Ethereal Rebirth: Path of the Void Sovereign

Darkness.

It wasn’t the suffocating, heavy black of death — it was deeper. Older. It pulsed with rhythm, like the heartbeat of the cosmos. And within that eternal stillness, a single will stirred.

So… this is death again.

The voice echoed within a void without shape, color, or time. But the owner of the voice remembered it all — six lives, spanning thousands of years, a lifetime of glory, blood, betrayal, and enlightenment.

He had been a monk, a warrior, a sword saint, a demonic emperor, a beast tamer, and even once… a commoner who touched immortality with his bare hands.

And now, on the cusp of his seventh rebirth, his soul floated in the belly of the void — the realm between realms.

I should have died completely… And yet… why do I feel it again? That pull. That… inheritance…

He clenched his soul, as if clenching a fist. And then it surged — a tidal wave of ancient memories, thousands of years old, cascading through him.

Sword chants. Flame mantras. Lightning veins. Yin refinement. Void-breaking steps. Thousands of techniques — each etched into his soul from lifetimes of mastery — returned in full.

And deeper still… something older. Something he had never touched before.

Void Sovereign…

The name did not come from memory. It came from origin. From something older than his soul itself

Thunder rolled across the darkened skies above Duskwind Valley, a desolate land known for its wild beasts and poisoned mists. The air crackled with unstable qi, and the clouds above churned as if rejecting the birth of something unnatural.

A scream echoed from within a shallow cave hidden among the roots of an ancient banyan tree.

A woman lay bleeding on the cold ground, her torn robes soaked in blood and sweat. Her breathing was shallow, her face pale. Beside her, a small child cried out — newly born, body still steaming with life and lingering traces of a strange dark light.

Her trembling hand reached for the infant, whispering with all her fading strength.

“Live… even if your fate is cursed… live, child…”

Her eyes closed. Her breath faded into the wind. The silence that followed was absolute.

Then — the child's crying stopped.

His pupils, previously dark and unfocused like any newborn's, now gleamed with ancient clarity.

A mortal shell… but my soul remains.

The child did not wail. He did not squirm. Instead, he breathed, calmly, his expression unreadable — as if he were not seeing the world for the first time, but returning to it after aeons.

So… this is my seventh beginning. And the heavens still fear me.

The storm passed swiftly. The winds calmed. In the silence that followed, the cries of beasts retreated as if in mourning.

A lone figure wandered into the valley.

She wore a traveler's cloak, dusty and ragged from weeks of journeying. Beneath the hood, strands of silver-blonde hair shimmered faintly under the moonlight. Her cultivation was hidden — unnaturally well, even to those with divine senses. She was not from this realm, not truly.

Her name was unknown here, but in the higher realms, they whispered of her in awe and terror: Lian Yue, the Silent Petal of the Immortal Sky.

She wasn’t supposed to be here.

And yet, something had pulled her. A thread of fate… no, of void.

She paused as she stepped into the mouth of the cave. Her gaze landed on the corpse of the woman, long gone cold. But it was the infant beside her that made her draw breath — and for the first time in centuries, hesitate.

The child stared back at her. Not with the blurred gaze of a babe… but with clarity. Depth. Command.

That gaze… no infant should carry that.

And yet she felt no malice. Only weight. Ancient weight. Like the sea staring at a droplet. The woman knelt, reaching slowly. The baby didn’t recoil. He didn’t cry.

Only when her fingers brushed his skin did she see it.

A vision. A flash.

A sword, forged of void-stone, carving open the sky. A realm shattering. A throne falling into silence. Eyes staring from beyond time. And a name, whispered in a tongue lost to all but the first stars.

Sovereign of the Void.

Lian Yue’s body stiffened. The vision vanished as quickly as it came.

She looked down again at the child — his breath steady, his gaze steady. But on his forehead, for just a heartbeat, she saw it: a faint mark, like a coiling serpent of darkness, resting above a spiral star.

“You…” she whispered. “You’re not meant to exist here, are you?”

Across the veil of realms, in the Immortal Sky Pavilion, a ripple passed through the Seers of Heaven. One by one, ancient cultivators opened their eyes.

The thread has returned.

The Seventh Flame has lit again.

The Sovereign… lives.

Lian Yue did not leave the child. She couldn’t.

She took the body of the dead woman and buried her beneath the banyan tree. She wrapped the newborn in her cloak. Her hands trembled — not with fear, but with the weight of fate.

“Very well, Sovereign. If the heavens fear your return… then I will see how they tremble.”

She turned and vanished into the mist.

Twelve years passed.

In a secluded bamboo grove, nestled in the eastern fringes of the Mortal Cloud Empire, a small wooden cottage sat surrounded by tranquility. Birds chirped softly, spirit butterflies danced among the stalks, and the breeze carried the fresh scent of qi-rich herbs.

There, a boy practiced.

Barefoot, with a simple wooden sword. No cultivation technique. No spiritual qi. Only flow.

Each strike was deliberate. Each breath measured. His limbs followed no form known to this world. His movements flowed like silk and struck like thunder. Beneath the surface, the grass trembled. The trees bent ever so slightly toward him.

Twelve years of silence. Twelve years of patience. I feel it now… the edge of the wall.

His name, given by Lian Yue, was Jiang Chen.

But in his own soul, he was still more — Void Sovereign, the Sixth Cycle Reincarnate, Weaver of Nine Sword Daos.

