Day 723[1] in Jerrica's Labyrinth
Now reduced to only seven night lights in the sky after the previous two moons got deleted like browser history, I was pressing the gas on my journey to instill fear into Draco Calyrex. The voids left behind by those moons still hung in the air like haunting absences—memories scraped off the surface of reality. The sky looked like it was grieving, and honestly, Draco's mana signature mirrored that mood. There was a sorrow lurking in his aura, soft and deep, like an apology he couldn't say out loud. But neither of us had the bandwidth for that kind of sentiment. I wasn't here to hand out hugs—I was here to break his spirit. Fuck making friends outta sympathy.
The mauve-soiled battlefield, framed by haunted trees and whispering winds, felt like it was closing in. Not because the land was actually shifting, but because my aura was getting heavier, pressing out like a tidal wave of will. The open space that once stretched between us? Gone. Now it was like Draco was standing inside my personal space bubble.
The sky, already cloaked in jaded twilight, dimmed just a touch more. My eyes glowed brighter, shifting into a piercing ultraviolet hue that cut through the dark like two tiny novas. My mana signature rippled around me like heat from a primordial flare, distorting the air and bending reality's rules ever so slightly. Draco was staring at me like he still had a chance. Bless his heart. I wasn't the underdog in this encounter—I was the final problem.
"Not just one, but two Guardian Arm—"
I didn't let him finish that sentence. Nigga had the nerve to start listing off my accolades like he was introducing me at an awards show. I appeared in front of him in a flicker—a blur of motion and murderous intent—and slammed my foot into his face with no hesitation. Flat-footed, dead center. My heel sank into his helmet like I was mashing a soda can.
BOOM.
His body launched, skimming the earth like a stone across water, smashing through the shallow forest behind him. Trees exploded into kindling. Wisteria-toned leaves spiraled up like glitter caught in a storm. And when the forest finally ran out of material to toss him through, he collided with a bank of grey dirt and mauve grass that accepted him like an unpaid debt.
He landed on all fours, the breath visibly wheezing out of him as he coughed up dust and pride. He was reassessing things now—rethinking the script he'd written in his head where he was the hero, and I was the challenge he'd overcome.
"It's not false bravado, I see."
His stoicism was slowly breaking, and I knew it without needing [Moon Sage: Tsukuyomi] to spell it out for me.
"Look up, Marlon! Say cheese."
He looked up.
I came down like the wrath of gods who were sick of waiting. A living tomahawk missile, my heel aimed directly at the crown of his helmet. The moment his eyes found mine, CRACK — I landed.
The terrain exploded underneath us. A crater bloomed like a sudden wound in the landscape. The impact threw debris in every direction, mauve grass shredded into particles, trees quaking from the shockwave. I stood in the center, clouds of dust swirling around me, casually checking my claws like I just got a mani and needed to admire the detail.
Stylin' on him. Violently.
"I hope that's not it, Calyrex. You'll never stop me like this."
Arrogant? Maybe. But I'd earned it. So fuck it.
I stepped off his helmet like I was dismounting a stage, hopping a few feet back to give him a fighting chance. He deserved that much. The hulking demon warrior pushed himself up, dirt caking the crevices of his armor. The triple fin-like crown of his helmet? Cracked and bent—half gone after supporting me like a makeshift throne. His cobalt eyes, burning like twin gas flames, glared through the slits in his mask. And behind all that metal and fire, I could hear it.
The teeth grinding.
He was thinking, "He must be using a skill to buff his strength. Then I'll just take that power for myself."
"Look," I said, dusting off my palms, "I need to pass this trial and talk to Omnia again. So, if you don't make it interesting, I'm going to finish this and go on about my business."
His head snapped toward me like a hound who just heard his master's name.
"You speak the true name of the Twilight Goddess," he said slowly, voice low and intrigued. "To know it and say it without being forcefully muted, you must be a faithful devotee."
"I don't get what you mean?"
"To speak an Aeon's true name casually costs a mortal mana as payment. Taken away before the words even leave one's lips. But for you to show no signs of magick fatigue... You must be blessed by her."
I smirked. "Well, she's a lot closer to me than you think. So I guess you can say."
His tone shifted like a blade sliding out of its sheath. "Know that being favored by Infernia's former Elohim will not save you from Jerrica's wrath if she is freed."
"Infernia? I thought she ruled the Heavens?"
