Chapter 23 — The Void Beneath
Xiao Diao grumbled under his breath, his small paws trembling slightly with irritation as he shoved the key back into the glowing mechanism of the pedestal.
He tried to rotate it, putting all his spiritual strength into the turn, but the gears were dead. The ancient, intricate mechanism remained stubbornly jammed, frozen by the aftermath of Nibi's seemingly harmless sneeze.
The golden cat, still perched comfortably atop Mu Chen's head, cracked open a singular golden eye. She watched the Heavenly Demon Mink struggle and strain against the stone with an air of profound boredom, eventually flicking her five tails in a sharp gesture of feline disdain. It was a look that clearly communicated her opinion of his competence.
Xiao Diao felt a vein throb in his forehead. He looked as if he were on the precipice of a total mental collapse, his fur bristling as he stared between the indifferent youth and the arrogant cat.
"Mu Chen, do something," he snapped. "The mechanism is jammed."
Mu Chen tilted his head back slightly, his gaze meeting Nibi's singular open eye. His voice was soft, carrying a quiet warning. "No tricks this time."
Nibi let out a tiny, dismissive huff that sounded suspiciously like a shrug, then closed her eye and tucked her nose into her paws, pretending to resume her nap. Satisfied, Mu Chen raised his hand and slapped the pedestal lightly.
The jammed mechanism shuddered, groaned, and began to move. After a few moments, a brilliant, blinding flash of silver light erupted from the keyhole, expanding until it swallowed the entire group in a fraction of a second. When the light faded, the central square was empty, leaving behind only the silence of the ruins.
…
What greeted them was a world painted in shades of silver. The sky above was not blue but a luminous metallic grey, as if the heavens themselves had been forged from polished mercury. The horizon seemed to shimmer and shift, never quite settling into fixed coordinates. Distant mountains appeared to drift slowly sideways, their peaks elongating and compressing like reflections in disturbed water. The ground beneath their feet was smooth and cold, composed of obsidian tiles that reflected the silver sky, creating the illusion that they stood between two mirrors of infinite depth.
Xiao Diao spread his divine sense outward, attempting to measure the boundaries of this space. Yet every time he felt he had grasped the dimensions, they expanded further. He withdrew his sense, his golden eyes wide with genuine shock. "Is space here expanding?"
Shen Xi turned slowly, taking in the impossible geometry of the realm. "Looks like we are in a different dimension this time too."
"Look there," Xiao Diao said, pointing a claw toward a structure in the distance.
Mu Chen and the others followed his gesture. Rising from the silver landscape was a massive hall, its architecture defying perspective. Columns supported nothing and yet held everything; doorways led into spaces that seemed larger than the building's exterior. The structure existed in a state of quantum uncertainty, simultaneously distant and near, grand and intimate.
"Let us go, inside," Mu Chen said.
The group approached and entered. The interior was spacious beyond reason, the ceiling lost in silver mist, the walls receding into impossible distances. At the center of the hall stood a single table of black stone, and upon it rested the treasure they had sought.
What materialized before the group was a phenomenon that denied the eye's attempt to fix it in place. It was neither object nor absence, but the tension between them—a geometric impossibility that folded upon itself without ever completing its form.
Its surface was a mirror that reflected not light but potential—every possible location that could exist, every distance that might be crossed, every separation that had yet to occur. Across this impossible geometry, sigils of compression and expansion pulsed like the breathing of a sleeping giant, each symbol simultaneously marking a coordinate that had never been visited and a return to a place that no longer existed.
"My Life-Death Seal is reacting to this," Shen Xi whispered, her breath catching as a familiar resonance vibrated in her chest.
At that moment, the Origin Spirit Shi materialized outside the stone. His translucent form flickered with solemn recognition. "This is the Void Heavenly Seal," he announced. "One of the four Primordial forces. It grants absolute command over the architecture of reality itself—where distance is merely a suggestion, where the gap between stars is no wider than a doorway, where the infinite and the immediate become indistinguishable. With this seal, one could swallow galaxies into a grain of sand, unfold a heartbeat across eternities, or reach into yesterday and pull tomorrow into your palm."
None of them appeared surprised. They had already guessed as much from the nature of this realm—the endless dimensions, the expanding and contracting space, the way geometry itself seemed negotiable here.
Mu Chen reached out and held the seal in his hand. The moment his fingers closed around it, a soft sigh echoed through the hall, and a figure materialized in the air. It was not a living being but a memory given form—a man with silver hair and silver eyes, wearing a blue robes stained with ancient blood. He sat upon a pile of demon corpses, one hand resting straight upon his knee, his posture that of someone who had fought until there was nothing left to fight with.
The figure spoke, his voice carrying the weight of mountains and the weariness of ages: "Throughout my life, I have fought demons. I have burned my cultivation, sacrificed my lifespan, and buried my companions. I have seen cities turn to ash and rivers run black with poison. The heavens did not reward my virtue, and the earth did not remember my name. I fought not because I expected victory, but because to stop fighting would be to admit that the darkness had already won. I am not a hero. I am simply someone who refused to kneel."
