The runes burned against Cel's vision, searing themselves into his mind with cold precision. His heart hammered as meaning crystallized not through reading, but through instinctive knowing.
Two paragons.
His breath caught, thoughts fragmenting into chaos before snapping back together with razor focus.
Most Chosen received one paragon at their first blessing. A single domain from which most future power would flow. One path, one identity, one destiny provided by the gods.
But he had two.
Heir to the Moon. The White Death.
The first didn't feel real. Not Chosen or servant - heir. The goddess had named him her inheritor, marked him as her legacy. And she'd proven it. Divine Oracles didn't attend to ordinary Chosen. Selina's presence alone was enough of a declaration.
The weight settled over his shoulders like a mantle of ice. He wasn't just another forgotten Moon Chosen destined to die young and unmourned. He was her heir.
The other stirred something cold and savage in his chest. The White Death. A name that didn't speak of salvation or shelter, but of something absolute and merciless.
But something else nagged at him even more: the achievement counter read one.
That made no sense. Achievements were monumental feats acknowledged by the Chosen's deity. Each god valued different things: the Sun God might recognize valor in battle, the Storm Goddess acts of defiance, the Life Goddess preservation of life.
But no one received achievements before their first blessing. It was impossible. Without divine power, mortals couldn't accomplish anything worthy of godly recognition. You needed the strength granted by your first blessing before you could even attempt deeds extraordinary enough to earn more.
Unless... the trial itself counted? But that made no sense either. The trial was part of receiving the first blessing, not something accomplished after. Yet what else could it be?
His focus sharpened on the first paragon, and the monolith responded instantly. The runes dissolved like frost under morning sun, reforming into new patterns that pulsed with steady luminescence.
Cel stared.
You died.
That was it. Two words acknowledging his greatest failure as if it were worthy of celebration.
A laugh bubbled up in his throat before he could stop it. Short. Sharp. Edged with something that wasn't quite humor.
Most Chosen earned their first achievement through heroic deeds - slaying monsters, saving lives, defending the innocent.
His was to die.
Not surviving the trial. Not enduring torture. Not destroying the mirror reflections or facing the fairy-like creature. The Moon Goddess looked at everything he'd accomplished and chose to acknowledge the one moment he'd failed completely - his death.
He exhaled slowly, pushing the bitter irony aside. The achievement existed. Dwelling on it wouldn't change that.
What mattered now was understanding the power he'd earned through it.
He turned his attention to the first paragon, and the monolith obeyed once again - runes dissolved before reforming into intricate new patterns:
The first trait would have come from his initial blessing, freely given. The second... that must have been earned through his achievement. Through dying.
An affinity rating of one out of ten.
Affinity measured how deeply a Chosen resonated with their paragon - how naturally its power flowed through them. Higher affinity meant stronger effects, more potent manifestations of the same abilities.
One was the baseline. Every Chosen started there. But affinity could be raised through use, through understanding, through aligning oneself with the paragon's nature.
Which meant he had a long way to climb.
Then there was the enlightenment.
He read the text again, frowning. 'The moon is never the same twice, yet she is always herself. Full tonight, crescent tomorrow, vanished the next - but never gone. They call it change. The moon calls it constancy.'
No one truly understood what enlightenments were. Some scholars claimed they were fragments of divine truth - insights into the god's nature. Others believed they were keys, riddles that unlocked deeper power if perceived correctly.
Cel suspected the enlightenments mattered in some way - perhaps more than anything else on the monolith.
He took another look, searching for meaning that refused to surface. "Never the same twice, yet she is always herself." But the moon's phases did repeat - new moon, crescent, full, crescent, new. The same cycle, over and over. So how was it never the same twice?
And if it kept changing, where was the constancy? Unless constancy meant the change itself? But then what did "always herself" mean?
The more he tried to grasp it, the more it slipped away - like trying to hold moonlight in his fist.
Maybe he wasn't smart enough to understand. Maybe it would make sense later, after he'd used the paragon's power. Or maybe it was just cryptic nonsense, and he was wasting time trying to make sense of it.
He exhaled sharply, forcing his attention elsewhere. The enlightenment could wait. Right now, he needed to understand what power he'd actually been given.
The first trait expanded as he focused on it:
Simple. Direct.
Cel's hand flexed involuntarily as understanding settled. Faster. Stronger. More resilient - but only when the moon could reach him.
His jaw tightened.
At day, this gift would be worthless. Inside buildings, beneath stone and timber, useless. Even at night, the power would rise and fall with lunar cycles - peaking during the full moon, fading during the new.
The goddess had given him strength that ebbed and flowed.
But not in uncertainty. In rhythm.
His fingers curled into a fist. He could work with rhythm. Learn its patterns the way he'd learned to anticipate his father's moods or the cultists' rotations.
The anticipation hit him suddenly - sharp and electric. During a full moon, with that light pouring down unobstructed, what would he become? How fast could he move? How hard could he strike?
