The sky cracked.
It wasn't thunder. It wasn't storm.
It was fear.
From the moment Lin Feng claimed the Seventh Key, something ancient stirred above the clouds. The stars themselves blinked, as if in confusion—then panic. For the first time in a thousand eras, the Heavens were uncertain.
---
Lin Feng stood atop the shattered remains of the god-bone temple, the Seventh Key now merged with his core.
The power didn't surge like lightning.
It whispered.
It remembered.
Ruoxi stepped back, brow furrowed. "Lin Feng... are you still you?"
He blinked.
Then smiled. "I'm not the one we should be worried about."
He looked skyward.
"Because they just noticed I'm alive."
---
The next moment, the clouds bled open.
From the heavens descended a staircase of light, each step radiating divinity and judgment. A trumpet sound—no horn, but a voice made of galaxies—shook the air.
"HE HAS RETURNED."
Ruoxi cursed. "I hate prophetic fanfare."
Yue Lian drew her blade. "It's not fanfare. It's a death sentence."
From above, descended figures cloaked in celestial flame. They had no eyes. No mouths. Just law. Just presence.
The Arbiters of Heaven.
And leading them—
A being in gold-white robes, whose face shifted with every blink.
He spoke without words.
"Lin Feng. By the Seventh Law, you are condemned. Surrender the Keys. Return to Oblivion."
Lin Feng looked around, feigned confusion.
"Do I look like I carry a receipt?"
"YOU DEFY ORDER."
"No, I redefine it."
And then he drew his sword.
---
Battle breaks out.
This battle is not just strength—it is law vs. freedom.
The Arbiters wield divine edicts: "All who stand must kneel." "All that breathes must still."
Lin Feng overwrites laws in real time: "No law binds the Void." "Time answers to me."
He fights while rewriting reality, the battlefield itself warping.
Yue Lian and Ruoxi defend him, taking on dozens of lesser arbiters.
Ruoxi shouts: "You're rewriting gravity again!"
Lin Feng: "You're welcome."
Yue Lian: "My hair's floating!"
Lin Feng: "Looks good!"
---
In the climax, Lin Feng is cornered by the lead Arbiter.
The Arbiter summons the Judgment Star, a planetary-sized weapon forged from Heaven's wrath.
"You will be erased."
Lin Feng, smirking, touches his chest.
The Keys begin to glow.
He murmurs: "Then watch closely… as I erase you."
[MONARCH STATE: INITIATED]
His form changes—robes of shadow-light, hair like a corona of night, sword pulsing like a collapsed star.
He raises one hand.
"Void Law: Total Reversal."
The Judgment Star implodes.
The Arbiter is cast back into the sky—screaming without a mouth.
---
The battlefield goes quiet.
Ash falls like snow.
Ruoxi kneels, panting. "Please tell me that's the last of them."
Yue Lian stares upward. "No. That was just the scouts."
Lin Feng sighs.
"Then it's time we stop waiting."
He turns to the broken sky.
"I'm coming, Heaven."
To be continue...