The moment Kai Ren's fingers closed around the Forbidden Monarch's Evil Stone, the world inside the secret ruin shattered.
The colossal throne room, the shattered pillars, the lingering black mist of the greater demon — everything dissolved into pure darkness.
There was no floor beneath his feet.
No ceiling above.
No walls.
Only an endless, featureless void of pure black, broken only by faint glowing orange veins that pulsed like distant arteries in the dark.
Kai Ren floated in nothingness.
No wind.
No sound.
No gravity.
Just him, the stone burning in his palm, and the cold, ancient voice of the system echoing directly inside his skull.
[TRIAL OF THE ETERNAL VOID – INITIATED]
You have entered the Heart of the Void.
Defeat your enemy.
And Survive.
Only then shall the Forbidden Monarch's inheritance be granted.
Failure = Soul Annihilation.
Kai Ren's grey eyes narrowed, calm and calculating even while suspended in absolute emptiness.
His body still bled from the previous battles — broken ribs, torn flesh, venom still burning in his veins — yet his mind was already working at full speed.
Empty space.
No terrain.
No cover.
Pure test of power and adaptability.
Smart.
Very smart.
A low chuckle escaped his lips — cold, dry, almost amused.
"No background, no scenery, no structural support. Even the system is an engineer. I respect it."
The void rippled.
A colossal serpent, easily two hundred meters long, materialized from the darkness.
Its scales were pure obsidian, reflecting no light.
Six glowing orange eyes opened along its head.
It had no wings, yet it moved through the void as if the emptiness itself was water.
The serpent king hissed, a sound that vibrated through Kai Ren's bones.
Kai Ren didn't wait.
He raised his hand instantly.
[SUMMON ACTIVATED]
► Shadow Drake (Damaged)
► Shadow Stalker ×4
► Weak Evil Warrior ×2
The serpent lunged.
Its speed was terrifying.
Kai Ren barely twisted mid-air as jaws the size of a house snapped shut where his torso had been.
The wind of the strike still spun him like a leaf.
He spat Origin Shadow Spit mid-rotation — a concentrated jet that struck the serpent's left eye.
The essence sizzled.
The serpent king screamed.
But the beast was a King.
It retaliated instantly.
Its tail whipped around like a black comet.
Kai Ren tried to dodge, but in zero-gravity void there was no footing.
The tail caught him across the chest.
Ribs that had only just started healing snapped again.
He flew backward through the emptiness, coughing blood.
"Note to self," he muttered through gritted teeth, voice deadpan even while spinning helplessly,
"zero gravity makes structural calculations useless. Annoying."
The Shadow Drake roared and dove, raking claws along the serpent's side.
Black blood sprayed into the void.
Kai Ren used the momentum of the strike to stabilize himself, summoned two more Evil Warriors, and ordered a full flanking maneuver.
For twelve brutal minutes the battle raged in the empty dark.
The serpent king was faster, stronger, and could strike from any angle.
Kai Ren was forced to fight purely on calculation — predicting trajectories, using his own body as bait, commanding summons with perfect timing.
Twice he almost died — once when the serpent's fangs grazed his shoulder and venom flooded his system again, once when the tail smashed him against an invisible barrier at the edge of the trial space.
But every time death reached for him, Kai Ren's genius mind found the gap.
On the final exchange, he let the serpent swallow him whole — deliberately.
Inside its throat he unleashed everything he had left.
Origin Shadow Spit poured directly into its core.
The serpent king convulsed violently, body thrashing in the void like a broken whip.
It exploded into black mist.
[ Serpent King – Defeated!]
Level: 42 → 49
Kai Ren fell out of the dissolving corpse, gasping, covered in corrosive blood.
He laughed once — a short, tired, slightly unhinged sound.
"Seven levels for one oversized snake. The system is generous when it wants to be."
He didn't even have time to breathe.
The void rippled again.
A massive tiger the size of a house materialized, fur burning with eternal orange flames.
Its eyes were pure fire.
It didn't roar — it simply charged.
Kai Ren's eyes widened for half a second.
"You've got to be kidding me. No cooldown?"
The tiger was faster than anything he had faced.
It blurred.
Claws raked across his already broken chest.
Blood sprayed in zero gravity, floating like red stars.
Kai Ren was thrown backward again, ribs grinding against each other.
"Structural integrity of my skeleton is officially compromised,"
he muttered dryly while spinning uncontrollably.
"Engineer's worst nightmare."
The fight became pure chaos.
The tiger king was relentless.
Every swipe left trails of fire that burned even in the void.
Kai Ren's summons died one after another trying to buy him time.
The Shadow Drake lasted less than four minutes before being torn apart.
Kai Ren himself was hit repeatedly — claw marks across his back, a bite that nearly took his left arm, flames that scorched his cloak to ash.
Yet he never panicked.
He calculated.
He adapted.
He used the tiger's own momentum against it, baiting charges, spitting shadow essence into its eyes and mouth at the perfect moment.
When the beast finally pinned him against the invisible wall, jaws wide, Kai Ren shoved both hands into its throat and unleashed a point-blank torrent of Origin Shadow Spit.
The Flamefang Tiger King died screaming.
[Flamefang Tiger King – Defeated!]
Level: 49 → 56
Kai Ren floated in the void, body trembling, blood drifting around him like a halo.
