Returnee from Earth: Lord of Immortality

The Ink Sea rippled with thought.

Where once it had been a chaotic mass of narrative detritus, the Sea was now a place of becoming. Formless, yet purposeful, the waves no longer devoured meaning. Instead, they held potential—vast, terrifying, beautiful.

Lin Sheng stood at its edge, his robes fluttering with the push and pull of creative currents. Behind him, the Academy of Resonance pulsed with life, a beacon in the vast storm of Realm-wide change. He had brought harmony, but now he was being called further—called by the Sea itself.

Fei'er approached, silent but not unseen. "You feel it too," she said, her voice barely louder than a breath.

He nodded. "It's speaking."

She looked out at the horizon, where reality blurred into ink. "Or calling."

A boat was prepared—not a vessel of wood or metal, but woven from threads of completed stories, balanced by the hopes of a thousand authors. Its sail was a single word, written in a language none could pronounce but all could feel:

Become.

Jin Rui arrived, arms crossed, face grim. "You're going into the Ink Sea without us?"

Mira, beside him, frowned. "We've faced far worse together. Eidolon, the Rift of Absence, even the Echo… why alone now?"

Lin Sheng turned to them, eyes serene. "Because this is a story I must begin myself. Not to exclude you—but to open the path for all others."

Mira handed him a scroll. "You know the ink here writes more than words. It writes memory. Identity."

"Then I will remember who I am," Lin Sheng said.

The journey into the Ink Sea began at twilight.

Lin Sheng's boat drifted across the narrative tides. As he passed into deeper layers, reality unraveled. Stars blinked out, replaced by blooming metaphors. A whisper of childhood floated beside him—his first memory from Earth, chasing fireflies in a city park. Then another: his first Qi meditation under the stars of the Immortal World.

The Sea peeled back layers of self—not in cruelty, but in invitation.

You are many things, it seemed to say. Which are you now?

Lin Sheng answered not in words, but by continuing forward.

A storm arose—not of lightning, but of genre. Martial epics clashed with cosmic horror, romance tangled with revenge tragedies. He held fast, his pen acting as rudder, his will the compass.

A figure emerged from the storm.

It was himself—as a mortal. Weak, frightened, unsure. Lin Sheng stared at this version without shame.

"You're still me," he said.

The mortal nodded. "And you're still reaching."

They merged—not in destruction, but in recognition.

And the Sea calmed.

Days passed—though time was meaningless here.

Lin Sheng arrived at the Inkheart—where all stories converged. Before him stood a gate formed of unread books, unlived lives. It pulsed like a heartbeat.

A voice, ancient and young, echoed in his mind.

You have shaped Realms. But will you now shape Origin?

He knew this was no trial. This was legacy.

He raised his pen.

And wrote a single line into the gate.

"I was mortal. I became more. And now, I offer not myself—but the path."

The gate opened.

Lin Sheng stepped through.

The Academy of Resonance felt his departure.

The Ink Sea shifted in hue—from murky gray to vibrant possibility.

Fei'er began to sing his final song—not a dirge, but a welcoming.

Mira wrote a new paradox: To begin again, one must never have ended.

Jin Rui carved a statue—not of Lin Sheng, but of an open book.

And in every Realm, children began to dream differently. Their dreams were vivid. Resonant. Free.

They would walk their own paths.

Because someone had dared to walk into the Sea of All Things… and write the next chapter.

To be continued in Chapter Thirty-Two – "Of Seeds and Stars"