"All of the Outer Realms are considered the Heavens. Infernia is just the heaven closer to the Inner Realms."
I groaned. "So basically, heaven got a ghetto basement. Got it. Then y'all need to talk to y'all's PR team, 'cause this place got the reputation of the hells."
"That wouldn't be incorrect, as the lower heavens are also called the hells."
"I hate this place," I muttered, dragging my hand down my face like the stupidity physically hurt. The worst part? He wasn't wrong. This universe had more plot twists than a daytime soap opera. And the more I learned, the more I realized I didn't know jack.
But I couldn't afford to daydream on that right now.
Draco stood firm again, shoulders squared, Doombringer still clutched in both hands like it was the only truth he had left.
"Now knowing you are the Twilight Goddess's Champion," he said, voice like thunder strangled by logic, "I have no choice but to use this. Theft of a villain's strength—[Justice Earl: Andromalius]!"
He thrust out his palm. Magicka warped to him in a spiraling vortex—twisting, screaming, hungry. It aimed straight for my Soul Core, trying to leech off me, rip strength from my source like a parasite jacking a power line.
Nothing happened.
The spell fizzled like a dud firework.
His eyes—those glowing cobalt spheres—widened in a slow, stunned realization. Confusion clung to him like fog. He choked on his own expectations.
He didn't know.
Didn't know I was untouchable to him. Not only stronger—unreachable.
My [Dominus Avaritiae] don't play. No one takes anything from me without my say-so. And I mean anything.
"Nah," I said with a shrug, "that ain't work, chief. It tickled, tho."
His jaw clenched. "Abilities that can't be stolen are a new one. The Twilight Goddess's perversion of the Prime Realms knows no limit."
I raised a brow. "Bitch, did you just call me a pervert?"
The breeze returned like a divine cue from the cosmos—soft, but charged with purpose. It rolled in between me and Draco with a hush that whispered through the battlefield like it knew something we didn't. My waist-cape fluttered to the left as if even it wanted to dip outta the way. With a calm breath, I placed the Red Queen into a spiritual holster across my back, watching as the Noir Empress slipped it into its invisible sheath without a word. She knew her place. Arms outstretched, I rolled my shoulders and smirked, throwing a loose wave with my right hand before making a few playful gestures with my fingers—taunting him.
"Shall we dance or not, bitch boy?"
The truth was, I was unarmed, but not harmless. And he knew better. But pride? Pride was a dumb, beautiful thing.
Draco's eyes narrowed, and I caught that glint in his gaze. That old warrior flame, flickering with defiance and nostalgia, like he was staring at a younger version of himself and tryna prove to time that it hadn't beaten him yet. Then it hit me—a strange pulsing started thumping from that slab of steel he called a greatsword. And I knew that beat. The rhythm of a deeper kind of darkness. A specific kind. One I'd played in as a toddler, back when shadows were my escape from the crib.
"Lend me your power, fallen souls of Doombringer," he roared with a hand gripping the blade's hilt like it was his last lifeline. "Art of Calyrex: Echoes of War!"
Yin Mana and Astral Mana exploded out of the center of the blade, forming a slow-moving hurricane of black and silver around him. The swirl pulsed in time with his heartbeat—tight, deliberate beats like war drums in a void. The grass in front of him darkened, then bled out into pools of shadow, tendrils stretching outward before pulling themselves upward into full-bodied forms.
From the ink of the earth, they rose.
Ghostly figures, coated in that deep navy-blue hue of spirit energy, formed into apparitions—Echo Phantoms. Each wore ancient armor and wielded weapons from lost dynasties and forgotten wars. Their style wasn't just old—it was legendary. Relics of time, polished in pain. Each one high S-Class in battle power. One had an obsidian lance with lightning scars. Another rocked spiked crimson plate and dual flails like he'd walked out of a nightmare. All ten of them looked like final bosses.
Placing my finger on my chin, I said, "Mixing spirit energy of fractured souls into yin constructs? Well, now... that gives me an idea."
Draco's face stayed firm. "My Echo Phantoms are not here to be your muse. They are to be your demise."
"You don't believe that shit, yourself."
Their collective war cry erupted—a bone-deep scream that sounded like it came from a place where sound wasn't supposed to escape. A spell activated in that cry—a taunting skill that hijacked my body. My shoulders jerked. My knees shifted. Even my spine tried to twist like I was being puppeteered. My magitons—those tiny magical atoms floating in my soul—were listening to someone else.
