Tanya stepped forward, boots crunching through the cracked and torn soil of the ruined field, her wings folding tighter against her back to cut through the haze of residual dust. The air was thick with the remnants of battle—ionized, sharp on the tongue, mixed with the faintly metallic tang of blood and something deeper, older. Something that smelled like shattered earth and broken instincts.

  Her gaze swept the scene once—Luna lay crumpled far beyond, a limp figure half-curled in the mud, her silver hair plastered against her face, Sol hovering protectively over her like a shield that had arrived a second too late. Luna's chest rose and fell faintly, erratic, and Sol's hands fluttered uncertainly over her body, checking for injuries with frantic touches.

  But Tanya didn't move toward them.

  Whether it was instinct, discipline, or simply the part of her that was more Surya than Tanya—her mind cut away all distractions. Priorities aligned like iron filings before a magnet.

  First. Her brother.

  She crossed the battered ground in two strides, every step measured, her gaze pinned to the battered figure in front of her.

  Tarak stood stubbornly upright. His chest heaved with breath. Steam curled lazily from his wounds as they knit themselves closed at a crawl. His tail, broken in places, lashed idly behind him in unconscious irritation, scattering dust and pebbles.

  Tanya reached out—gently, firmly—and took hold of his right wrist.

  Tarak winced. A soft, involuntary sound, almost a growl in the back of his throat. But he didn't pull away. His crimson slit eyes flickered toward her, and then away again, like a wounded beast resigned to its caretaker.

  She brought his forearm closer to her face, examining it in the fractured light.

  The damage was brutal.

  The flesh near the elbow had been chunked away, the exposed interior rimmed with a halo of stubborn blue ice that hissed softly as it tried and failed to spread further. At first glance, Tanya thought the pale material beneath was normal bone—but no. Her sharp eyes caught it immediately. This was not what she knew as bone.

  It was crystalline.

  A dense, grayish-white structure, like living marble sculpted by unseen hands. It shimmered faintly under the light, not with the brittle cleanness of dead crystal, but with a muted vitality, as if it were alive in some alien way. Not hard and dry like stone—flexible at the smallest scales, capable of flexing under stress without shattering.

  She turned his wrist ever so slightly.

  There was only one major forearm bone.

  Not the twin pillars of radius and ulna like in humans. Just a singular, massive structure—thicker, stronger, optimized for torque and stress distribution in ways she couldn't even begin to map out.

  Her amethyst eyes narrowed in fascination.

  The veins—the ones that remained intact and not torn free—were armored too. Not with flesh or cartilage, but with flexible crystalline sheaths that wound around them like natural armor. They pulsed faintly under her touch, proof that blood—or something akin to it—still flowed through them.

  And deeper still—when the light from the fractured sky hit the bone just right—she could see it.

  A lattice.

  Intricate, fractal, self-reinforcing. A honeycomb of structural support that extended through the entire interior of the bone. Where marrow would be in a human, there was a vast, layered architecture instead—designed not to create blood, but to resist devastation.

  And tucked within that lattice, she glimpsed... veins inside the bone itself.

  That made her pause.

  How did blood flow through such a structure?

  How did regeneration operate within it?

  Was the lattice itself alive in some way, capable of flexing and repairing damage like flesh?

  She had no answers. Only more questions.

  Her mind raced, trying to categorize it, to fit it into any framework of biology she understood—but it slipped between her fingers like water through cracked stone.

  And yet.

  This was still Tarak.

  Her little brother.

  She let out a slow breath she hadn't realized she was holding and gently released his wrist.

  For all his monstrousness, all his alien nature, he had endured all of this—and still stood before her. Bloodied, battered, but unbowed. His crimson eyes, still fogged with remnants of rage, flickered toward her again. There was confusion there. Suprise. Maybe even a hint of lingering fear.

  He didn't know if she would still see him the same way.

  Tanya's hand brushed his shoulder—brief, firm, steady.