His left arm hung useless.
Breathing was agony.
Yet a small, tired smirk appeared on his lips.
"Fourteen levels in two fights. At this rate I might actually survive… or die from blood loss first."
The void answered immediately.
A towering skeletal figure in rotting regal armor appeared, wielding a greatsword made of fused bones and souls.
Its empty eye sockets burned with cold blue fire.
Behind it, hundreds of lesser undead spirits howled in the darkness.
Kai Ren's expression turned grave.
"Undead. Of course. The system really knows how to make it personal."
This fight was the longest and most exhausting yet.
The Undead Sovereign King didn't rely on speed — it relied on overwhelming numbers and endless regeneration.
Every time Kai Ren destroyed a limb, it regrew from the spirits around it.
The lesser undead swarmed like locusts.
Kai Ren's remaining summons were torn apart one by one.
He fought for nearly thirty minutes, body pushed far beyond its limits.
His vision kept blurring.
At one point the Sovereign's greatsword cleaved straight through his right shoulder, nearly severing the arm.
Kai Ren screamed through clenched teeth but kept moving.
"Not… today."
He used the last of his mana to coat the Sovereign's own sword with shadow essence mid-swing, then let the undead king impale him on purpose.
While the blade was buried in his chest, Kai Ren grabbed the Sovereign's skull with both hands and poured every drop of remaining Origin Shadow Spit directly into its soul core.
The Undead Sovereign King shattered like glass.
[Undead Sovereign King – Defeated!]
Level: 56 → 63
Kai Ren floated limply, blood pouring from the hole in his chest.
He was barely conscious.
"Twenty-one levels… worth it,"
he whispered, voice hoarse.
"Barely."
The void did not care.
A fully armored knight in black plate appeared, riding a skeletal warhorse that breathed shadow flames.
Its lance glowed with killing intent.
This was no mindless beast — this was a warrior king who fought with perfect technique and cold intelligence.
The knight charged without a word.
Kai Ren laughed weakly.
"Finally. Someone who understands strategy."
The duel was terrifyingly elegant and brutal at the same time.
The Death Knight was faster, stronger, and far more skilled than anything Kai Ren had faced.
Every lance thrust was precise.
Every counter was perfect.
Kai Ren was forced to fight purely on intellect — predicting patterns, using the void's lack of gravity to change angles mid-strike, commanding his last few summons as sacrificial shields.
Twice the knight's lance pierced straight through him.
Twice Kai Ren barely survived by spitting shadow essence into the wound to cauterize it with rot.
At the final moment, when the knight raised its lance for the killing blow, Kai Ren used the last summon — a single Shadow Stalker — to distract it, then teleported the distance using a desperate burst of shadow essence and drove both hands into the knight's helmet, flooding its skull with Origin Shadow Spit.
The Death Knight Sovereign fell.
[The Death Knight Sovereign King – Defeated!]
Levels Level: 63 → 70
Kai Ren's body was now a broken ruin.
He could barely move.
Blood floated around him in a slow, lazy cloud.
One more.
The final ripple appeared.
A colossal, serpentine dragon-like beast formed from pure void energy.
It had no eyes, only a gaping maw filled with swirling darkness.
It existed in multiple places at once, phasing in and out of reality.
Kai Ren looked at it and actually laughed — a tired, broken, slightly mad sound.
"Of course the last one manipulates space. The system has a sense of humor after all."
The final fight was pure hell.
The Leviathan attacked from every direction at once.
Kai Ren was hit repeatedly — slammed, torn, crushed.
He died a hundred times in his mind but refused to fall.
He used every trick his engineer brain could invent — calculating the beast's phasing patterns, predicting where it would reappear, using his own blood as bait, spitting shadow essence into the voids it left behind.
For nearly forty minutes he fought on the absolute edge of death.
When the Leviathan finally opened its maw to swallow him whole, Kai Ren did the only thing left — he let it.
Inside the creature's core he unleashed everything he had left in one final, desperate torrent of Origin Shadow Spit combined with the full power of the Dark Origin fragment inside his chest.
The Abyssal Void Leviathan screamed — a sound that shook the entire void.
It exploded.
[ Abyssal Void Leviathan King– Defeated!]
Level: 70 → 77
The Trial of the Eternal Void was complete.
[TRIAL OF THE ETERNAL VOID – CLEARED]
All Kings defeated.
Inheritance conditions met.
The Forbidden Monarch acknowledges you.
Kai Ren floated in the empty black, his body a ruined wreck — blood drifting around him like a macabre galaxy, left arm hanging useless, chest rising in shallow, painful gasps.
Every breath felt like knives in his lungs.
Yet a small, tired, victorious smile touched his lips.
Then two final system messages appeared, glowing blood-red against the darkness.
[HIDDEN SYSTEM MESSAGE]
The Darkness is watching you.
[FORBIDDEN ORIGIN ALERT]
Evil stone is protecting you.
The moment the second message faded, Kai Ren's eyes rolled back.
His body went completely limp.
The Forbidden Monarch's Evil Stone slipped from his weakening fingers but remained floating beside him, pulsing softly.
Consciousness slipped away like sand through broken fingers.
Kai Ren passed out completely, drifting unconscious in the endless black, surrounded by nothing but silence and the faint orange glow of the void.