"Da fuck?" I thought, feeling my body betray me. "So this is what that feels like."
Inside, Tsukuyomi's voice rang out with that calm digital reverb. "Analyzing taunt with [Adaptive Predator]. A resistance is in construction."
The Echo Phantoms spread like trained soldiers, moving into formation. Then they came.
Ten of 'em. Charging with force, blades high and anger higher. Swords slashed, axes swung, halberds jabbed from multiple angles, closing in to box me in like I was a cornered animal.
But I wasn't gonna dance around 'em.
Not this time.
One of the best things about having limitless mana? I could abuse the hell out of a constant protective spatial barrier. I didn't just layer one—nah, I laced multiple pocket dimensions around myself like armor, like I was chilling in a personal safe room split from reality. Their attacks hit me like raindrops on bulletproof glass.
Clang.
Thud.
CRACK.
Every strike bounced off my barrier like tantrums on titanium. Over and over, they struck with relentless rhythm, but it wasn't gonna mean a damn thing. I didn't even blink.
Draco watched me in silence, eyes like a hawk. He was searching for weakness, movement, an opening. I gave him none. Instead, I gave him flair.
"Let me show you how to use a sword," I said, rolling my neck. "You seem to lack sauce and seasoning with yours."
As the Phantoms swung in a final synchronized strike, I ducked with such speed that the wind shrieked from the displacement. I appeared at the blindside of the smaller, more feminine phantom—her silhouette betraying grace even in shadow—and drove my fist into her jawline. Helmet or not, the blow sent her flying back like a ragdoll, crashing into another phantom. That set off a domino effect—each of them toppled into the other until the whole crew formed a messy pile that slammed into a thick-barked tree, splitting it with the impact.
Drawing the Red Queen again from her spiritual holster, I felt her hum excited, ready. I channeled Lunar Mana and Wind Mana into her body. Sparks danced down the red-and-black blade like lightning flirting with fire. Electromagnetic pulses crackled, crackling around my arm.
With one sweeping slash, I triggered [Art of Xirotation: Lunar Gale Slash].
From my position, a massive semi-disc of energy roared forward—a collision of charged gamma rays, ultraviolet light, magitons, and compressed air. It screamed like a banshee as it flew. It hit like a vengeful catastrophe. The disoriented pile of phantoms had no chance.
The moment it made contact, the energy combusted into a blast zone charged with electric devastation. Trees behind them snapped, shattered, and then vaporized. Smoke, sparks, and splinters filled the air like fireworks on Judgment Day. The Echo Phantoms were gone.
"See," I called out, sheathing the Red Queen again. "Told them I could use it with my sword."
Tsukuyomi's voice chimed in. "Warning, Master. A high level of spiritual energy gathering is being detected from Draco Calyrex's position."
I turned my head just as Draco lifted Doombringer to the sky. The air went still. The clouds above began swirling as Yin, Devil, and Astral Mana poured down like a waterfall into his blade.
"Recall my glory as I reclaim my domain—[A Seat at The Table: Rise]."
Then the world changed.
The Domain Art slammed into place with oppressive weight. It was a Soul Domain, and it wasn't subtle. Every soul caught inside was forced to acknowledge Draco's rule. Thousands—and I mean thousands—of new Echo Phantoms rose again from new pools of shadow. Devil Mana laced the air like blood in water. Yin Mana howled from every corner. The phantoms chanted in silence, forming a ring of kneeling shadows around him—kings, assassins, generals, disciples. All souls he had broken, claimed, or conquered.
I felt my body begin to tilt forward.
My knees—my damn knees—tried to buckle.
Some unseen hand, spectral and massive, pushed against my back. And the more I resisted, the heavier it got. Like it fed on my defiance.
"What... bullshit is this?" I growled, straining. "I'm... not kneeling... to this fuck nigga."
Draco's laughter was low, reverent, and full of smugness. "As long as you hold a soul in my Domain, you are under my command."
Cold, ancient Devil Mana crept into my mana circuits, brushing against the edges of my pride. And that pride?
It snapped.
Suddenly, I felt a new warmth ignite deep within me—an echo of something I hadn't touched since I broke the Prime System's rule on using [Trance].
[Strong Spirit].
The skill bloomed inside me like a second sun. The evolution of my old [Strong Will] reinforced my Soul Core and doubled my spirit energy's potency. It didn't just activate. It arrived for a nigga, triggered by meeting a condition—a test of will. The Domain's pressure shattered like glass.