  And she smiled.

  Not wide.

  Not soft.

  But real.

  He was still her brother. Crystalline bones and all.

  She looked closer at the wound.

  Tarak's flesh actively squirmed and twitched around the damage, attempting to regenerate. Muscles rippled faintly, stretching and contracting in a desperate, instinctive effort to heal. Yet no matter how it tried, it utterly failed around the blue-frosted wounds. The ice, sinister and clinging, completely blocked any regeneration from taking place there, sealing the damaged areas in frozen stasis.

  But aside from the frozen patches, she could see his muscles continuing their slow, determined work. His flesh crawled across the exposed bone, threading itself in ways that defied human anatomy. It spiraled along the crystalline lattice of his forearm bone, each fiber compressing itself impossibly tight before adding a new layer atop the last.

  How curious, she thought, her sharp gaze narrowing.

  She doubted this strange muscle behavior was the full reason the Tyrannius were so strong—their strength shattered the basic laws of biology, at least the ones she knew—but at least now, she understood a little better why they were so heavy. Their bodies were dense in ways no human body ever could be.

  Her eyes shifted to the stubborn ice embedded in his flesh. She frowned slightly.

  If the ice wasn't removed, Tarak might take a long time to fully heal. Maybe days. Maybe longer. Even for someone like him, regeneration couldn't fix what the frozen curse kept sealed.

  Slowly, her gaze rose to meet his.

  Tarak's slit-pupiled crimson eyes looked back at her with unwavering calm—and with something else. Absolute trust.

  There wasn't even a flicker of hesitation.

  "I'm going to tear this out," she said quietly, voice soft but firm. "It might hurt a bit."

  Tarak merely nodded once, short and sure.

  No words needed.

  Tanya flexed her fingers, letting her claws extend with a soft shnick. She grasped the largest chunk of ice carefully, her talons needing to dig into the frozen wound itself. She could feel the resistance, feel how even injured his flesh still fought her slightly, stubborn and resilient.

  Even weakened by cold, even torn and bleeding, his body was an iron fortress.

  In the back of her mind, she registered the fact that even if the two of them clawed at one another in earnest, neither would do any real damage without serious force behind it. Their bodies had evolved—or been born—for much more violent challenges.

  She shook the thought away.

  Focus.

  Her wings flared once behind her for leverage. Then, with a grimace, she heaved backward, pulling with all her strength. The movement was clean and precise—trained not just for brutality but control.

  The flesh around the embedded ice stretched. She could feel it resisting, the fibers flexing desperately to hold themselves together.

  SQUELCH!

  The sound was wet, visceral.

  The shard of cursed ice tore free, pulling a chunk of Tarak's flesh with it. Tanya felt his body shudder beneath her grip, a low grunt rumbling from his chest as he instinctively jerked. She immediately dropped the bloodied fragment onto the shattered earth, her sharp eyes flicking back to examine the wound.

  It wasn't clean.

  Though some smaller shards of ice still lingered inside, she could already see them melting faster now, the regeneration pathways no longer sealed shut. His flesh, living and voracious, began to coil around the foreign material, absorbing and devouring it. His body's natural adaptations asserting dominance once more.

  It would take time—likely until tomorrow—for his arms to fully heal. His tail, which had borne the full brunt of the heavenly strike, would probably take even longer.

  Tanya's hand reached upward almost automatically, brushing through his black and white hair in a rough, comforting motion.

  "You did well," she murmured, voice low and warm.

  Tarak leaned into her touch without hesitation, his tail twitching faintly behind him. Trust radiated from him—not in words, but in simple, unguarded action.

  "Show me your other arm," she said.

  He obeyed without complaint, presenting the next limb. They repeated the gruesome process. Another shard yanked free, another grunt tearing from Tarak's throat. He bore it all without flinching otherwise, his sharp crimson eyes remaining fixed—not on her, but elsewhere.

  The tail was worse.

