The stone of the underground passage groaned as Lin Void led his father toward the Sub-Zero Vault. Every step the boy took left a scorched, black footprint—not from heat, but from the literal erasure of the floor's molecules. Without the needle, the Grey Rank Tier 9 energy was a wild beast clawing at the cage of his ribs.
"Void, your skin... it's cracking!" Lin Tian cried, stumbling behind him.
Fine, violet lines were spider-webbing across Lin Void's face. He didn't look like a child anymore; he looked like a shattered porcelain doll held together by dark lightning.
"The vault... first," Lin Void gasped. He slammed the Life-Force Key into the heavy iron doors at the end of the hall.
The massive gears, frozen by decades of magical frost, shrieked as they turned. The doors hissed open, revealing a chamber filled with crystalline jars. In the center, suspended in a pillar of liquid moonlight, was a single vial of Stardust Marrow—the condensed essence of a thousand fallen stars.
The General of Black Frost
"Step away from the Imperial Tithe, little ghost."
The temperature in the vault didn't just drop; it died. Standing atop the spiral staircase was a man in armor made of jagged, blue glaciers. General Zhao, a Gold Rank Tier 3 master, held a halberd that radiated a killing intent so sharp it drew blood from Lin Tian's cheeks just by looking at it.
"You killed my Shadow Stalkers," Zhao said, his voice like grinding ice. "You destroyed the Stonehaven Sect. I expected a demon. I did not expect a six-year-old error in the lineage."
Lin Void turned, his swirling black eyes meeting the General's icy glare. "An error? Your 'Goddess' is the error. She sits on a throne of stolen truths. I am simply the one who has come to collect the debt."
The Sovereign vs. The General
General Zhao didn't waste breath on words. He lunged.
"Ice Law: Absolute Permafrost!"
The entire room turned into a solid block of ice in a microsecond. Lin Tian was instantly encased, his scream frozen in his throat. But Lin Void?
The ice reached his skin and vanished. He stood in a bubble of nothingness, the frost unable to touch him.
"Void Step," Lin Void whispered.
He appeared inches from the General's face. His small fist, glowing with a terrifying violet light, slammed into the General's glacier-armor.
CRACK.
The Gold-Rank defense, which could withstand a mountain collapse, shattered like glass. General Zhao gasped, his lungs seizing as the Void began to suck the oxygen directly out of his blood.
"Gold Rank?" Lin Void sneered, his voice echoing with the authority of his past life. "In my world, you wouldn't be fit to sweep the floors of my outer sect!"
The Feast of Stars
But the strain was too much. Lin Void's arm suddenly erupted in blood as his meridians finally began to give way. He fell to one knee, the violet energy starting to leak out of his pores in a chaotic cloud.
General Zhao, coughing up frozen blood, raised his halberd. "You are a monster... but a small one. Die!"
Lin Void didn't look at the blade. He looked at the Stardust Marrow behind him. With a roar of pure willpower, he reached out with a strand of Void energy and shattered the vial.
The liquid moonlight exploded.
"If I can't hold the lake," Lin Void snarled, "I'll drown us both in the sea!"
He didn't drink the Marrow. He absorbed it through his skin. The Stardust Marrow—the most potent healing agent in the world—rushed into his shattered meridians. It met the chaotic Void energy head-on.
The result was a Soul-Fusion.
The violet darkness and the golden stardust began to spin together, creating a new, terrifying element: The Star-Void.
The Rebirth
A pillar of black and gold light erupted from the vault, punching through the floor of the Grand Pavilion, through the city's iron roof, and straight into the clouds.
General Zhao was vaporized instantly, his Gold-Rank core consumed as "snacks" for the breakthrough.
When the light faded, the vault was gone. In its place was a crater of smooth, obsidian glass.
Lin Tian lay on the ground, his wounds miraculously sealed by the overflow of the Marrow's energy. He looked up and saw a child standing in the center of the crater.
Lin Void's hair had turned from black to a shimmering, dark silver. His eyes were no longer just black; they held tiny, rotating galaxies within them. He stood taller, his presence no longer a "hole" in the world, but the very center of it.
Rank: Grey Rank, Tier 10 (Peak).
Hidden Rank: Star-Void Sovereign (Early Stage).
The Message to the Heavens
High above, in the Stardust Palace, Lin Wu Ran suddenly dropped her tea. The golden carvings on her throne began to weep blood. She looked toward the North, her face pale with a fear she hadn't felt in ten thousand years.
"He didn't just survive," she whispered. "He ate the star-light."
Back in the ruins of Iron-Blood City, Lin Void picked up his father. He looked toward the palace, millions of miles away. Through the Void, he could see her.
"I'm coming, 'Goddess'," Lin Void'er's voice vibrated through the dimensions, reaching her ears directly. "Prepare your neck. The Sovereign has returned."