Lord of the void realm

The Vault's gates opened without a sound.

Raizen didn't push them. He didn't need to.

They opened for him.

Dark mist spilled out like breath held for centuries, curling around his ankles, cold and sharp like needles. But it didn't hurt. It welcomed him.

The first chamber was massive—circular, domed, and lit by violet torches that floated midair. The walls were carved with runes that bent space just to look at them. Not ancient language. Not divine script. Voidmarks—raw, unstable glyphs that no human hand should have been able to draw.

Raizen stepped forward, each footfall echoing as if the chamber stretched far beyond what his eyes could see.

Then came the whisper.

"The first silence is memory..."

He turned quickly. No one there.

Another step.

"The second silence is will..."

A slow grind sounded from the ceiling above.

Raizen raised his head.

The dome was shifting. No—peeling.

Circular plates rotated one after another, revealing glowing void crystals embedded into the stone like stars in a sky. The runes began to move. Literally.

They slithered from the walls onto the floor, rearranging themselves into a spiral that pointed toward the center of the chamber.

A single platform rose.

On it: a body.

Or... what was left of one.

A mummified corpse, dressed in tattered robes identical to the projection he'd seen above. A white mask lay beside it.

Raizen approached cautiously.

It wasn't breathing.

But the void around it pulsed—like a heartbeat.

He knelt.

The moment he touched the mask, everything changed.

Darkness swallowed him.

He was falling again—but this time, through memories.

Not his.

A battlefield.

Screams.

Exploding stars overhead. Realms colliding. Dragons roaring as they were devoured by black holes.

A figure stood at the center. Masked. Alone.

Behind him, billions of cultivators burned.

Before him, a sea of immortals charged.

"This is the price of touching the True Void," the masked figure whispered, blade trembling in his hand.

Then silence.

And then—

Raizen's body snapped back.

He gasped.

Sweat poured from his brow. His heart hammered in his chest.

That vision—it wasn't illusion. It was a sealed memory. The final thoughts of the vault's previous master. A Void Cultivator who had faced gods and erased stars... and still lost everything.

"You died here…"

Raizen looked down at the corpse again. Not just a memory. A warning.

But also a legacy.

Beneath the platform, the runes lit up.

A second gate opened.

Inside was a pedestal. On it sat a book made of stone and glowing veins.

"Void Genesis: Manual of the Forbidden Path."

Raizen's hands hovered above it.

It pulsed with power—raw, overwhelming, barely restrained.

If he touched it, there was no going back. He could feel it.

This wasn't like stealing techniques from sects.

This was a core inheritance—one that had never been claimed, and for good reason.

He touched the cover.

It didn't burn him.

It dissolved—turning into thousands of threads of dark light that shot into his chest, swirling around his core.

His body screamed in protest. His soul warped. Time and space bent around him.

He fell to one knee, blood dripping from his nose and ears.

But he didn't scream.

He laughed.

Because he could feel it—his core was no longer bound by planes.

This inheritance didn't just teach void usage.

It rewrote how cultivation worked.

Raizen stood, eyes glowing faint purple, veins like rivers of dark lightning under his skin.

Behind him, the Vault began to collapse. It had served its purpose.

He walked out, stronger.

But then he paused on the edge of the crumbling steps.

A thought hit him—sharp and quiet.

"Why are there so many void inheritances just lying in hidden places?"

It wasn't a coincidence.

His mind dug deeper.

"If void users are so rare… why do the few that appear always vanish?"

Then it clicked.

Since the dawn of cultivation, those born with void roots were either recruited by the great forces… or erased. They were too unpredictable. Too powerful. Too hard to control.

The major sects didn't want them to grow.

They wanted them gone.

And that meant one thing—countless void cultivators had been hunted down across history.

"Which means… their legacies are still here."

Hidden.

Waiting.

Forgotten by history, erased by fear.

Raizen's eyes narrowed.

"If I find them all…"

He didn't finish the sentence.

He didn't need to.

He would gather every single inheritance. Learn from the fallen. Build the foundation that no one else ever could.

A Void Empire—hidden under their noses.

Before he even set foot in the Gods Realm… he would become untouchable.

Far away from the collapsing Vault, in a distant and quiet corner of the Mortal Realm, a sealed tomb stirred for the first time in 30,000 years.

The seal cracked.

A whisper slipped into the wind.

"Finally... someone worthy."

In the space between realms, a residual soul awakened. Not just any soul.

The last echo of the Great Sage of the Void—a cultivator who walked through the heavens without kneeling to a single sect or god. A man none could kill, who only passed due to old age.

He had one regret.

He died without a successor.

Until now.