  Much worse.

  Its durability worked against them now. The armored scales and crystalline structure were tougher than steel, and the ice had embedded itself deeper, anchored by the force of impact. Tanya had to actively harden her wings, the feathers along the edges sharpening like blades. She hacked away carefully but firmly at the wound, forcing the frozen flesh apart.

  Tarak sweated under the strain, sweat beading along his brow and temples, but he didn't scream. Only the twitch of his tail and the slight baring of fangs betrayed the pain.

  Tanya felt a pang of regret as she worked.

  But it was necessary.

  Better pain now than having to wait an entire week to heal.

  Still, even as she extracted shard after shard, her mind wandered—following the direction of Tarak's gaze.

  He wasn't looking at her.

  He was staring at Luna.

  And Tanya knew—instinctively, absolutely—that the emotions brewing in his blood-red eyes were not guilt. They were not forgiveness.

  No.

  If she had not arrived when she did, Tarak would have pulverized Luna's skull against the ruined earth without a second thought.

  He would not have hesitated. He would not have looked back.

  She exhaled slowly through her nose.

  A part of her was angry too—colder, less consuming than Tarak's fury, but still very much alive. A simmering, restrained wrath that clawed beneath her rational mind. Her instincts howled at her to be furious. To be protective. To rend anything that hurt her brother.

  But she was not only instinct.

  She was Surya. She was Tanya. She had learned, even if the lessons had been bought in blood.

  Her wings tucked back slightly as she turned her head, golden hair catching the light of the ruined suns.

  Across the field, where Luna's crumpled body had fallen, another figure now stood.

  Midea.

  The onyx demon had arrived, a few minutes later than herself—but Tanya could guess why. He had likely remained behind, keeping the elders' attention diverted, ensuring that none of them interfered in what they would undoubtedly call "family matters."

  The tall, imposing figure of Midea bent over Luna's unconscious form, his robes fluttering gently in the broken winds. His crimson gaze was sharp, calculating. His hands moved methodically, tapping at her limbs, her chest, her forehead—testing, probing, diagnosing without a word.

  His brow furrowed slightly with each pass.

  Nearby, Sol knelt at Luna's side, her smaller body taut with worry. Her hands fluttered uselessly above her sister, not sure where to help, not sure if she should touch.

  Tanya watched it all silently, her hand still resting on Tarak's broad shoulder.

  The battlefield lay quiet, save for the distant creak of shattered trees and the low whine of wind scraping across torn earth.

  The blonde girl was the first to sense Tanya's gaze. Sol's head snapped up, her twin black eyes wide with worry. Without hesitation, she sprinted toward them across the broken field, her small form weaving through the churned and ruined earth.

  Tanya stood firm, silent as a stone as Sol approached. She offered a faint smile and a nod—small gestures, but enough to send the message: It's alright.

  But Sol barely acknowledged it, her focus honed completely on Tarak.

  Tanya's gaze drifted sideways, narrowing slightly. To most, Tarak's expression would seem as blank and placid as ever—stone-faced, unmoved. But Tanya knew better. She caught the almost imperceptible flicker in his crimson slit eyes. A twinge of hesitation. Of worry.

  He's scared, she realized.

  Not of pain. Not of weakness.

  He was scared of her—of Sol.

  Afraid of what she would think of him after seeing him like that.

  Afraid that he had gone too far.

  Tanya's eyes sharpened further. She readied herself. If Sol lashed out—if even the faintest ripple of fear or rejection crossed her face—Tanya would move to stop it. Quickly. Tarak didn't deserve another scar. Not one like that.

  But then—

  Sol paused in front of him, her small frame dwarfed by his own. Her dark eyes locked onto his burning crimson ones.

  For a moment, the world seemed to still.

  Then, without a word, she lunged forward.

