The gate pulsed like a heartbeat.
Not a sound, not a creak. Just the sensation of something ancient breathing, something vast and furious beneath the skin of the world. The starlight gate didn't open—it accepted.
Jin stepped through.
Qilin hesitated before following. She could feel it too—the wrongness beyond the veil. Not evil. Not chaos. Something older than both.
Something sealed.
The instant they crossed, the world changed.
Again.
They descended.
Not through space. Not even through realms.
Through concept.
The path beneath their feet was carved from black bone and shimmering veins of dream-silver. Their steps echoed across layers of time. Statues lined the descent—each one a perfect depiction of a god kneeling in chains.
Gods of War.
Gods of Light.
Gods of Death.
Even a God of Cultivation, face hidden, mouth stitched shut.
Qilin whispered, "These… aren't legends. These are real."
Jin didn't answer. His eyes had locked onto the deepest statue.
It wasn't kneeling.
It was screaming.
Frozen in agony.
At the base of the descent was a vast hollow dome carved into the crust of reality itself. The walls pulsed with molten runes—each one older than the language of mortals, etched by the Primordials.
A massive obsidian seal sat in the center, shaped like a lotus, each petal carved with names long erased from history.
Chains held it down—twelve of them.
Each one made from a different concept:
Time.
Causality.
Gravity.
Light.
Sound.
Memory.
Spirit.
Death.
Law.
Life.
Thought.
And the last… Name.
Jin's breath slowed.
He recognized the script on the seal. Not from books. Not from teachers.
From the grave.
The writing was identical to the chains that once wrapped his own soul during his ten-thousand-year slumber.
The same prison.
But this one… wasn't meant to break.
This was the God-Tomb.
"What the hell is sealed here?" Qilin whispered.
She wasn't asking Jin.
She was asking the world.
And the world answered.
A whisper rose from the center of the seal—not in words, but hunger.
Something stirred beneath.
A scrape.
Like fingernails on the underside of the world.
Jin stepped forward. The Hollow Crown fragment on his chest began to scream—silently. It pulled toward the seal, glowing white-hot.
A ghostly image flickered into view beside him.
A woman.
Not alive. Not dead.
Robe of stars. Eyes of tears.
She bowed her head and spoke one word:
"Run."
Then vanished.
The seal cracked.
Not from damage.
From recognition.
The Crown fragment in Jin's chest had marked him as heir—not just to the throne, but to the lock.
Chains began to twitch.
A voice rolled up from the pit, not deep or monstrous. It sounded like a child.
Or someone pretending to be one.
"You came back. You always come back. Let's play again."
Jin froze.
His soul remembered that voice.
The one that whispered to him in the grave.
The other prisoner.
The one even the gods had forgotten.
The twelfth chain—the Chain of Name—snapped.
Jin's knees buckled.
The world rippled.
All the statues above began to bleed from the eyes.
Reality itself winced.
Qilin fell beside him, blood leaking from her ears.
"Seal it," she gasped. "You have to seal it again!"
"I don't know how!"
The Crown fragment pulsed again—this time in patterns.
A ritual.
A memory.
A warning.
Jin slammed his hands into the seal.
And began to chant.
The words came not from memory, but from blood.
Each syllable forced itself through him, like a knife dragged across soul-skin. The ground shook. The chains lashed. Time fractured.
For a moment, he saw everything.
The past. The First Era.
When gods walked in chains and men carved justice from stars.
He saw the truth:
The thing beneath the seal wasn't a god.
It was what came before gods.
A concept made flesh.
A name without meaning, cast into form.
The Primordials called it the Nameless Hunger.
It had devoured the original heavens.
And now, it wanted out.
Jin roared.
The ritual continued, his skin cracking open to reveal runes underneath. This wasn't cultivation.
This was sacrifice.
Each line of the chant cost him years.
He could feel his lifespan bleeding out, moment by moment.
But it was working.
The chains recoiled, dragging back into place.
Eleven held.
The twelfth—the Chain of Name—still writhed.
And the Hunger laughed.
"I remember your taste."
The seal split.
And something reached through.
A hand.
Pale. Smooth. Childlike.
But wrong.
Jin stabbed Mourningfang into it—and watched the blade wither.
Then Qilin screamed.
The hand had touched her.
She collapsed, convulsing.
A dark mark spread across her skin, spiraling into her veins like roots. Her eyes turned black, then silver, then started to glow.
"No—" Jin lunged.
He caught her just as the Hunger's hand retreated, the seal slamming closed behind it.
The twelfth chain still broken.
But the others held.
For now.
Jin cradled Qilin's body. She twitched, spasming, mouth locked open.
And then… she spoke.
In the voice of the Hunger.
"You can't kill me, little heir."
"You are me."
Jin didn't scream.
He didn't collapse.
He stood.
For the second time in his life, he chose madness over surrender.
He bent over Qilin and whispered:
"You want war? You want me to break? You want me to forget who I am?"
He smiled.
A cold, cruel smile.
"Good. Then watch what happens when I stop holding back."