The wind howled over the Red Hollow Plains, a barren stretch of land where not even corpses dared to rot. It was here the Seventh Forbidden Art slumbered—sealed beneath the Throne of Ten Thousand Skulls.
Mo Lianyin stepped into the hollow valley, the scent of ancient ash thick in the air. Beneath his feet, the ground crunched—not from stones, but from broken bones bleached by countless ages. The ground itself was a graveyard.
He stood still.
The silence was suffocating.
Behind him, his cloak fluttered weakly. Around him, the ashes stirred. The presence of the Sixth Forbidden Art still pulsed in his veins, but here… it felt caged, muffled by a greater force.
A growl rose from beneath the earth.
Then a hand burst forth—skeletal, glowing with malice—and a monstrous creature clawed its way out. It was not alive, not dead. It was the sentinel of the Seventh Art.
Eyes glowing green in its empty skull, it towered over Mo Lianyin like a god of death.
> "Another fool come to claim what was never meant to be touched," it said in a voice like shattering teeth.
Mo Lianyin stood firm. "I've come for the Seventh Forbidden Art."
The sentinel laughed. Bones cracked in its mouth. "You think because you survived the sixth, you can rule over death?"
"I don't want to rule over it," Mo Lianyin said. "I am it."
At his whisper, blue flames danced across his fingers—the flame of truth he'd awakened. But the sentinel was not impressed.
"You seek the throne? Then kneel before its king."
The earth cracked.
From beneath the bones rose a throne made of skulls, layered in layers of blood-soaked ivory. Upon it sat a man—or something that once had been.
Tall. Elegant. Barefoot. His skin was pale as snow, his hair black as night.
But his face…
It was Mo Lianyin's.
Older. Crueler. Cold.
This was no illusion. This was the future he would become if he chose to embrace the Seventh Art fully: The King of Bones.
"Have you come to replace me?" the King asked softly, voice silken like silk across a blade.
Mo Lianyin clenched his fists. "I've come to break the cycle."
The King stood. "Then break me."
He raised his hand, and the bones of the valley answered. Thousands of skeletal warriors rose, each bearing ancient weapons and hollow eyes. A sea of death, loyal to their king.
Mo Lianyin inhaled.
And let go.
The ground shattered as he released five of the six Forbidden Arts at once. Flame, wind, illusion, gravity, truth—each one surged outward in perfect synchrony. His robes tore from the force, and his hair whipped in a halo of darkness.
He charged.
---
The battle was a nightmare painted in dust and silence. Mo Lianyin became a storm, tearing through the army of the dead, each movement a blur of destruction. His blade—forged of the First Forbidden Art—glowed crimson as it sliced through skulls and shadows.
But the King was eternal.
"Is this all?" he asked, drifting through the carnage untouched. "You fight well, but you still carry mercy in your strikes."
Mo Lianyin's eyes narrowed. "Mercy isn't weakness."
"It is when it slows the blade," the King whispered—and appeared behind him in a flash.
A bone spear pierced Mo Lianyin's side. He cried out, collapsing to one knee.
The King leaned down. "You'll never defeat me if you cling to your humanity."
Mo Lianyin grabbed the spear. "That's where you're wrong."
He pulled the spear deeper—willing the pain to become his weapon. The Fifth Art—Veins of the Abyss—activated in his blood. The spear dissolved into shadow.
And then…
A pulse.
A heartbeat.
And the Seventh Forbidden Art awakened within him.
Not from conquest.
But from choice.
He looked up at the King, his entire body cloaked in ashen silver light.
> "I will not be your shadow," he whispered. "I'll be my own storm."
The King's eyes widened—too late.
Mo Lianyin struck, not with a blade, but with soulfire. A new flame, born of all seven forbidden arts, bloomed from his chest and engulfed the throne. The skulls screamed. The bones cracked.
The King dissolved into ash.
And Mo Lianyin…
Ascended.
---
When the dust settled, he stood alone atop the hill of bones. The throne was gone. The valley, silent.
But his presence had changed.
No longer just a cultivator. Not even a shadow.
He was now something else entirely—
The Heir of the Seventh Seal.
Above, the sky cracked open, revealing stars that had never been seen by mortals. The heavens acknowledged him.
And far away, in the Crystal Hall of Zeiyan's Empire, the High Elders trembled.
"...He's awakened it," one whispered.
Zeiyan turned to the mirror.
"Good," he said. "Then let the final dance begin."