The box sat quietly on the center of the stone table.
Seven locks sealed its surface—each shaped like a different ancient sigil: fire, frost, shadow, wind, lightning, soul, and void.
The envoy from the Capital stood beside it, arms crossed.
Though her face was hidden behind the steel fox mask, her voice rang with command.
"This box is known as the Heavenkey Cipher. It appears once every hundred years, to test the resolve of regions with rising anomalies."
Lin Feng frowned.
"Anomalies."
"You," she said bluntly.
Grandmaster Lumen sat quietly behind his desk, eyes narrowed but silent. Ruoxi lingered at the edge of the room, hand resting lightly near her hidden blade.
The envoy continued. "Only one individual may attempt to unlock it. That individual must match the resonance of all seven seals."
"And if I refuse?" Lin Feng asked.
The envoy tilted her head.
"Then the Capital will assume East Sky harbors threats beyond its rank. Martial law would follow."
"So blackmail, then."
She didn't deny it.
Lin Feng stepped forward.
The box hummed faintly.
The void sigil on its top right glowed.
A soft, whispering sound echoed through the chamber.
"It responds to you," the envoy said.
Ruoxi leaned closer. "Careful. We don't know what's inside."
Lin Feng touched the void sigil.
A clicking sound. The first lock snapped open.
The envoy didn't flinch.
"Six more."
For the next six days, Lin Feng worked alone within the Seal Chamber—an underground sanctum once used for oath trials.
Each night, a different sigil challenged him:
—Fire flared with a test of willpower, dragging his soul through flaming visions of his past deaths.
—Frost froze his breath, demanding he suppress all emotion while walking across a lake of ice atop ghostly memories.
—Wind asked him to match the breath of heaven, and once, his heartbeat nearly stopped.
—Lightning shocked his core with chaotic pulses, nearly breaking his Monarch Core.
—Soul dragged out his guilt—faces from his old life screamed accusations, and he almost succumbed.
But it was the sixth seal—Shadow—that nearly killed him.
It took him to a place that should not exist.
A land between moments.
Where his past self, the old Void Lord, stood—cold, merciless, and laughing.
"You think this second life makes you stronger?" the shadow hissed. "You were powerful because you were alone. Now you trust? You hesitate?"
Lin Feng raised his hand.
"No. I remember why I died. I remember what I lacked."
He pressed his palm into his own chest.
"I lacked purpose."
The seal cracked.
And opened.
On the seventh day, he stood before the final lock: Void.
It no longer glowed.
It pulsed.
The envoy returned. "Few have reached this far. None have opened the seventh."
Lin Feng didn't reply.
He sat before it, cross-legged.
He let go.
Of anger.
Of vengeance.
Of power.
He simply breathed.
And the box opened.
Inside was not a weapon.
Not a scroll.
But a mirror.
Black as obsidian, etched with runes that shifted in and out of existence.
Lin Feng touched it.
And saw himself.
But not as he was.
As he will become.
Draped in robes of starlight.
Eyes like galaxies.
A crown of void on his brow.
The Void Monarch reborn.
The envoy stepped back.
"You are not an anomaly," she whispered.
"You are the signal."
And the mirror shattered.
A pulse of black energy surged outward. The box crumbled.
Runes scattered through the room. Some faded. One remained, floating before Lin Feng.
He took it.
It burned into his palm.
And a voice echoed in his soul:
"KEY ONE: RECLAIMED."
To be continue...