I straightened up fully, and my soul lit in defiant indigo. My glare alone told Draco he was no longer in control.
Draco narrowed his eyes. "Your boundless strength is remarkable... but I will unleash everything I have to defeat you."
"You will only die trying."
Draco didn't flinch. "Crown of the Forgotten—[A Seat at The Table: No Limits]."
A second shadow grew from him—bigger, darker. A royal mantle formed from screaming souls. It draped over his shoulders like a king's cloak made of damnation. The Echo Phantoms fused into it, one by one, their bodies breaking down into raw power that stitched itself into his armor, his aura. The ground warped beneath him as his power surged—an amalgam of every soul he'd ever stolen.
I stood still, quietly impressed. That was real power. And it deserved a real test.
With a wrist flick, I cast another [Lunar Gale Slash] at him—nothing fancy, just a taste. It flew clean, sharp, and angry.
But it didn't even touch him.
The disc splashed into nothingness. No sound, no pushback. Just gone. What didn't interact with him still did what it always did—blew apart half the damn forest behind him, opening two wide paths of scorched, broken earth.
I tilted my head.
"Oh... now you got my attention."
With Draco's Domain Art shifting into its final stage, the battlefield around us twisted into something truly otherworldly. Gravity warped. Space itself distorted in pulses of rippling heat and glacial wind, as if the world couldn't decide what season to die in. The green sky was gone, replaced with a dome of deep violet energy flickering with tongues of red lightning that licked the heavens like hungry beasts. Draco stood in the center of it all, his presence dense enough to make the air feel like syrup in my lungs. The very rocks beneath our feet fractured from the intensity of his mana signature, as if the planet itself was trying to scream but didn't have a mouth.
Unlike most loudmouth villains with too much ego and too little execution, Draco wasn't dragging this shit out. Nah. He was prepping one of his most devastating Ultra Skill abilities, and there was no dramatic monologue to stall him. This nigga was all business. But I had business, myself.
[Moon Sage: Tsukuyomi] had just finished his scan and analysis, and like clockwork, that silky voice rolled into my mind:
"Master, his Ultra Skill is nullifying all converted magitons from approaching or bypassing that energy cloak. It's making his body immune to all mana-based damage; only pure physical force or absolute techniques can harm him."
I nodded slowly to myself, cracking my knuckles like the solution had just walked into the room wearing a name tag.
"Punch him really hard. Got it." I thought, smacking my fist into my palm with a quiet pop.
Then [Midnight Star: Belial] slid in, his tone that mix of royalty and wicked mischief. "Before we continue, see if you can get him to spill the deets about the Outer Gods. There may be something to fill us in on what these trials are actually about."
I smirked. That was a good call. It couldn't hurt to dig a little deeper before things got too broken.
"So, Calyrex, I have a question. Answer this truthfully, and I might let you live."
Draco didn't flinch. In fact, he looked offended or something. His aura surged, coating him in a royal sheen of gold and ember-red that coiled around his body like molten dragon scales. The force of it was so heavy, a chunk of the battlefield simply ceased to exist, carved out by sheer spiritual pressure. Doombringer, that thick, ancient blade strapped to his back, began to glow violently as he raised it high into the storm. The sword drank in the raw mana flooding the area, gluttonous and alive, humming in a pitch that vibrated the bones behind my ears. Thunder cracked beneath our feet. The planet groaned.
"There will be no living for you. Find the answer to your question in your death."
So that was the game, huh?
His complete dismissal of my question wasn't just arrogance—it was mind games. Jedi mind trick meets royal contempt. And yeah, it worked.
I felt it in my chest. Not the kind that burns. The kind that chills. Like someone spat on your name and smiled while doing it. I exhaled, and thin streams of purple mana began to coil from my eyes like smoke from a cremation fire. I slowly slid the Red Queen into the holster on my back and stepped forward.
"The motherfuckin' disrespect…"
The air warped around me with a pressure drop so sudden it made Draco's aura buckle. And then I was gone.
In a flash of motion too fast for light to track, I was under his guard, driving a devastating uppercut right beneath his helmet with a technique Steez loved to use—[Art of Xirotation: Shoryureppa]. His chin snapped up so hard it could've launched satellites. The uppercut was clean, brutal, and enhanced with pure Omnis Mana—not converted, just raw output. The kind that could knock the breath outta death itself.