  She grabbed Tarak's head, wrapping her arms around his neck, pulling him into her chest with sudden, fierce strength. She twisted just enough so that his horns didn't gouge into her—but they still scraped her shoulder, tearing into her skin. Blood splattered across his bare arms and chest, steaming slightly where it touched his battle-warmed flesh.

  Tarak stiffened in shock, instinctively trying to pull away.

  "What are yo—" he began.

  But Sol cut him off, her voice low but steady, spoken directly against his ear.

  "Thank you for holding back as much as you could, Tarak. And for fighting for me. I deserve that wound. I'm the cause of this."

  She pulled back slightly, enough for him to see her eyes—clear, unwavering, dark as the depths of the night sky.

  "You both got hurt because of me. It's the least I could do."

  Her blood continued to run freely down her arm, staining the front of her tunic crimson. And yet she stood there, unwavering, offering him not anger, not fear—gratitude.

  Tanya's brows rose in surprise, a small pulse of something warm prickling her heart.

  Good, she thought.

  Good girl.

  Sol turned then, surprising Tanya again as she closed the distance and threw her arms around her waist in a tight hug.

  "Thank you for stopping him and saving my sister, Surya," Sol whispered against her side.

  Tanya stiffened—reflexively, awkwardly—but after a moment, she raised a hand and patted Sol gently on the back. The motions were clumsy, foreign. She wasn't used to... this. But she did it all the same.

  After a long moment, they separated.

  Tanya watched as Sol turned back to Tarak, who was staring at her wounded shoulder, his brows furrowed into a subtle scowl. His hands twitched, as if resisting the urge to pull her to the house of healing himself.

  Before he could open his mouth, Sol reached up and patted his cheek.

  "I'm fine," she said softly, smiling at him with fierce, unshakable certainty. "I told you—I'm very strong. Just think of it as karma."

  Her smile was bright. Genuine. Untouched by pain or fear. It carried the force of a promise: I will not hate you.

  Tarak opened his mouth again—then closed it. His tail twitched once behind him, a small, betraying motion of emotion. He said nothing, but the way he stood, shoulders loose, chin dipped slightly—Tanya could tell.

  He was relieved.

  Just then, the ground trembled faintly. A new sound rose over the battlefield—the heavy, rhythmic thud of hooves striking shattered earth.

  Tanya turned her head.

  There, framed against the fractured horizon, came the towering figure of Midea. Seven feet tall, his demonic horns gleaming like dark iron under the seven colored suns, his obsidian skin almost seeming to drink the light.

  In his arms, cradled with surprising gentleness, was Luna's unconscious form.

  Her silver hair trailed limply over his shoulder, and despite her injuries, there was something stubborn and almost peaceful about her expression.

  Midea's stride was slow but inevitable, like a storm cloud moving toward the center of a ruined battlefield. His presence blanketed the area in heavy, tense silence.

  Behind Tanya, Tarak and Sol both turned, watching as the onyx demon closed the distance.

  "Let's return to the house," Midea said, his voice calm but carrying an unmistakable authority that brooked no argument.

  His crimson eyes shifted, fixing on Sol with a piercing gaze that seemed to cut through the chaos around them.

  "You," he continued, the slight flare of his nostrils betraying his displeasure, "go get that dealt with first at the House of Healing before coming."

  His tone left little room for debate, cold and clipped under the brutal gaze of the seven suns.

  "But I want to be with Luna!" Sol protested immediately, her fists clenching at her sides, her wounded shoulder trembling with the effort to stand firm. "Also, what about Tarak's injuries?"

  Her voice wavered slightly, not from fear but from the overwhelming emotions crashing over her—the guilt, the stubbornness, the helplessness. Her black eyes burned with frustrated defiance.

  Midea's horns caught the brilliant glare of the suns, a flash of gold against the endless blue sky. His towering form darkened, and his expression sharpened, crimson eyes narrowing into slits of displeasure. The sheer pressure of his gaze felt like a hammer falling, silent but undeniable.

