Lord of the void realm

The land was wrong.

That was Raizen's first thought as he stepped through the broken seal at the base of the Cradle Abyss, a chasm said to swallow entire sects whole during the ancient wars. No birds flew overhead. No wind moved. The soil beneath his boots crunched like powdered bone.

Yet the void energy here was thick—so thick, it pulsed with faint echoes.

Whispers.

Memories.

Pain.

He walked down the curved path spiraling into the abyss, shadows gathering around his feet like loyal dogs. The further he descended, the more warped the world became. Trees grew sideways. Stones floated in stillness. Time blinked in and out.

This was not just a battlefield.

This was a graveyard for void cultivators.

He stopped beside a jagged rock spire, eyes scanning the crude symbols etched into its surface.

Names...

Dozens of them. None recognizable. Each followed by a mark: Erased. Bound. Scattered. Betrayed.

Raizen placed a hand on the stone.

It was warm.

"They didn't die here."

"They were buried here."

Further in, he reached the basin.

Massive bones jutted from the earth—skulls the size of towers, swords half-buried in craters, broken masks scattered like fallen leaves. And in the very center: a circular platform carved with nine circles and a single name etched at its core:

KAZEHN.

Raizen knelt and brushed the dust away.

That name...

He'd seen it once. In a jade slip, at the first inheritance tomb. Kazehn—one of the last known Void Monarchs, said to have erased entire continents during the Heavenfall Rebellion.

A monster.

A savior.

Or both.

Raizen closed his eyes, sat cross-legged, and let the void speak.

And it did.

Flames.

Screams.

Blades breaking stars.

A man kneeling alone in a crater as enemies closed in.

And then—silence.

His voice, calm: "You can kill me. But not my mark."

Then blackness.

Raizen snapped back to the present.

Above him, the sky had darkened unnaturally. A ring of storm clouds spun directly overhead, thunder crackling in slow motion.

And standing opposite the basin—was someone watching.

Not a beast.

Not a projection.

A man.

Tall. Pale. Barefoot. Wrapped in ragged robes.

His face was cracked like dry stone, and his eyes were empty. Hollow. Ancient.

But he moved.

Raizen stood.

The man said nothing.

Raizen didn't speak either.

Then the figure lifted his arm.

Not to attack—but to point.

At Raizen's chest.

And whispered:

"So... he chose you."

Lightning fell.

The figure vanished before it struck. Gone like he was never real.

But the crater he left behind glowed faintly—with a single rune carved into its core.

A gate.

Raizen approached.

When he touched it, the world blinked again.

This time, it didn't collapse.

It opened.

He stood now in a world of shifting space. Floating steps. Cracked temples drifting through black sky.

This wasn't just a tomb.

It was a hidden realm—the remnants of a pocket world created by void cultivators who fled the heavens.

A place where the last of them hid, trained, and fought until death.

"This is what they didn't want anyone to find."

"A sanctuary for the broken. The exiled. The ones who said no."

"And now it belongs to me."