Draco shot upward like a ragdoll in a hurricane, the shockwave cratering the earth and peeling the land outward in spirals. He vanished into the clouds, into the stratosphere, higher still—gone.
I followed.
Leaping after him with my [Axis Flight], I rocketed past layers of atmosphere. Draco reached the apex of his flight, stunned, trying to stabilize himself. I didn't give him the chance.
"KIYYAAH!"
My fist connected center-mass with a punch that carried actual intent. The hit detonated with the force of a collapsing dimension—an explosive shockwave of golden-orange and violet-blue mana that tore through the vacuum of space like a deity's tantrum. The sound that followed? Like a thunderclap wrapped in a nuclear scream. Draco vanished in the wake of my strike, a streaking blur headed straight for the nearest moon.
He hit the first moon so hard it cracked like glass and detonated like a C4 charge, chunks of silver rock floating in orbit like asteroids made of failure. But he didn't stop there.
Second moon: gone.
Third: obliterated.
Fourth and fifth: vaporized on impact.
Each time he bounced, it was like the cosmos itself flinched. Rings of mana exploded from the points of contact, painting space with streaks of burning starlight.
Just before he could collide with the seventh and final moon, I teleported ahead of him and spun into a wide roundhouse kick, slamming my heel into his jaw. The impact sent him arcing downward like a flaming meteor, trailing black and red smoke as he plummeted back to the giant purple planet below.
Draco crashed with enough force to split the tectonic plates. Valleys ruptured. Mountains collapsed into seas of ash. The ground cracked in spiderweb patterns, carving chasms so deep the planet's mana veins were exposed—glowing rivers of magiton bleeding into the sky.
"FGHAAGGH! KUFF! KAFF!"
"He's a bigger threat to the Prime Realms than the Succubus Queen. I have to seal him here as well. There are no other options. He's too strong." He thought, panic finally settling into his mind.
I hovered above it all, calm in the chaos. Space had never felt more peaceful. The infinite black, with only one star still visible. Beautiful. Silent. Almost made me want to chill… but Draco was still breathing, and I don't do half-finished meals.
From 739,600 miles away, I shot down toward the crater like a divine missile, a comet with vendetta issues. In less than a second, my boots collided with his skull, feet first.
The ground collapsed. A titanic fissure split the land, trenches miles wide forming beneath the impact. Trees were vaporized. Forests turned to dust. His black blood spattered into the sky like spilled ink on parchment, painting horror across the stars.
His helmet cracked open, the metal folding like cheap tin. His skull? Useless now. And splattered into countless pieces across the crater.
But Draco was an Infernia Realm born. You couldn't just kill these types with brute force. You had to destroy what made them them.
His Soul Core.
I triggered my [Devil 3rd Eye], and instantly, my vision filtered to reveal the gleaming core of his essence, nestled in his chest, pulsing like a corrupted heart.
I drew the Red Queen.
One swift motion—no flourish, no drama. I plunged the blade down into him, through armor, through flesh, through soul.
The Soul Core shrieked as it split in half. Then shattered.
His energy flared one final time, then flickered… and faded.
The Forgotten Warblade, Calyrex Draco, was dead. Finally. No last words. No dramatic death speech. Just silence.
"Take a rest, Calyrex. I'll take responsibility for whatever happens."
And just like that, another page in this cosmic trial turned to ash—answers still out of reach.
With Draco's mana signature finally fading and the tremors that had been rattling the planet coming to a halt, I found myself frozen in that sudden, eerie calm. The battlefield had gone quiet. No more earthquakes splitting the earth like cracked porcelain. No more mana blasts tearing the air into ribbons. Just silence... and ash.
I glanced upward. Where there had once been nine vibrant moons—massive celestial watchers hanging in jade twilight—there was now only one. Its pale blue surface glowed solemnly in the night sky like a lone sentinel. The sky itself had shifted, returning from that unnatural mint green and amethyst haze to something more familiar: a deep navy black speckled with stars, brushed with indigo clouds moving slowly as if exhausted from witnessing the chaos. The destruction of the moons had scrubbed the sky clean, and for a fleeting second, I saw Gaia's night reflected above me. Felt like home. Minus the rings.