He raised his silver eyes, looking directly at them despite being only a memory. "Whoever becomes the next master of the Void Heavenly Seal... I want you to carry this torch forward. And I want you to kill the Demon King who is sealed beneath you. I was injured, at the end of my life, so I could not finish him. I had to seal him instead. Do not wait until it is too late. Do not let him wake."
The memory flickered and dissolved into silver motes of light.
Silence filled the hall. Then Xiao Diao let out a low whistle. "Holy crap. So this is inheritance along with a mission. But how strong is this Demon King who could be called a king?"
Shi answered gravely, "Demon Kings are equivalent to Ascendant cultivators. They possess vitality far beyond normal demons—they cannot be killed easily. Only masters of the Heavenly Seals can truly destroy them. Other cultivators must rely on formations to seal them and divine artifacts to slowly purify their essence over centuries. But formations weaken with time, and if they are not killed, they will eventually break free."
Shen Xi pressed a hand to her temple, wincing slightly. New memories flooded her mind—fragments of battle, the sound of clashing seals, someone fighting beside this silver-haired master. But the face of that companion remained blurred, lost in the fog of inherited recollection.
Mu Chen looked at her. She met his gaze and smiled, though her eyes held distant shadows. "Just messy things," she said. "As you would say."
Mu Chen smiled and nodded. Then he looked at the seal in his hand and asked, "So who will be taking this?"
Silence answered him. Nibi, after batting at the seal a few times with a golden paw as if testing a ball of yarn, let out a soft meow of boredom and lost interest. She curled back into Mu Chen's arms and resumed her nap.
Xiao Diao cleared his throat. "How about Shen Xi takes it? Though she has the Life-Death Seal, with the help of the Origin Stone she could inherit another."
The Origin Stone was meant to act as a balancer between seals, though Mu Chen primarily used it as a spatial ring for his snacks. If Shen Xi needed it, he would not refuse her.
But to Xiao Diao's surprise, Shen Xi shook her head. "I think my destiny and path have already been laid out for me, and it lies with the Life-Death Seal. I do not require anything more."
She was thinking of her recurring dreams; she knew her memories were still vague, but she felt that as her strength increased, the fog would eventually clear.
Mu Chen looked at the Void Heavenly Seal, then at Xiao Diao, then at Nibi. The cat cracked one eye open, observed the cosmic artifact rotating in the air, and promptly rolled onto her back with all five tails splayed in a star pattern.
She let out a huff that sounded suspiciously like a snore, then began grooming her left hind leg with deliberate, insulting thoroughness—as if the seal were less interesting than a particularly stubborn flea.
Mu Chen scratched behind her ears. Nibi paused her grooming just long enough to bite his finger lightly, purr once in condescending acknowledgment, and then return to ignoring the fate of the world.
Then he tossed the Void Heavenly Seal casually toward Xiao Diao. "So it is decided. Here you go."
The Void Heavenly Seal, had it been capable of human emotion, would have wanted to weep and curse the heavens. It was a primordial force of the universe, yet it was being treated like a common head of cabbage being tossed at a market. It wondered if the world had changed so drastically while it was resting. Was this what humans call... progress?
Xiao Diao caught it with trembling paws. There was no reason to reject it, after all. Mu Chen did not care for such things, Shen Xi had her own destiny, and as for Nibi... let us not speak of Nibi.
Xiao Diao finally looked at Shi and smirked. This old geezer's only purpose was to balance the Heavenly Seals, not to inherit them.
Shi saw that smirk and bristled. "You bastard mink, what are you thinking?"
Xiao Diao chuckled. "Well then, I am not going to be polite".
"Though you are inheriting it," Shi warned, "you would still have to undergo its test."
The Void Heavenly Seal felt some dignity return. The world was still the same; it was simply that this Mu Chen child was strange. When the seal had rested in his hand, it had felt like nothing more than a decorative paperweight.
Xiao Diao nodded, his golden eyes gleaming. "Don't worry, geezer. Just watch how this young, fearless, and handsome mink conquers it."
The Void Heavenly Seal, which had been prepared to go easy on him out of fear of Mu Chen, decided that this shameless, arrogant mink deserved the full trial.
Mu Chen smiled. "Okay, mink. You inherit it. Till then, let me play with this sealed Demon King a bit."
Shi, Shen Xi, and Xiao Diao all turned to look at him. They had never expected Mu Chen to actively seek something to do.
Shen Xi found herself asking, "You really want to do it?"
She found it odd. Mu Chen mostly remained lazy, deadpan, indifferent to the world's dramas.
Mu Chen shrugged. "Well, I am getting bored, and I don't see any adequate seating here. So why not play a bit?"
Hearing this, everyone shook their heads in amusement. For Mu Chen, all of this—the inheritance of primordial seals, the sealed Demon Kings, the fate of continents—was nothing more than a game to pass the time until a comfortable chair presented itself.