doing so would only make the situation even worse.

He never wanted to make his sister worry. All he wished for was for her to live an innocent, ordinary life, just like any other normal woman. He never wanted her to know anything about the dark world he was part of.

But one night, their home was attacked by an unknown group of masked figures. A fierce battle broke out as he tried to protect his sister, killing many of the intruders in the process. However, the attackers were well-prepared, and their coordination quickly overwhelmed him.

They captured his sister, and in the end, he had no choice but to surrender.

Not long after, the two of them were taken to a remote location, where he was interrogated about the mafia group he currently worked for. It was then that he finally understood, these attackers were actually from a rival faction, enemies of the group he had been forced to serve.

They wanted all the secret information about the group he had been working for. And since he already hated that group, he didn’t hesitate, he told them everything he knew.

He thought it would end there. But this mafia group turned out to be even more twisted than he imagined.

One of their members took a sick interest in his sister. He was forced to watch as she struggled to protect her dignity and purity. Rage like he had never known surged through him, he wanted nothing more than to kill them all. But he was outnumbered, powerless, and completely restrained.

Helpless, he could only scream inside as those monsters tried to do as they pleased. And then, in one final act of defiance, his beloved sister snatched a gun from one of them and took her own life.

That moment burned itself into his memory—unforgettable.

It left behind a hatred deeper than anything he had ever felt. A hatred for his fate. For his weakness. For everything.

And in that moment, he made a vow deep within his heart.

He would take revenge. Even if it meant becoming a ghost.

After that, they decided to kill him by throwing him into the nearest river with a heavy rock tied to his feet. But just as his fate seemed sealed, something unbelievable happened.

Just before his body could be tossed into the water, a dark portal opened beneath him, swallowing him and a few of his captors.

He had no idea what had just occurred. All he knew was that he fell into a place he would later call hell.

Fortunately, he landed in a spot where no one else was around. That brief solitude gave him just enough time to free himself from the ropes binding his body.

As he began to explore the strange world he had fallen into, he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Creatures that belonged in myths and legends roamed the land, beasts he had only ever read about in stories. Even more terrifying were the monsters unlike anything he had ever imagined. They radiated power far beyond anything he could comprehend.

He was truly scared shitless, looking at all these absurd scenes. He didn’t know whether this was a blessing from the heavens or just another punishment in a crueler form. But then he remembered.

His revenge.

He still had something to live for. He still had his revenge to carry out, and finally, he decided to survive this hell. His desire for revenge overpowered his fear, and his will to survive became even stronger.

At first, he had to hide and kill some monsters like goblins and slimes. But as time passed, he managed to survive and adapt to life inside this hell, and he began killing much stronger monsters.

Every time he killed one, he felt himself growing stronger, so he never stopped. He no longer knew how much time he had spent in this place, but he didn’t care.

Kill, kill, kill.

He survived with only one purpose in his mind, to escape this hell and take revenge on those who drove his sister to suicide.

To take revenge on the fate that made him like this.

Inside this hell, he also learned that he could use a kind of technique, something like the magic he had only heard about in stories back when he was still on Earth. Something he found truly useful on his path to revenge.

Time kept moving, though he had no idea how many years he had already been trapped in this hell. Until one day, he encountered a being known as a god. At that moment, he truly felt like dust in front of something far beyond comprehension.

There was no comparison, no resistance, only despair and absolute obedience.

That was the first time he saw Tarius.

The god who would later become his god, and make Zhang Haoran his apostle.

At first, Tarius considered him no different from any other mortal being. Just another plaything. But something about Zhang Haoran caught his attention. That enormous intent for revenge. That relentless will to survive. The fact that he had endured for so long in a place like this hell.

Because of all that, Tarius chose him as his apostle.

That was also the first time Zhang Haoran received the system that would aid him on his journey.

From that moment on, he continued growing stronger at a tremendous pace. Eventually, his god brought him to the Higher Heavens, a realm that existed above both the Earth he once knew and the hell he had endured.

There, he met others who were also called apostles, and that was when he learned that Tarius was not the only god. There were others.

He also found out that he was the last apostle to arrive, while the rest had already lived their lives as apostles for a long time.

But then a question arose, why had the gods brought their apostles to the Higher Heavens?

It was to give them experience, to broaden their understanding and show them that realms existed far above their own worlds. In that place, they learned many things: about cultivation, about the universe, and many things beyond mortal comprehension. Their roles and duties as apostles were also explained in detail.

To spread their teachings and faith to all beings across the universes. The apostles, as the spearheads of this mission, would spread their gods’ faith, and in doing so, make their gods even stronger. In return, the apostles themselves would also grow stronger through their systems.

Each apostle would receive various missions through the system. Every time they completed one, they would be rewarded directly by their god. Because of this divine support, apostles were far stronger and developed much faster than any ordinary beings or cultivators in the universe.

For Zhang Haoran, he was given a special mission. In addition to side quests, he had a main mission, and that mission was located in the First Heaven, the same heaven where Earth existed, though in a completely different region of the universe.

To carry out his task, he would need to be "placed" into a world known as Ancient Blue Gate World, on a continent called Barisan Continent.

His main mission there was not only to spread the faith of God Tarius and assist the existing believers already present in that world, but also to open a portal to that world, allowing God Tarius to descend into the lower heavens.

Zhang Haoran did not know why his god wanted to descend personally, nor did he want to know. What mattered most was the promise his god had made to him after this mission was complete.

A reward he had long desired.

His revenge.

He would be allowed to return to Earth and finally carry out the vengeance he had waited for all these years.

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