The skies over the continent darkened—not from storm, but from preparation.
In every major sect, ancient formation scrolls were unsealed. In every divine clan, the high elders stirred. For the first time in centuries, banners were flown simultaneously from the Righteous Sky Alliance, the Star-Fall Sect, the Thousand Petal Temple, and even the feared Cloudfire Dynasty.
They all shared one goal.
Erase the Sky-Rift Wastes.
No treaties. No warnings.
Just cleansing.
Because something had bloomed there.
And they didn't want it to grow.
Raizen stood alone on a jagged peak within the Wastes, void cloak trailing in the wind.
The flower behind him, planted at the Rift's edge, swayed gently—harmless in appearance, yet somehow… aware.
He already knew.
He'd sensed the buildup across the continent.
Space trembled miles away.
The heavens had begun to tighten.
"They don't know that I am the root"
Hours passed.
Then the sky opened.
Not naturally.
But by ritual.
An enormous eye of white flame formed above the Wastes, its iris glowing with ancient runes. Hundreds of elder-class cultivators stood around sacred formations, chanting in sync. At its center was a burning sigil.
"World Burn."
A forbidden cleansing technique designed not to destroy, but to overwrite. It wouldn't just kill Raizen.
It would make it so he never existed in that part of the world.
Raizen stepped off the peak and hovered mid-air, arms behind his back.
As the ritual reached its peak, beams of light locked onto him.
Twelve in total—each one strong enough to reduce a peak-saint to ashes.
He didn't dodge.
Didn't raise a shield.
He simply looked up.
"You're all here. Good."
"Then you can see what happens next."
The first beam struck.
Reality screamed.
But not because Raizen was hurt.
Because the moment it touched him… it reversed.
The light bent backward—folding, unraveling, and slamming into the sky above like a whip.
The ritual formation cracked.
Somewhere far off, a Grand Elder spat blood.
The other beams fired.
One by one, each was redirected, their energy pulled into a spiral Raizen formed mid-air.
He wasn't just tanking them.
He was digesting them.
The void around him thickened—not in size, but in weight.
And then he spoke. Calm. Cold.
"Your ritual… is based on laws."
"But the void doesn't obey."
The burning eye above twitched.
And then froze.
Raizen raised a single hand.
"I won't strike first."
"But I will make you remember."
He didn't unleash a technique.
He didn't summon beasts or clones.
Instead—
He vanished.
And reappeared behind a sect leader standing thousands of miles away in one of the outer ritual circles.
The man didn't even blink.
His head was already gone.
Another Grand Elder activated a retreat talisman. It shattered.
Raizen appeared behind him a second later and tapped the elder's chest with two fingers.
"Sleep."
The man dropped like stone.
In ten breaths, the twelve ritual points were broken.
Not destroyed.
Disassembled.
And Raizen stood back where he started, as if he never moved.
The sky-eye flickered… then shattered, releasing harmless smoke.
Dozens of sects went silent.
Some fled.
Others knelt.
None dared speak his name.
Because it wasn't just strength.
It was the method.
No explosions.
No showy blasts.
Just dominance.
And a single message:
"You don't burn what you can't hold."
Raizen turned back to the flower, still blooming gently beside the Rift.
The ground beneath it pulsed.
And from deep below, a faint echo rose.
Another void signal.
Weak. Ancient. But real.
A second inheritance… calling to him.