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The chemical enrichment of dust and metals are vital processes inconstraining the star formation history of the universe. Previously, the dustmasses of high-redshift star-forming galaxies have been determined throughtheir far-infrared continuum, however, equivalent, and potentially simpler,approaches to determining the metal masses have yet to be explored at $z\gtrsim2$. Here, we present a new method of inferring the metal mass in theinterstellar medium (ISM) of galaxies out to $z\approx 8$, using thefar-infrared [CII]$-158\mu$m emission line as a proxy. We calibrated the[CII]-to-$M_{\rm Z,ISM}$ conversion factor based on a benchmark observationalsample at $z\approx 0$, in addition to gamma-ray burst sightlines at $z>2$ andcosmological hydrodynamical simulations of galaxies at $z\approx 0$ and$z\approx 6$. We found a universal scaling across redshifts of $\log (M_{\rmZ,ISM}/M_\odot) = \log (L_{\rm [CII]}/L_\odot) - 0.45,$ with a 0.4 dex scatter,which is constant over more than two orders of magnitude in metallicity. Weapplied this scaling to recent surveys for [CII] in galaxies at $z\gtrsim 2$and determined the fraction of metals retained in the gas-phase ISM, $M_{\rmZ,ISM} / M_\star$, as a function of redshift showing that an increasingfraction of metals reside in the ISM of galaxies at higher redshifts. We placefurther constraints on the cosmic metal mass density in the ISM ($\Omega_{\rmZ,ISM}$) at $z\approx 5$ and $\approx 7$, yielding $\Omega_{\rm Z,ISM} =6.6^{+13}_{-4.3}\times 10^{-7}\,M_\odot\, {\rm Mpc}^{-3}$ ($z\approx 5$) and$\Omega_{\rm Z,ISM} = 2.0^{+3.5}_{-1.3}\times 10^{-7}\,M_\odot\, {\rmMpc}^{-3}$ ($z\approx 7$). These results are consistent with the expected metalyields from the integrated star formation history at the respective redshifts.This suggests that the majority of metals produced at $z\gtrsim 5$ are confinedto the ISM of galaxies.

Gauging the mass of metals in the gas phase of galaxies from the Local Universe to the Epoch of Reionization