  Tanya, standing beside Tarak, felt him shift—preparing to move, likely to defend Sol out of instinct—but she swiftly placed a firm hand against his chest, halting him without a word. She didn't even look at him. She knew he would stop if she asked.

  Midea's voice dropped lower, harsher, not cruel but implacable.

  "He will be fine," Midea said, gesturing slightly to Tarak without ever removing his gaze from Sol. "And there will be plenty of time to visit after you are healed."

  He leaned forward just a fraction, the massive sweep of his horns tilting with the motion, casting deep shadows across his angular face.

  "And," he added pointedly, "are you sure—given what you told me about the situation—that the first thing she'll want to see when she wakes... will be yourself?"

  The words weren't shouted. They didn't need to be. They struck harder than any blow could have.

  Sol flinched as if physically hit, her brave front cracking for the first time. Her posture deflated, her ears drooping slightly, and she turned away without another word. She didn't argue. She didn't even look back.

  Her small figure slunk off across the ruined field, the red earth stained with blood and shattered numen, leaving behind a trail of silent apology.

  Tanya watched as her brother's eyes—sharp, crimson, protective—trailed after the wayward wolf girl, his eyelids lowering slightly in worry. Really he barely showed it on the surface but inside was a storm of feelings.

  But just as his gaze threatened to turn toward Luna again, Tanya moved.

  With a swift, practiced motion, she flared her wings wide, blocking his line of sight entirely. The dark, metallic silver-gray of her feathers formed a wall between him and the world.

  "Focus," she said simply, her voice soft but commanding, brooking no room for negotiation.

  Tarak sighed through his nose, the air hissing past his fangs, but he listened, moving away his gaze and turning his body slightly to follow her instead.

  And so, without another word, Tanya led the way, cutting between them, her presence forcing a path forward as the three of them made their way back to the house.

  The journey back was not without notice.

  Eyes followed them—whispers trailing in their wake. Hunters paused sharpening their blades. Weavers dropped their bolts of cloth. Even among the hard-eyed wolfmen of Wolvenblade, a sight like this was rare: the Reification, the Hunter of the Seventh Sun, and the Onyx Demon himself, carrying a fallen girl, bloodied and battered, back from the edge of a battlefield.

  Some caught glimpses of Tarak's injuries despite Tanya's wings angled to cover him. There were murmurs. Startled glances. The slow realization of how close things had come to catastrophe.

  But none dared to approach.

  The creak of the wooden porch sounded like a gunshot in the silence as Tanya opened the door to their house.

  Inside, the air was cooler, heavy with the scent of beast furs and old woodsmoke. The main room was simple, functional: a thick spread of black and purple beast furs covered the floors, absorbing the impact of heavy boots and claws alike. The wood beneath creaked faintly with each step, worn smooth from years of passage.

  Tarak stumbled a little as he sat, wincing openly now that they were out of public view. His tail, blood still dripping from its shattered tip, curled limply against the floor, leaving a faint trail against the furs.

  Midea crossed the room in long strides, his hoofed steps sinking deep into the beast pelts. He laid Luna carefully on a cushion not far from the central low table—close enough to watch, but separate enough to give her space.

  Only then did he turn, crossing his arms across his broad chest and fixing both Tanya and Tarak with his heavy, assessing stare.

  During the trek back, Tanya and Tarak had traded words—quiet, clipped exchanges that conveyed what had happened between the beginning and end of the battle. Tanya had pieced it together well enough: Luna's sudden instability, Tarak's instinctual response, the descent into chaos that had almost ended in tragedy.

  She had a firm grasp of the situation now.

  But what mattered most wasn't what happened.

  But rather how.

  "First off," Tanya began, her voice even, though a faint sharpness edged her words, "how did she do anything Tarak described?"

  Her amethyst eyes flicked toward Midea, who stood calmly beside the table, arms folded. He seemed utterly unbothered by the destruction left in Luna's wake, as if patiently awaiting her questions, as if he'd anticipated this conversation from the beginning.

