"Where is Lin Feng?"
The voice echoed across the council hall, sharp and cold as a sword unsheathed. The speaker was a middle-aged man with eyes like sharpened obsidian and a jade sigil of the Capital burned onto his robe.
Three other envoys stood behind him, their faces masked but their presences impossible to ignore. Pressure rolled through the chamber, bending space with silent force.
Grandmaster Lumen didn't flinch. "You arrive without formal announcement. You bring no writ of investigation. And you demand the presence of an Inner Court disciple?"
The envoy stepped forward. "He is no ordinary disciple. The Seventh Key has awakened."
Lumen's gaze turned steely. "You mean he awakened it."
"Which is the problem," another envoy added. A woman, tall and robed in starlight silk. "That box was not meant to open. Not yet."
"Not by someone unsanctioned."
"Not by a boy reborn from void."
Ruoxi, seated near the corner in silence, stood.
"Then what do you propose?" she said. "Take him? Kill him? Cut open his mind and see what leaks out?"
The first envoy didn't smile. "That depends on how cooperative he is."
A shadow stirred near the far doorway.
Lin Feng entered, robes loose, steps calm.
"I'm here," he said simply.
The air turned still.
He walked to the center of the room, eyes flicking from envoy to envoy. "You came to see the 'anomaly.' Well, here I am."
"You broke an ancient seal," said the woman in starlight. "You carry a sigil that has not surfaced since the era of the Primarchs."
"And?"
"Do you understand what it means?"
Lin Feng nodded. "It means I'm inconvenient."
The obsidian-eyed man frowned. "It means you are a threat."
"Only to those with something to hide," Lin Feng replied.
Lumen raised a hand. "Let us all lower our blades, even if they are made of words."
The envoy ignored him. "Lin Feng. You will come with us to the Capital. There, under divine contract, we will probe your soul flame and verify your identity."
"No," Lin Feng said.
The air rippled.
"No?"
"I will not go where blades are sheathed in law, and daggers smile in robes. You want to see who I am? Look closer."
He stepped forward, baring the rune burned into his palm. It glowed black and purple, humming with a deep resonance.
The room shook.
The starlight envoy gasped. "That… that's not a key."
"It's a crown," Ruoxi whispered.
The envoys stepped back.
Lin Feng continued. "You think I'm a puppet returned by dark rites. But I am not your threat. I am your balance. You've feared the Seven Gates for a thousand years. I intend to shut them. Permanently."
The woman trembled. "You can't. The bindings are too old. The lords behind them—"
"I've already faced them," Lin Feng said quietly. "And I've died once doing it. This time, I won't die alone."
After the envoys left, Lumen sat heavily in his chair. "That was not the reaction I expected."
Ruoxi laughed lightly. "You expected them to bow?"
"No. I expected them to imprison him on the spot. Instead… they looked shaken."
Lin Feng sat across from him. "They recognized something older than politics. I carry more than power. I carry memory. And it frightens them."
"Then be cautious," Lumen said. "They won't move directly. But others will."
Lin Feng nodded. "Let them come."
That night, he and Ruoxi walked the outer walls of the academy, the moon casting long shadows.
"You really meant it?" she asked. "You won't go to the Capital?"
"No," he said. "If I go, I disappear. My name buried, my soul dissected. I'd rather risk open war."
Ruoxi smiled faintly. "You're reckless."
"And you're still here."
She looked at him. "I remember the first time I saw you. You were half-dead, scrawny, eyes full of secrets. Now you walk like a king pretending to be a student."
Lin Feng chuckled. "I'm still learning."
She suddenly stopped.
From the shadows ahead, a man stepped into view.
Not a disciple.
Not even alive.
A corpse, stitched by spiritual thread. A messenger from beyond.
It raised one arm.
"Lin Feng. A gift awaits. From the Lord of the Fifth Gate."
It collapsed.
In its hand, a crystal orb glowed.
Ruoxi caught it and frowned.
"Dream Seal."
Lin Feng exhaled. "We're out of time."
He returned to his chamber, placed the orb in a void ward, and meditated.
The dream came quickly.
A wasteland. Shattered mountains. A throne of bone.
And upon it, a being of fog and teeth.
"So you rise again, Little Void," the being said.
"I am no one's little anything," Lin Feng replied.
"You touched the first lock. But the Fifth will not break as easily."
"Then I'll shatter it."
The being laughed. "You are welcome to try. But for every seal you open… another falls elsewhere."
"What do you mean?"
"You are not the only one awakening."
The dream shattered.
Lin Feng awoke, eyes cold.
"They're trying to distract me. While the other gates stir."
He rose, drawing his blade.
"Time to hunt before I'm hunted."
To be continue...