The world beneath my feet, though… that was another story. The purple horizon had dimmed to a grayish tint, soil no longer rich with vibrancy but dusted over in the rubble of broken dreams. The once-grand violet trees that had swayed like alien willows were now shattered stumps or swallowed into the widened cracks of a sundered world. It looked like someone had tried to cut Buddha's fingerprint into the terrain, deep, swirling trenches marking where battle had shifted the planet's bones.
Then the silence was broken, but by familiar sounds. Karma's voice flared to life in my mind, a bright, playful spark in the gloom.
"Awesome, papi. You looked so cool."
Kyttin chimed in right after, full of smug triumph.
"No one could beat us."
I gave them both a mental nod, lips tugging into a half-smile.
"Thank you, ladies. You two were excellent."
Still levitating just above the cracked surface, I turned my gaze to what was left of Draco. His body, or what had once carried that dangerous swagger, was slowly dissipating into pale, silver mist. Like he was being unknit from reality itself. That only happened during the Prime Trials, in the labyrinth. A sure sign that this fool had been nothing more than another damn test. And yet, that didn't dull the weight of it. He was doing his job. He was thinking for the greater good of all realms. He talked like he knew things—things I still didn't. Yet, my selfishness destroyed all of that.
That's when I saw it—Doombringer. He'd been gripping the war-scarred, black-metal blade even while bouncing off celestial bodies like a ragdoll. It lay quietly now in a shallow crater, humming with residual magicka, like a dragon nursing its wounds. A weapon that had slaughtered hundreds, if not thousands, was now abandoned like a cursed relic. Whether or not it was going to fade away like him, I wasn't about to find out.
I opened my palm and summoned a swirling indigo portal just beneath the hilt.
"Got it." The blade dropped through the vortex into my [Midnight World] with a flicker of white light.
[Moon Sage: Tsukuyomi] whispered inside my mind, calm and clinical as ever.
"Most of the souls that used to reside in the greatsword are gone now. The fractured spiritons can be collected for other uses."
[Midnight Star: Belial] followed, his tone dry and amused.
"So he burned through his phantom collection with that last Combat Art, huh? What a waste of minions."
I exhaled sharply, rubbing the back of my neck.
"Fuck. I shoulda read that nigga's memory before I killed him. He said too much stuff I wanted to know more about. Shoulda learned by now—don't skip the cutscene."
But that was the cost of ending things early. Closure never came with blood.
As if waiting for my dramatic timing, the Prime Realm System chimed in right then, its monotone voice ringing out through the silence like a damn vending machine announcement.
«Trial of the Bad is now complete. You have earned your passage.»
I blinked and looked around at the sky, annoyed.
"Passage? Wait a second, I need to talk to you!" I yelled at the heavens like they owed me money. But surprise, surprise—silence. Rude bitches.
The world around me shimmered suddenly. Like my whole existence got snatched by a cosmic claw, I felt that telltale tug of teleportation begin to rip through the atoms of my body. Light swallowed my vision, rearranging the coordinates of reality. When it faded and I found my footing again, I realized I'd been dropped back on the same purple-grass planet.
Only now… everything was fixed.
No more fractured landscape. No more blackened scars from divine punches or meteor-slamming kicks. The trees had regrown—more of them this time, swaying in gentle violet rows. Flowers with glowing petals lined the hills, and the grass was soft underfoot, humming with gentle mana pulses like a living lullaby. The sky was still that obsidian black with one lonely moon shining overhead. No shattered rings. No moons returned. Just quiet, peaceful, and clean, like the world itself had exhaled.
I took a breath and looked around.
"This place is kinda pretty. Tho, I'd still rather have the three moons like on Gaia…" I muttered, missing the celestial trio I was used to.
The Prime Realm System cut back in, cold and detached.
«Due to completion of the trial, [DATA RESTRICTED] will now grant the Pure Lord Seed holder—»
I cut that noise off with a shout, voice hot and sharp.
"I said, fuck all that! Whoever's watchin' this shit, get out here now! We need to talk!"
Silence again.
Then, it happened.
A beam of soft, brilliant light descended behind me like a spotlight from the heavens. It was warm but not hot. Gentle but commanding. I turned, feeling the energy shift, as the light collapsed inward and shaped itself—arms, legs, a body, then hair like flowing moonlight. A woman stood there, formed from that same light. She radiated elegance, ancient presence... and power.
But her voice pulled my breath from my lungs before her face did.
"It has been a while, former Archon of Night."
And just like that, I knew things were about to get way more complicated.
[End of Chapter]
[1] Year Five.