He looked around and realized he was in a place that defied all geography. He was in a desert, but the sky was a shimmering, polished bronze, and the suns looked larger, more predatory, as if they were watching him. The sand wasn't made of silica; it was composed of ground gold and pulverized gems. Every grain sparkled with a faint, ancient magical luminescence, suggesting this entire realm was a sanctuary of wealth and forgotten power.
Thirst, sharp and demanding like a hot needle driven into his throat, drove him forward. He spotted a pond a few hundred yards away, tucked behind a massive dune of sapphire dust. He ran to it, falling on his face to lap up the water like an animal. It was cool, but it tasted of iron and deep-earth minerals, vibrating with an old energy. As he washed the grime and dried blood of the battle with Jai from his face, a hard, metallic object rolled through the water and hit his knee.
He reached down and pulled out a Golden Cup. It was heavy, far heavier than gold should be, adorned with black pearls that pulsed with a faint, rhythmic heartbeat.
"Where did this come from? Is there a city nearby?"
Rayn looked up, and his heart nearly stopped.
Rising from the golden dunes was a structure that defied all human comprehension. It was a Palace of Infinite Gold, half-buried in the side of a mountain that looked like the petrified corpse of a sleeping god. The palace's pillars were thick enough to support the heavens, carved with black ornaments in the shape of human-sized titans. Mirrors of polished obsidian lined every exterior wall, reflecting the bronze sky until the world seemed to repeat into an infinite, gilded loop of light and shadow.
"Is this... a tomb? Or a treasure vault?" Rayn whispered, his voice trembling.
He pinched his arm, twisting the skin until it bruised. The sharp sting of pain and the real, physical bruising confirmed the impossible truth. He wasn't hallucinating. He wasn't in the afterlife. He was standing at the entrance to a vault that contained more wealth than the entire human kingdom's treasury had seen in ten thousand years.
Rayn entered the palace, his footsteps echoing like thunder in the silent halls. The floor was a mosaic of solid gold and black jade, depicting scenes of a war that predated the current gods. In the center of the main hall, resting on a pedestal carved from the translucent rib of an Ancient Dragon, was a Black Ring. It didn't reflect the bronze light of the sky; it seemed to consume it, creating a small, localized void on the pedestal that made the air around it shimmer.
Around the ring were seven ancient scripts, the paper made of dragon-skin, written in a language that looked like the claw marks of a dying deity.
"If I am going to survive," Rayn said, his voice hardening. "I cannot remain the boy who was saved by his mother's mercy or his grandmother's sacrifice. I need the power to make the Ninth Whisper tremble. I need to be the one who decides who lives and who dies."
Without a third thought, driven by a desperate hunger for strength, he picked up the ring and slid it onto his right index finger.
"ARGHHHHHHHH!"
Rayn collapsed instantly as if his spine had been snapped. It wasn't just pain; it was a systematic, violent erasure of his humanity. A tide of black, necrotic energy—the Void-Essence—surged through his arm, into his heart, and through every single meridian in his body. It felt as if one lakh (100,000) red-hot knives were being driven into his bones and twisted simultaneously.
His skin began to crack and slough off, turning into a charred, black substance before being replaced by a new, obsidian-like dermis that hummed with power. His blood boiled within his veins, the steam escaping his pores in the form of crackling black thunder. He felt himself dying—his heart stopping, his lungs collapsing—only to be forcibly resuscitated by the ring's overwhelming energy. This cycle of death and rebirth repeated for two agonizing hours, a refinement process that ground his human marrow into the True Void-Dragon Essence.
When the light finally faded and the black thunder receded, Rayn stood up. He was taller now, his muscles corded with a density that defied biology, and his presence was cold, like the vacuum of space. His eyes were no longer just the red of his mark; they held a depth that looked like the infinite abyss.
He checked his internal core through meditation.
Tier 8 Obsidian Bones and 19 Powers fully harmonized, elevated to the Sovereign level. The Red and the mix of White, and Black powers were still in silent.
He looked at the scripts. Suddenly, the "claw marks" were as clear as his own reflection. They were the Techniques, the forbidden arts from first Epoch.