  "To my understanding," Tanya continued, her wings folding tighter around her as she leaned her hip against the low table, "outside of Intent—which isn't exactly made of numen but born from the individual's will—one should not be able to project numen outside their body in the First Layer. And elemental abilities should be beyond their capabilities entirely. That," she said, her voice cooling to a razor's edge of curiosity, "is not what I heard... nor what the evidence from the battle showed."

  Across from her, Midea's crimson eyes gleamed faintly under the soft lighting of the house. He let her words hang for a moment, weighing them as easily as a butcher weighing meat.

  "You wouldn't be wrong at all," he said, voice low and smooth, tilting his head just slightly so that one dark horn caught the light. "I did indeed say that."

  He tapped a claw lightly against his jaw in thought, the talon clicking against his pitch black skin.

  "But," he continued, "I also said it was not absolute. There are exceptions to every rule. There are things in this world that don't follow clean diagrams and well-ordered textbooks."

  He shifted, resting his six-fingered hand under his chin, his posture casual but his gaze sharp.

  "Tell me," Midea said, his tone almost playful, "what does the Dao Carving Realm entail?"

  Before Tanya could even open her mouth, another voice answered.

  "It is when one uses the sutra they cultivated in order to carve its Dao image into their meridians," Tarak said, his voice neutral, mechanical almost, like reciting memorized scripture.

  He sat stiffly on the cushion, one arm braced against his side, tail twitching faintly from where it lay stretched behind him. His black and white hair hung low over his slit, crimson eyes, but there was no hesitation in his words.

  "This aligns their path with a certain Dao," Tarak continued, almost droning. "It purifies the numen they absorb into that Dao. It also adds an attribute to it. In the Second Layer this process allows more complex abilities, rather than basic numen reinforcement."

  Midea snapped his fingers, the sound sharp and oddly resonant in the enclosed space. The six digits moved fluidly, unnerving in a way Tanya couldn't quite define.

  "Exactly," Midea said, his grin a thin slash across his face. "The Dao begins to exist in the soul—or in the body. They become living carriers of the Dao."

  He leaned forward slightly, his shadow stretching long across the furs.

  "The Vitra," he continued, "the so-called outer soul, lies between those two. It's the medium. A bridge between spirit and flesh. Your meridians aren't just blood vessels for numen. They are spiritual organs, living conduits. The Vitra reflects them... but it's a bit more complex than merely that."

  His voice dropped lower, becoming almost a purr of knowledge unfurling, as if he found pleasure in explaining something few ever understood.

  Tanya's mind churned, gears grinding steadily as she pieced through everything she remembered.

  If she recalled correctly, before her transformation, Luna had possessed an affinity for yin-attributed numen. A minor gift, but one that aligned her well with darkness, cold, and reflection-based techniques. At east it would have if she ever learnt anything of that sort and got to the second layer. However, after her mutation into a Nahemoth—and more crucially, after the absorption of that strange necklace Midea had once commented on—her affinity hadn't remained static. No, it had evolved.

  Midea had described it differently back then.

  A physique.

  Something far beyond mere elemental affinity.

  Her black claws drummed once, lightly, against the table as realization struck her like a cold bolt of logic.

  "If she's able to use elemental abilities so early..." Tanya muttered, mostly to herself, before raising her voice just slightly, her amethyst gaze cutting sharply toward Midea. "Then that means—"

  "So a 'physique,'" she said, her words clipping clean through the air, "is when one has the laws of a specific Dao already engraved into their vitra?"

  The room seemed to still slightly at her words.

  Midea's crimson eyes gleamed, the corners of his mouth curling into a faint smirk that, by his standards, was practically lavish praise. At least, that's how Tanya read it.

  "Indeed," Midea said, inclining his head a fraction. His horns caught the faint lamplight, casting long, twisting shadows across the beast furs. "Though it's deeper than merely the vitra."

