The wind in the Gorge of Whispers didn't just howl; it tore. Lin Void stood over the crumpled, marble-sized remains of the Shadow Stalkers, his small chest heaving. His skin was pale, almost translucent, as the stolen Grey Rank Tier 9 energy surged through his six-year-old meridians like molten lead.
"Void!" Lin Tian stumbled from the cave, his own Yellow-Rank core flickering like a dying candle. He caught his son just as the boy's knees buckled. "You fool! Your body is a cup, and you just tried to swallow a lake!"
Lin Void coughed, a spray of violet-tinted blood hitting his father's tunic. "The cup... can be stretched, Father. But the soul... the soul remembers how to hold the ocean."
The Cracked Vessel
Lin Void's internal world was a battlefield. In his previous life as the Sovereign of the Silent Void, his meridians were like vast, starlight-forged rivers. Now, they were thin, fragile silk threads. The leap from Tier 5 to Tier 9 in a single breath was tearing him apart from the inside.
"Sit," Lin Tian commanded, his voice cracking with desperation. He ignored the agony in his own shoulders, placing his hands on his son's back. He tried to circulate his Fire element to soothe the boy's veins, but the moment his heat touched Lin Void, it was annihilated.
"Don't," Lin Void wheezed. "Your fire... is fuel for the collapse. I need... Void-Seal Needle."
Using the last of his strength, Lin Void beckoned. A jagged shard of the Shadow Stalker's Void-Steel needle flew into his hand. Without flinching, he drove the needle into his own solar plexus—the Middle Dantian.
SHHHH.
A hiss of pressurized energy escaped the wound. The violet bloating in his veins receded, forced into a temporary "Shedding State." He hadn't lost the power; he had simply locked it behind a dam of pain.
The Memory of the Stalker
As his breathing stabilized, the "Soul-Scourge" he had performed on the Stalker leader began to yield its fruit. In the darkness of his mind, Lin Void saw flashes of the Empire's secret maps.
"They aren't just hunting us, Father," Lin Void whispered, wiping the blood from his chin. "The Jin Clan and the Stardust Palace are preparing for the Hundred-Year Eclipse. They are gathering every drop of Stardust Marrow in the northern provinces to fuel Lin Wu Ran's breakthrough to the God-Ascension Rank."
Lin Tian paled. "If she reaches that rank... she will be able to sense a single grain of sand moving in the entire empire. We will have nowhere to hide."
"Then we take the Marrow first," Lin Void's eyes sharpened. "The largest shipment is currently held in Iron-Blood City. It's a fortress-city governed by the General of the Black Frost, a Gold Rank Tier 3 monster."
The Iron-Blood Gate
Three days later, at the towering gates of Iron-Blood City, two travelers joined the line of merchants and peasants.
One was a tall, hooded man with a heavy limp, smelling faintly of medicinal herbs. The other was a small boy with a straw hat pulled low over his eyes. To the guards, they looked like a refugee father and his sickly son seeking a healer.
"Myriad-Mask: Mortal Coil," Lin Void murmured under his breath.
His aura was now perfectly flat. He looked like a White Rank Tier 1—the kind of trash the guards didn't even bother to shake down for extra coins.
"Papers," the guard barked, his armor clanking.
Lin Tian handed over a forged scroll—the work of Old Man Gu's hidden contacts. "We are from the southern borders, my lord. My son... he has the 'Lung-Rot'. We heard the alchemists here are the best."
The guard glanced at Lin Void. The boy let out a wet, hacking cough, his small body trembling convincingly.
"Get inside," the guard sneered, waving them through. "And don't die in the streets. It's bad for business."
The Auction of Blood
The city was a sprawling industrial nightmare of black iron and red banners. In the center stood the Grand Pavilion of the Crimson Sun, where the Imperial Auction was to take place in two nights.
"The Marrow is kept in the 'Sub-Zero Vault' beneath the pavilion," Lin Void whispered as they navigated the crowded markets. "It's guarded by an array of Stardust Runes. If I touch them, Lin Wu Ran will know instantly."
"Then it's impossible," Lin Tian whispered back.
"For an Element Master, yes," Lin Void looked up at the fortress. "But for a Sovereign who has walked the Void between worlds? A rune is just a lock made of light. And I am the shadow that light cannot see."
Suddenly, the crowd parted. A troop of cavalry armored in midnight-blue steel rode through the street. At their head was a woman with hair like frozen moonlight and eyes that held the coldness of a thousand winters.
Jin Meiling.
The genius cousin from the ceremony. She was now surrounded by protectors, her Gold-Rank potential making her the crown jewel of the Jin Clan.
As her carriage passed, she paused, looking out of the window. Her gaze swept over the crowd, lingering for a fraction of a second on the small boy in the straw hat.
Lin Void didn't look away. He didn't bow. He simply stood there, a ghost in the machine.
She feels it, Lin Void thought, a cold smile touching his lips. The instinct of a predator sensing a threat it cannot see. Sleep well, 'Princess'. When the moon rises tomorrow, I will take back the Marrow your family stole from my mother's blood.