Rayn hovered over the techniques, but their complexity was staggering; he realized he wasn't ready to master them just yet. He hoped to set them aside for a time when he was stronger, but he faced a new problem: he had no storage ring or scrolls to preserve the knowledge, leaving him empty-handed.
Rayn casually touched the ring. A mental map opened in his mind—a spatial storage area the size of a planet, a pocket dimension existing within the ring. With a flick of his wrist, all the gold in the hall, the legendary scripts, and the treasures of the main chamber were sucked into the ring's void.
"I am doing what every billionaire on Earth dreamed of," Rayn smiled, a cold, predatory expression that mirrored his mother's. "I am walking on gold as if it were a dirty road, and I am the only one left to claim it."
Rayn moved deeper into the palace, his footsteps silent on the gold. He reached a room that was filled with a treasure so radiant it seemed to have its own weather system. At the top of a mountain of gold sat a Crimson Crown, encrusted with the "Blood of the Void," a relic that hummed with the power of a thousand kings.
As his hand closed around the crown, the entire palace let out a roar that shook the mountain.
The gold began to shift and slide like a tectonic plate. From the darkness of the high ceiling, two massive Golden Eyes emerged—each one the size of a small house, glowing with an ancient, terrifying intelligence.
A Black Dragon descended from the shadows, its scales reflecting the gold of the room until it looked like a creature made of living, dark jewelry. It was the guardian of the tomb, a beast of impossible scale, and it was hungry for the intruder's soul.
Rayn drew the God Slayer. The obsidian blade roared with crimson lightning, sensing a foe that matched its primordial hunger.
"You want a fight?" Rayn challenged, his Tier 8 power exploding in a shockwave that shattered the obsidian mirrors on the walls. "Then I will give you a massacre to remember!"
The dragon lunged, its massive black tail striking with the speed of a whip and the weight of a falling moon. Rayn used his new speed to blur across the room, striking the dragon's flank with a Conqueror's Strike. The collision sounded like two worlds colliding in the void. The dragon wasn't even scratched; its hide was made of the same Void-Essence as Rayn's new body. It opened its maw, unleashing a Void-Breath that threatened to erase Rayn from history itself.
Suddenly, the Black Ring on his finger flared, creating a hexagonal shield of shadow that absorbed the blast. Rayn lunged, his sword glowing with the 2% Will of the Red Dragon that resided within his mark.
The moment that red aura touched the air, the Black Dragon froze and collapsed. Rayn exhaled a long, shaky sigh of relief, believing the nightmare was finally over. But the silence didn't last. With a bone-chilling roar, the Black Dragon surged back to life, its massive jaws lunging to crush him. Rayn's body was spent; his muscles refused to move, and his mind was too weary to fight. Realizing he could no longer dodge his fate, he simply stood his ground and closed his eyes, waiting for the end.
Suddenly, the dragon froze mid-lunge. It sensed a flicker of something ancient—a mere 2% of the First Bound Dragon's essence awakening within Rayn. Before the beast could react, the air shattered and a thick, violent fog erupted, swallowing them both
The mist cleared to reveal a woman standing where the beast had been. She was breathtakingly beautiful—with long, flowing black hair like a waterfall of midnight, eyes of molten gold, and a dress of shadows that moved like liquid smoke against her perfect form.
She fell to her knees, her forehead touching the golden sand in a gesture of total submission.
"Master..." she whispered, her voice like the chime of a silver bell in a dark storm. "I have waited a billion years in this tomb for the return of the Blood. I have guarded your treasury through the ages of the gods."
Rayn lowered his sword, his breath ragged, his heart hammering against his ribs. "Who are you? What is this place?"
The woman looked up, her expression one of absolute, terrifying devotion. "I am the dragon you just fought. My name is Vespera. I sensed the Will of my Eldest Brother—the Red Dragon—within your soul. You carry the mark of the Rebellion, the one who shall overturn the heavens. This palace is my prison, my sanctuary, and your treasury."
She bowed deeper, her voice resonant with a power that made Rayn's Tier 8 core vibrate.
"I am Vespera, The Fifth Bound of the Heaven's Divine Rebellion. I am the youngest sibling of the dragon family that ruled billion years ago. My life, my gold, and my flames are yours to command. Point your finger, Master, and I shall turn the heavens into ash for your pleasure."