  He leaned forward slightly, resting one six-fingered hand atop the low table, his claws tapping once against the wood in emphasis.

  "A true physique," he continued, voice dropping into that oddly lecturing cadence of his, "can be marked across multiple layers of the soul. Sometimes even into the spectra—the truest foundation of numen resonance. For the strongest among them... some are even said to be threaded through the atman itself."

  Tanya's eyes narrowed slightly at that. The atman—the origin soul—was something even she, for all her expanding knowledge, only understood vaguely. Though she could apparently eat it. If a physique could touch even that…

  Midea's lips pulled into a sharper line, sensing her thoughts.

  "Such physiques cannot be separated," he said. "Not by poison, not by surgery, not even by soul-rending. They are fused into the very existence of the bearer."

  He tapped the table again, lighter this time, punctuating the lesson.

  "A physique," Midea said, voice almost reverent, "allows one to naturally pull from numen associated with their Dao from the very beginning. It grants easier comprehension of techniques aligned to that Dao. Enhances cultivation speed. Refines talents. Sometimes... it even manifests in direct abilities or bodily oddities."

  He paused, letting the weight of that sink in before continuing.

  "Some are granted by Heaven. Some are crafted by fateful objects—divine remnants of an older worlds or eras. Some are birthed by sheer, bloody chance. That is the nature of physiques."

  He smiled slightly.

  "Though more properly," he added, "they are often called 'Sky Vessels.' Because their bodies are vessels—not just for themselves, but for the Dao itself. For Heaven's will."

  Tanya nodded slowly, processing. Her mind turned like a blade being sharpened.

  It made sense. It tracked. But it didn't explain everything.

  Her gaze turned back toward Luna's unconscious form, then flicked again to Midea, sharp and questioning.

  "Even if it came with abilities," she said, her voice cooling further, "from what I heard from Tarak... she was far too good at fighting."

  Her arms crossed, the firelight glinting off her blackened claws.

  "She wasn't just throwing around raw force. She was using techniques. Maneuvers. Concepts she could have no knowledge of." Tanya's brow furrowed slightly, curiousity flickering across her expression. "Are these Sky Vessels truly so absurd?"

  Her words cut clean across the room, and for a moment, silence reigned.

  Then Midea tilted his head, almost sympathetically, his long, onyx horns glinting faintly.

  "Not exactly," Midea said calmly.

  He turned his head briefly toward the unconscious girl, his crimson eyes half-lidded, contemplative.

  "That," he said, "is more related to her being a demon."

  He smiled faintly, raising one hand—and with a casual flex of his fingers, a swirl of violet numen rose into the air.

  The numen condensed, warping the space above his palm, and in the next moment, a miniature tree bloomed into being. Dark. Ancient. Its bark a writhing blend of shadow and substance, its branches stretching toward unseen horizons.

  The tree radiated an endless majesty, so thick that Tanya felt it pressing on the edges of her mind simply by looking at it. A grandeur that defied her limited senses. A weight of existence meant for something much, much older than any child—or any mortal village.

  The air thickened.

  Midea's six-fingered hand cradled the black tree of numen like one might cradle a viper, his expression still calm, still utterly controlled.

  "This," Midea began, voice deepening with a strange gravity as he rotated the swirling violet tree gently above his palm, "is Qlipoth. The origin of the demon race."

  Tanya's gaze sharpened as the miniature tree spun, every twist of its gnarled branches dragging unseen currents through the numen-rich air. She could feel the reverberations, like a heartbeat not her own pressing against her ribs.

  "I spoke to you about this before," Midea continued, his six-fingered hand turning just so, the tree tilting in response. The light from the room seemed to bend around the conjured thing, as if unwilling to touch it fully.

  "When demons surpass a layer and ascend into the next, they evolve," he said simply. "Their evolution—their transformation—is determined by their Dao. By the depth of their resonance. By the trials they forced themselves through at their previous level."

