Lord of the void realm

The forest turned quiet again.

Raizen walked beneath twisted branches, the air thick with spiritual decay. Broken statues peeked out from moss-covered stone. Shattered formation lines glowed faintly beneath the dirt, long dead but not forgotten.

He had found an old sect.

No name. No banners. Just silence and ruin.

The front gate was half-buried in the earth, snapped in two like it had been crushed by a giant hand. Blood stains still marked the walls—so old they were black.

Raizen stepped through.

There was no hesitation. He didn't scout. He didn't check for traps.

His presence alone made the air freeze. Even the insects avoided him.

The sect was gone… but not empty.

As he walked into the main hall, something stirred beneath the floor—energy, faint and flickering, like the final heartbeat of a dying beast.

He reached a cracked stone tablet.

It pulsed once.

Then opened.

A hidden stairwell revealed itself, leading into darkness.

Raizen descended without lighting a flame.

His eyes adjusted instantly.

The underground vault was filled with broken scrolls, smashed talismans, and dried bones. But in the center, floating in a black pool of spiritual liquid, was a single sealed manual.

It radiated something twisted—space, yes… but also time. Folded. Distorted.

Raizen reached out.

As his fingers touched the edge, the seal cracked.

The technique screamed into his mind. A failed fusion of multiple arts: time reversal, spirit chains, blade projection, reality rewind. It was incomplete—unstable. Anyone else would be crushed just trying to read it.

Raizen blinked once.

Then began picking it apart, piece by piece.

He didn't just learn the fragments. He broke them. Restructured them. And inside the void within his core, he began to rebuild something better.

---

Far above, past the clouds and beyond the mortal realm—

A figure stepped through a rift.

The Sky Messenger.

Draped in black robes covered in holy marks, her face hidden behind a silver mask, she floated above the world like a star fallen from heaven.

She spoke only once.

"Target locked."

Then shot downward like a spear of light, aimed straight toward the forest ruins below.

---

Raizen felt it before it arrived.

The wind shifted.

The space above him rippled, strained, then cracked like glass under pressure.

He looked up, calm.

Then stepped to the side, exactly one second before the Sky Messenger exploded into the earth.

The impact blew apart trees, shattered stone, and crushed the old sect gate completely.

Smoke filled the area.

Raizen didn't move.

When the smoke cleared, the masked figure stood in the ruins, cloak fluttering in the heat. She didn't ask questions. She didn't announce anything.

She raised her hand.

And space collapsed around Raizen like a cage made of thunder.

Still, he didn't speak.

He raised two fingers.

And the world twisted.

The space between him and the messenger folded violently—one instant she stood ready, the next she was thrown sideways as if yanked by an invisible hook.

A chunk of the forest vanished with her.

She stabilized mid-air, blood trailing from her arm. Her spiritual pressure surged higher.

Raizen didn't wait.

He disappeared.

She looked up just as a sharp edge of space carved past her mask.

Her left eye burst.

Raizen appeared behind her in the next second, hand reaching for her spine.

She spun, blocking with a holy seal that burned silver.

It shattered.

She tried to speak a command—

But Raizen had already erased the space between her words.

Silence.

Then her body dropped to the ground, twisted, broken, unmoving.

Raizen stood over her, quiet. No victory pose. No speech. No gloating.

He just turned and walked back into the ruins.

---

Above the world, the m

an with the crown frowned.

"They sent one."

"She failed."

He turned toward the kneeling figures behind him.

"Then we send five."