’Fuck you! You brought me here to die!’ he cursed inwardly.
However, a second roar tore through the water behind him. The immense pressure contained within that roar instantly erased the curse words forming in his mind.
It was louder than the first. Closer. The kind of sound that could rupture an ordinary human’s eardrums from sheer pressure alone.
Stan felt the compression wave slam into his back. He turned his head slightly, and his eyes widened in terror as a scale larger than his entire body filled his vision.
The Leviathan’s flank had drawn alongside him.
For a moment, Stan’s mind refused to comprehend what he was looking at. Then he realized the ’wall’ beside him was a scale.
He could not see the rest of the creature. It was simply too vast. Only a tiny portion of its body fit within his field of view, yet that small section alone rose multiple stories high. A single scale was larger than a house, its surface covered in ancient patterns that seemed to pulse beneath the water.
The sight shattered any remaining illusion that this was a beast he could somehow escape.
’Fuck, I’m going to die!’
However, the voice suddenly broke in. "Sorry. I underestimated it..."
The next instant, the world folded and Stan materialized on solid stone.
Dry, stable and finally able to breath air after holding breath throughout his time in that lake...
A heavy wooden door stood before him, set into an otherwise plain stone wall.
He staggered forward and caught himself against it. His body was still coated in the Qi layer of the Flowing Tide Traversal Art, water dripping from his clothes as his heart hammered violently in his chest. It was going to take several minutes before it returned to anything resembling normal.
The voice returned. Its tone had changed. There was tension in it. Real tension.
For the first time since Stan had entered the inheritance, the voice sounded genuinely shaken.
"I originally intended to give you a thirty-second glimpse of that beast. Just enough to let you feel its presence. But it has grown stronger than I anticipated. You almost died just now."
A brief pause followed. "I apologize."
Stan’s fist clenched at his side. For a few seconds, relief was the only thing he felt. Relief that he was alive. Then the anger came.
The accumulated rage of a man who had been dragged through multiple life-threatening trials by an entity whose motives remained completely unknown to him.
’Fuck you.’ He cursed silently, not daring to say the words aloud.
Despite his silence, the voice seemed to sense his frustration anyway.
"That was the last trial," it said quietly.
"We can talk now."
Stan did not respond. He clenched his jaw, forced his breathing down to something functional, and turned his attention to the door before him.
The space behind him was collapsing. He could feel it.
The inheritance realm was sealing itself shut, layers of space folding inward and cutting off any possibility of retreat. The voice was controlling that as well. Whether Stan was ready or not, there was only one path left. Which was forward.
He gritted his teeth, pushed open the door and stepped through.
The chamber beyond was silent. There were no monsters. No crushing pressure. No shimmering trials, glowing formations, or looming guardians.
The room was, in every respect, ordinary.
A small round table sat at its center, crafted from a dark polished wood that Stan did not recognize. Beside it were two simple, comfortable-looking chairs.
A tea set rested on the tabletop. White ceramic and elegant. A thin stream of steam curled from the spout of the teapot.
A man sat at the table. His hair was snow-white, cut just above his shoulders in the style of an ancient scholar.
His face appeared no older than thirty, carrying the smooth, ageless features of someone who had long ago transcended the passage of time. His skin was pale but healthy. He wore a simple dark robe, unadorned and fashioned in a style that predated any modern era.
His eyes were the arresting part. They seemed to have galaxies in them.
Stan could see them turning within the man’s irises, vast spiraling star systems rotating slowly like captive universes. Stars drifted through impossible distances. Constellations formed and dissolved. Nebulas bloomed and faded. Each eye seemed to be a window opening onto a cosmic expanse far beyond what a human mind was meant to perceive.
The man was quietly pouring tea and as Stan entered, he looked up and smiled warmly...
"Human cultivator," he said gently.
The voice was the same one Stan had heard throughout the inheritance.
"How has Earth been over the years?"
Stan stared at him. For a moment, he could not speak.
Then the exhaustion, the anger, and the lingering terror of nearly being devoured by the Leviathan all surged to the surface at once.
He exploded. "You’re the one controlling this fucking place?"
The man’s smile did not fade.
Infuriated by that calm expression, Stan continued; "Do you have any idea how many times I nearly died because of your ridiculous mechanisms? Your corridor. Your beasts. Your arena. Your Qi lake. That fucking Leviathan. I’ve been running for my life through your inheritance for hours. Hours. And now I show up in your tea room and you ask me how Earth has been?"
The man laughed. It was a genuine laugh. Quiet, low, and cultured, the laugh of someone who had lived for a very long time and had heard countless complaints, yet still found this particular one amusing.
"I suppose an apology is appropriate." He gestured toward the empty chair across from him. "I am the Void Sovereign and this is my inheritance."
His smile widened slightly. "Please, sit. You will be compensated handsomely."
’Void Sovereign... huh?’ Stan’s mind automatically stored the name. He looked at the chair, then at the tea, then at the man.
Despite the casual smile, the pressure radiating from the seated figure was overwhelming.
Stan’s senses, sharpened and refined by the trials, were now capable of perceiving things that ordinary humans could not. What he sensed from the man sitting across the table was vast.
Cosmic. It was power so far beyond anything he had encountered that comparison became meaningless. Comparing the Void Sovereign to the werewolves, or even to Camilla Dragomir, was like comparing a single grain of sand to an entire mountain range.
If this being wished it, Earth could disappear with a thought.
Stan understood that instinctively. The realization extinguished the last traces of his outrage.
Taking a deep breath, he sat, but he did not touch the tea.
The Void Sovereign noticed, but didn’t comment on the refusal. Instead, he calmly lifted his own cup, took a small sip, and set it back down with the unhurried elegance of a man fully aware that Stan had recently learned exactly why one should never drink mysterious liquids inside inheritances.
Then he spoke. "There is something I wish to tell you."
Stan remained silent and the Void Sovereign smiled faintly.
"If I told you that I was the one who intentionally drained Earth of Qi and severed its connection to the universal source..."
His galaxy-filled eyes met Stan’s. "...would you believe me?"
Stan’s eyes widened.
The Void Sovereign did not give him time to answer.
"Yes."
His voice was calm and carried a matter-of-fact tone, as though he were discussing the weather, as he added;
"I am the one who did it."
There was no pride in his words; he stated it as a simple fact.
As though severing an entire world’s connection to Qi was no more significant than moving a stone from one side of a road to the other.