Today… his soul would awaken.

Inside the Cottage…

Lian Yue watched from a distance, seated at her meditation cushion. She rarely interfered in his training. Not once had she taught him a technique. Not once had she asked what he remembered.

She knew. The aura around him shifted with the seasons, following celestial patterns too ancient for mortals. She only guided him in medicine, calligraphy, and music — all things that nurtured the mind and anchored karma.

She brewed tea now — jasmine laced with dew-drop lotus — when a ripple passed through the world.

Her hand froze.

The cup shattered in her grip.

Outside, the wind howled — not from a storm, but from the boy's breath.

Jiang Chen stood still.

His sword halted mid-air. His body trembled — not from strain, but from release.

There you are…

Deep within his dantian, where most children at his age would have a mere wisp of energy… a storm raged. No colors. No light. Just void.

And from the center, a lotus bloomed — one petal at a time. Black, starry, endless. Each petal carved from the fragments of his past lives. From that lotus, a seed unfurled — the Core of the Void Dao.

His body burned. His bones creaked. His skin steamed as black qi began to exhale from his pores — not demonic, not evil — simply… empty.

A spiral mark shimmered on his back. Ancient. Sacred. Forbidden.

Seventh cycle… begin.

Evening.

Jiang Chen sat beneath the moon, his robe soaked in sweat. His hair clung to his back. His wooden sword lay across his lap.

Lian Yue stood behind him, silent as a spirit.

“You’ve awakened,” she said.

He nodded, eyes still closed. “I was never asleep.”

A pause.

She sat beside him. For a moment, the silence stretched into something sacred.

Then — she reached out. With trembling fingers, she brushed aside a strand of hair sticking to his cheek.

“You carry too much,” she said softly.

His eyes opened — silver, glowing faintly in the dark. “I always did.”

The moment lingered. In that stillness, something passed between them. Not lust. Not desire. But resonance.

She leaned closer, her breath brushing his skin. “Then let me carry some of it, Jiang Chen.”

Their lips didn’t touch. But their auras did — spiritual threads weaving. And for a fleeting moment, his Void Qi mingled with her Celestial Essence.

Their souls brushed.

Not passion. Not yet.

But the first hint of intimacy — one that neither of them could deny.

Part 4: Breaking the Chain

That night, Jiang Chen did not sleep.

He sat beneath the moon until it passed overhead, until the sky began to shimmer with the deep hues of predawn violet. His breath was slow, but every exhale carried a hum, a vibration that did not belong to the mortal world.

Inside his dantian, the Void Lotus bloomed wider. Its petals twisted space itself, forming a vortex of silence.

I have reached the edge of the Mortal Layer’s Foundation Realm… but this body… it’s stronger than it should be. My past lives… they’ve altered the soul-vessel.

He raised his hand.

The air in front of him twisted — not through force, but through understanding. He didn't command the void. He simply was it.

And then — lightning struck.

From the heavens, a single bolt of black-gold tribulation thunder cracked down without warning.

Lian Yue, meditating inside the cottage, opened her eyes with a gasp. “Already…? Heaven reacts this early?”

She flew outside, robes fluttering, sword in hand — but she stopped short.

Jiang Chen stood beneath the lightning storm, his robes burned at the edges, face expressionless. His hair billowed in unnatural wind, and the lotus within his core spun violently.

Above him, nine storm clouds spiraled — each one marked with an ancient sigil. Sword. Flame. Time. Void. Death. Space. Spirit. Karma. Chaos.

Each one… a tribulation affinity.

“He’s attracting nine at once?” Lian Yue whispered. “Even the Immortal Emperors only endure four… how…”

Another bolt descended. Then another.

Jiang Chen didn’t move.

He let them fall.

The lightning struck his shoulders, his spine, his chest — and then vanished into him, swallowed whole.

This is nothing compared to what I endured in the Fourth Life, when I forged my body inside the Corpse-Forging Sea of Bone Devourers.

He raised his hand again, and the space around it collapsed for a split second — forming a small black sphere that sucked in the remaining thunder.

Silence returned.

The heavens, for the first time in thousands of years, went still.

And far beyond the Mortal Realm, in the Celestial Halls of the Divine Realm, an ancient bell rang.

The Void Bell.

The Sovereign lives.

After the Storm

Jiang Chen sat quietly in the clearing, smoke rising from the earth around him. His robes were gone, burned to ash. But his body was unscarred — no, it was stronger.

Every inch of his skin shimmered faintly with void-touched qi. His eyes gleamed silver-blue, and his aura was completely suppressed — invisible, yet divine.

Lian Yue landed beside him, not saying a word.

He didn’t look at her. “Now you know.”

She nodded. “I knew… but I didn’t understand.”

He turned to face her. “And now?”

She met his gaze — and for the first time, her defenses fell. Her eyes softened. “Now I know what you carry. And that no one else ever could.”

Their auras touched again — this time more deeply. Threads of soul resonated in silence. It was not passion. It was not lust. But it was devotion — silent and sacred.

She didn’t reach for him. He didn’t pull her close.

But in the space between them, the air grew warmer.

Their bond was not forged in fire, but in the void between stars.

The path begins again, he thought.
The heavens have stirred. The Sovereign rises. Let them tremble once more.

From that day on, the Mortal Cloud Empire would never be the same.

Nor would the world above.

Because in the deepest cracks of the sky…
the Void had begun to whisper again.