The inner sanctuary of the obsidian temple was a hollow, grand amphitheater suspended over a swirling pit of violet starlight. At its center floating above a cracked, circular dais was the Fourth Godhead Shard: The Time-Mass Shard.
It resembled an hourglass made of liquid obsidian, pulsing with a slow, rhythmic hum that made every heartbeat feel ten seconds long.
Around the chamber, dozens of ancient, crystalline statues—explorers from forgotten eras—were frozen in mid-stride, trapped in permanent, localized stasis fields.
Lin Xiu stepped onto the platform, her boots clicking softly against the stone. She raised her blade slightly, her instinct sharp. "The temporal drag here is volatile. One wrong step and you age a hundred years—or freeze in stasis forever."
Ren walked toward the altar, his eyes fixed on the liquid obsidian shard. His Sovereign Frame hummed in deep harmony with the relic, shielding his skin from the ambient temporal drag.
"It isn't just time," Ren murmured, stopping ten paces from the floating shard. "It is time controlled by mass. When weight becomes infinite, time stops."
"A brilliant observation, Young Master Ren," a smooth, serene voice echoed behind them.
Ren didn't turn around, but Lin Xiu whirled, her icy blade snapping out.
Saintess Yao stood near the archway exit. The warm, gentle light in her eyes had vanished, replaced by a cold, calculating sheen. In her right hand, she held an ancient, gold-embossed imperial talisman glowing with deep crimson runes.
"The Central Sovereign Empire has monitored the Astral Shards for three millennia," Yao said softly, her green silk sash floating around her arms like strikes of venomous vipers. "The Grand Council of the Seven Sky-Pillars believes this tomb is for stabilizing the realm. They do not know the Emperor requires the Time-Mass Shard to complete the Imperial Engine."
"You were planted by the Empire," Lin Xiu hissed, stepping between Yao and Ren, her icy Qi flaring to life.
"I was born to serve the Sovereign Empire," Yao corrected calmly. "And your journey ends here."
Yao slapped the crimson talisman onto the temple's central pillar.
BOOM.
A blinding wave of gold and crimson light erupted across the chamber floor. Ancient stasis runes embedded in the white jade floorboards ignited simultaneously.
Lin Xiu gasped as the air around her instantly crystallized into translucent temporal ice. Her icy blade froze mid-air, her body trapped in absolute, motionless stasis like the ancient statues lining the walls.
A localized stasis field twenty times denser snapped over Ren's body.
The atmosphere around Ren turned to solid glass. His breath froze in his throat, his blood stopped circulating in his veins, and his perception of the physical world dropped to absolute zero.
Yao exhaled a quiet breath, stepping around the frozen form of Lin Xiu and walking toward Ren with a triumphant, cold smile.
"A physical body made of dense mass is impressive, Young Master Ren," Yao said, reaching out her hand toward the floating Time-Mass Shard. "But no mortal frame can overcome the absolute cessation of time. You are trapped in an eternal second."
Yao’s fingers were an inch from touching the obsidian shard when a low, vibrating sound echoed from behind her.
THUMP.
Yao froze. Her breath caught in her throat.
Slowly, she turned her head back toward Ren.
The translucent stasis glass wrapping around Ren's frame was beginning to crack. Deep inside his chest, the three fused Godhead fragments roared in violent defiance, unleashing an unprecedented wave of hyper-compressed gravitational pull.
Ren's dark violet eyes shifted inside the frozen stasis.
"Time is governed by light and speed..." Ren's voice echoed through the stasis, warped, deep, and impossibly heavy. "And under infinite weight... light cannot escape."
CRACK! SHATTER!
Ren didn't use speed to escape. He used Absolute Mass.
His Sovereign Frame compressed the localized time-stasis field into raw, dense kinetic energy, drawing the temporal drag straight into his Null Root and shattering the imperial stasis array into a shower of glittering, dead sparks.
Ren took a heavy, thunderous step forward, the obsidian floor beneath Yao cracking violently.
Yao’s face turned deathly pale, her aristocratic composure completely shattering into pure, unadulterated horror. She stumbled backward, her green silk sash trembling as Ren’s dark, cosmic aura filled the entire chamber.
"You... you ate the stasis?!" Yao shrieked, backing toward the dark abyss of the tomb. "You aren't human! You're a monster!"
Ren didn't chase her. He simply raised his bare hand toward her retreating figure, his voice cold as the void:
"Tell your Emperor that the crown isn't his to take."