His pulse quickened at the thought.
The monolith pulsed, drawing his attention to the second trait:
The words hit him like a fist to the sternum.
He could die - truly die - and return. Again. The moon would refuse to let him go. Would drag his soul back from whatever lay beyond and forge it into flesh again, as many times as it took.
But the limitations were brutal: moonlight had to reach his remains. If he died in a sealed tomb, buried under rubble, or deep in some kind of cave, he would stay dead. Also, there had to be remains - if something devoured him completely, there would be nothing for the moon to resurrect.
And even then, it would only trigger on full moon. Dying the day after one meant nearly a month of lying wherever he fell, vulnerable to scavengers, enemies, and the elements.
And each death would leave its mark upon his soul.
That line lingered, ominous and vague. What kind of mark? Would dying repeatedly damage him somehow? Corrupt him? Change who he was?
The goddess offered resurrection - but not without cost.
Still. His hands trembled slightly.
This was the kind of power that changed everything. The kind of gift that let someone take risks no sane person would consider. Fight battles they had no right to survive.
But resurrection alone wouldn't be enough.
Cel turned his focus toward the second paragon, and the monolith responded - new runes cascading across its surface:
No traits this time. One authority.
And another cryptic enlightenment that made his skin prickle. "Motion that refused its second death." What did that even mean?
Motion had a first death? When it stopped? And refusing a second death meant... what? Becoming permanent? Eternal?
He shook his head. Like the first enlightenment, the meaning slipped away the harder he tried to grasp it.
He quickly moved on to the authority instead:
He stared at the words.
Frost on touch.
Disappointment crashed through him, sharp and bitter.
This was a divine authority? A thin layer of ice that wouldn't stop a blade, wouldn't pierce armor, wouldn't do anything meaningful in actual combat?
Lunar Vigor offered direct physical enhancement. Unbroken Succession granted resurrection. And this authority gave him ice that would melt in minutes?
He tried to imagine a situation where frost on touch would matter. Chilling someone's skin? Making a surface slippery? Every scenario felt pathetic compared to what other Chosen could accomplish with their abilities - healing wounds that should be fatal, calling down lightning that reduced enemies to ash.
Something cold and tight coiled in his stomach.
'Is this why Moon Chosen are considered worthless?'
If this was what the goddess offered, no wonder her followers left no legacy.
He forced the bitterness down, jaw clenched hard enough to ache.
Maybe there was something he wasn't seeing. Some application he hadn't considered. Or maybe this was just the beginning - affinity one out of ten suggested room for growth.
Maybe.
Yet neither the traits nor the authority would save him if he had nothing to wield.
Without a weapon, he was still vulnerable. Still prey.
His eyes locked on the final inscription:
Cel's pulse quickened.
A weapon. Heavenly grade.
Artifacts followed a hierarchy of power - from Blessed at the lowest to Divine at the highest where legends were forged. Most Chosen received Blessed or Sacred artifacts at their first blessing. Heavenly was a tier above. Not legendary, but far better than he had any right to expect.
And it had a single trait:
He read it twice, frowning.
Reacts how?
The description gave nothing. No numbers. No thresholds. No clear parameters.
Would the weapon sharpen when he was calm? Dull when he was afraid? What defined a "state of mind" precisely enough for divine steel to respond?
And what happened if his emotions spiraled mid-fight?
He'd spent a year in a cell learning to survive through pure rage, then a week in a maze that forced him to relive every trauma. His emotional state wasn't exactly stable. If this weapon reflected that instability…
He rubbed the back of his neck. 'I won't know until I use it.'
Maybe that was the point. The goddess hadn't given him a tool to command. She'd given him a mirror - one that would reflect exactly what lay inside him.
His focus. His fear. His resolve. His unraveling.
But he still didn't know what form it would take. Blade? Spear? Something brutal and crude, or elegant and swift?
Before he could summon the weapon, Selina's voice cut through the silence.
"You should leave now, Chosen One."
Cel turned toward her. He wanted to ask why, he swallowed it - waiting for her to explain if she chose to.
When she stepped closer, there was something firmer beneath her gentle expression.
"You are still within your soul. Time here mirrors the world outside. Every second you spend here is a second lost beyond it." Her masked gaze held his. "And out there, danger still lingers. Your body has returned, but the place you left behind… remains unchanged."
Cold weight settled over his shoulders.
The creature. The one that had killed him.
It was still out there.
"I understand."
Cel cast one last glance at the monolith.
He committed it to memory, then turned back to Selina. "How do I leave?"
"You do not need a door, nor a path." Her tone softened. "You only need to close your eyes with the will to go."
He nodded.
The mist curled around his legs like a farewell.
Just as he began to close his eyes, Selina's voice followed him - quiet, certain, full of grace.
"May the Moon Goddess light your path."