The silence from Swallowed Star (吞噬星空) had stretched for six millennia. Within the cosmic marvel, a man named Luo Feng (罗峰) was undergoing a trial that would break lesser beings, his consciousness stretched across centuries of unrelenting torment. Outside, his family faced a different kind of agony. On Earth, the powerful Luo family, once untouchable under his protection, was now vulnerable. With their pillar gone for so long, vultures began to circle. The Ross family, emboldened by the prolonged absence and led by the seventh-generation descendant of the formidable Jian Ta Wang (剑闼王), saw an opportunity to crush their rivals. They believed Luo Feng had fallen, and without him, the Luo family was merely a prize to be claimed.
Xu Xin (徐欣), Luo Feng's wife, held onto a fragile hope. She possessed a single email, pre-written by her husband and set to be delivered after 6,000 years—a message that felt more like a final farewell than a promise of return. The contents shattered her, painting a picture of a sacrifice too vast to comprehend. She wept, mourning a man not yet confirmed dead, facing the prospect of waiting a million years for a reunion. Her only recourse was to seek aid from Zhen Yan Wang (真衍王), Luo Feng's teacher and a powerful king in his own right.
Yet, even he was shaken by the email's grim implication, leading him to seek answers from the ultimate authority, Hun Dun Cheng Zhu (混沌城主). The confirmation was a small, cold comfort: Luo Feng's life force still flickered in the universe, a tiny flame in the immense darkness of the Swallowed Star.
The Inheritance Trial
Inside the throne, time had lost all meaning. Luo Feng was trapped in a cycle of perpetual destruction and rebirth. His body and soul were subjected to forces designed to annihilate, to grind down his very essence. He endured 2,600 years of this torment, then 3,300, then 4,000. The pain did not subside; it evolved, finding new ways to test the absolute limits of his will. At the 5,000-year mark, many would have welcomed oblivion. By the 6,000-year point, his consciousness was a threadbare fabric, constantly on the verge of being torn apart and scattered into nothingness.
The only thing holding him together was an indomitable will, a refusal to surrender that was as much a part of him as his own DNA. He thought of Earth, of Xu Xin's face, of the family that relied on him. These memories were his anchors in the storm. In the 6,092nd year, a shift occurred. The crushing pressure ceased. The torment ended. A profound calm settled over the chamber as the Swallowed Star finally, fully, acknowledged him. He had passed the trial that had defeated countless geniuses across eons, including his own senior brother, Yan Di (焱帝).
Victory, however, came with constraints. While he was now the throne's master, his current power as a Jie Zhu (界主) was insufficient to wield it. To remove the throne from its location would be to paint a target on his back, inviting catastrophe. For the next 110,000 years, he could only access a fraction of its power—the Star Map and the Zhen Feng Stars. His journey was far from over, but he had secured the key to his ultimate destiny.
A New Mentor
As the throne's acceptance settled, a new presence manifested within the sacred space. This was Zuo Shan Ke (坐山客), the enigmatic architect of the Swallowed Star. A being of unimaginable power, a Shen Wang (神王) who operated outside the conflicts of cosmic races, he had watched Luo Feng's struggle with a knowing eye. He had even won a bet, confident that this human from a backwater planet named Earth possessed the unique fortitude to succeed where others had failed. Luo Feng was stunned, realizing the being before him was the mastermind behind his entire ordeal and his greatest opportunity.
Zuo Shan Ke formally accepted Luo Feng as his third disciple. His first disciple, Pu Ti (普缇), while loyal, lacked the supreme talent and had waited over 8.2 billion years for a successor. His second, Yan Di, had grown too ambitious and severed ties with humanity. Luo Feng represented his true hope. As a token of this commitment, Zuo Shan Ke bestowed upon him the Jie Jia (劫甲), a priceless treasure that would dramatically enhance his defensive capabilities. He then guided Luo Feng through the throne's deepest secrets, revealing the full scope of the power he now commanded.
With this new status as the leader of the Earth faction and the direct disciple of a cosmic powerhouse, Luo Feng's path was irrevocably altered. Though still a Jie Zhu, he was now untouchable by even the most powerful Feng Wang Wu Di (封王无敌) foes. The shackles were off. Empowered and enlightened, he was finally ready to return to the human world, his family, and the conflict that had festered in his absence. The Ross family, who had moved against his kin, would soon learn a brutal lesson: the man they thought was dead was returning not just as a warrior, but as a force of cosmic reckoning.
