Shadow Throne: Rebirth Of The Silent Sovereign

Three days after the blade returned, a storm came to the Lin Clan.

Not wind.Not rain.But a man wrapped in black feathers and silver ink, his carriage pulled by beasts no one could name, and eyes like cinders buried in snow.

He bore no clan sigil.

Only a seal carved from bone, hung around his neck by a cord made of woven hair.

And the moment his foot touched the earth outside the Lin Pavilion, every beast on the estate fell silent.

Inside the council hall, the elders argued.

As usual.

The Pill Sect's visit had drawn attention. Rumors of Lin Feng's strength had spread too far to contain. The whispers of shadow Qi, strange weapons, and forbidden cultivation echoed louder than any decree.

"He's poisoning the air around our youths!" spat Elder Qian."He's an infection. He must be severed before he consumes us."

"Or harnessed," murmured Elder Song."The clan hasn't had a wild blade like him in decades."

"You speak of taming him. I speak of removing him."

The Patriarch remained silent, fingers steepled.

Until the doors opened.

And the man in feathers entered.

No announcement. No escort.

Just the echo of his boots and the slow, deliberate clink of bone against metal.

He bowed only once.

"Messenger," he said simply."From the Wraith Palace."

That stopped every voice cold.

The Wraith Palace.

One of the Nine Dark Orders.Neutral. Merciless. Ancient.

They sent no messages unless blood had already been spilled.

"What business does your master have with the Lin Clan?" asked the Patriarch evenly.

The man smiled without warmth.

"None, yet."

"Then why are you here?"

"To deliver this."

He reached into his sleeve and drew forth a scroll sealed in black wax.

But instead of offering it to the Patriarch or the elders—

He turned to a quiet corner of the hall.

Where Lin Feng stood, silent as ever.

And handed it directly to him.

The hall erupted.

"Insolence!""He's an outer-branch boy!""The message is meant for the Patriarch—"

But the crow-messenger only chuckled.

"The seal knows its bearer. It opened for none until it neared him."

Lin Feng took the scroll calmly, broke the wax, and unrolled the parchment.

Inside:

Six words.

Scrawled in that unmistakable, half-mocking, half-reverent script.

"If you are him, prove it."

And beneath it, a location: Shanfen Crater. Three nights from now.

A place soaked in spiritual fallout and old battlefield blood.

A place no one sane walked into alone.

"Who sent this?" Lin Feng asked.

The messenger blinked slowly.

"A man in a shadowsteel crown."

Ji Chen.

The elders demanded answers.

But Lin Feng left without offering any.

He simply walked past them, scroll in hand, sword at his back, and the weight of his past settling like thunder behind his eyes.

The Patriarch watched him go.

And for the first time in many years… the old man smiled.

"Let him go."

"What?!" Qian barked."You'll allow this blasphemy—?"

"I'll allow the path to unfold."

He looked toward the darkening horizon.

"I believe we are witnessing the return of something the world thought dead."

That night, in the tower he now called his quarters, Lin Feng unwrapped Ebonveil and placed it before him.

He lit no candles.

He didn't need light.

Shadow gathered on its own, responding to his breath, coiling softly around the blade like mist drawn to mountain.

He opened the scroll again.

Read the six words one more time.

"If you are him, prove it."

He whispered, "I already did. By surviving."

But the proving had to be public.

And violent.

He would go to Shanfen Crater.

But he would not go alone.

Elsewhere in the clan, word spread.

Lin Yue heard it from a junior cultivator near the well.

She frowned. The crater was a dead zone. No Qi circulated properly there. Spiritual formations broke down. Sound warped. Time blurred. Anyone who stepped into its center either came out changed—or didn't come out at all.

"Why would he go there?" she muttered.

"Because someone challenged him," said a voice behind her.

Seren.

The apothecary walked slowly, carrying a satchel of powdered reagents.

"They're forcing his hand."

"He could ignore it."

"Not him. He knows what's at stake."

"Which is?"

Seren paused.

"The right to call himself the true Sovereign."

Lin Yue didn't scoff.

She just looked toward the rising moon.

"Then I'll follow."

Three nights later.

Shanfen Crater.

A wound in the earth left by an ancient spiritual collapse—one of the first casualties of the Sovereign Wars. The land was glassed. The trees refused to grow. And the wind sang only in broken tones.

Lin Feng stood at the edge.

Seren at his right. Lin Yue at his left.

"You sure this is wise?" Yue asked, staring into the swirling pit.

"No," Lin Feng said.

"Good."

They descended.

At the center of the crater stood a shrine built of fractured bones.

And atop it: Ji Chen.

Crowned. Robed. Radiant in the stolen regalia of the Shadow Throne.

Surrounded by six masked cultivators—silent assassins from the Wraith Palace.

"You came," Ji Chen said, arms wide.

Lin Feng said nothing.

"No words? No fury? No accusations?"

"No need," Lin Feng replied softly."The dead don't debate."

Ji Chen smirked.

"Still the cold one, even reborn. Tell me—did your silence save you from dying the first time?"

He stepped down.

"Because it won't save you now."

The wind howled.

And the first blade was drawn.

But not by Ji Chen.

By Lin Feng.

And Ebonveil's scream was not of steel.

It was memory.