  The dark tree shimmered faintly, its roots writhing across the invisible plane he had conjured, and the branches curled further outward, as if drinking in unseen nutrients from the atmosphere itself.

  "It is also," Midea added thoughtfully, "according to some research, minorly influenced by their thoughts, their lifestyle, their responsibilities."

  He paused, letting the words settle.

  "Though," he said with a wry tilt of his mouth, "that is a hard thing to study. Sentiment and evolution are not easily weighed."

  He rotated the tree again.

  Tanya's ears twitched faintly as she caught the low creak of something ancient shifting within that projection, a sensation she could not fully place. It wasn't real—it couldn't be real—but it felt real.

  "The first demons of Hell," Midea said, voice dipping lower, almost reverent, "were the Kabbalistic Demons. They arose from the eleven fruits of Qlipoth."

  As he spoke, the tree responded.

  Eleven fruit blossomed along the blackened boughs—spheres of impossible brilliance. Each fruit gleamed in a different shade, from sickly golds to bruised violets to deep, endless blacks that seemed to swallow color itself. Tanya found her breath catching in her throat despite herself.

  "And from those eleven fruits," Midea continued, "were born the progenitors."

  The fruits pulsed once, and from each, a figure descended—ethereal, terrible, noble in their monstrosity. Forms made of flame, shadow, stone, and smoke. Each incomprehensible yet undeniably there.

  "And all other demons came after them," he said, his voice almost a whisper now, though it carried with unyielding clarity. "Not born from the fruit directly... but from the roots. And from the Abyss."

  Tanya watched, enraptured, as the blackened roots of the tree wriggled and tore the ground below the fruits, birthing lesser demons—small twisted shapes, crawling free from cracks in reality. Their bodies shimmered between forms—some wolfish, others reptilian, others winged things of tooth and claw.

  "Even so," Midea said, crimson eyes gleaming as he looked up from the miniature display, "the origin of all demons is the same."

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  He rotated the tree once more, the fruits and the writhing lesser demons swirling in endless, chaotic dance.

  "Which is why," he said, "all demons—if they are talented enough—can become a Kabbalistic Demon. They can return to the fruit, in a manner of speaking. Our shared origin is the Great Tree."

  He exhaled slowly, the tree above his hand shrinking slightly as if responding to his breath.

  "And one could say its creative potential," Midea said, voice touched with something that might have been pride, or sorrow, or awe, "is the very reason we demons evolve at all."

  The tree darkened slightly, the writhing roots slowing.

  "A fragment of the Tree," he continued, "exists in every demon. In all of us. And when we are subjected to the pressure of Heaven—the gaze of that hateful sky—it catalyzes."

  Tanya's mind raced, remembering the Eye that Luna had summoned, the sheer terror it had projected. That pressure…

  "It forces us anew," Midea said grimly. "It reshapes us. Forces our bodies and souls to respond."

  He leaned back slightly now, letting the tree hover gently over his open palm.

  "In the beginning of demonkind, this led to countless evolutions. A flood of new types of demons, charting new Daos and new paths through existence."

  The tree pulsed again, as the lesser demons blossomed into different shapes—blooming, twisting, evolving—before settling back into the ground.

  "But the demon race is old now," Midea said, a faint note of regret threading through his voice. "Many Daos have been walked. Many paths have been carved. Many evolutions have been mapped and charted."

  The tree above his hand twisted subtly, showing tangled pathways, memories of countless transformations that flickered across its bark like a tapestry of existence.

  "Now," Midea said, his voice leveling out into cold certainty, "when any demon evolves… they are rarely, if ever, carving a new path."

  He glanced briefly toward Luna's unconscious form.

  "They become a type that has existed before. Sometimes rare. Sometimes powerful. Sometimes terribly weak."

  His clawed fingers closed slowly, and the projection of the dark tree collapsed in on itself, vanishing into a small violet ember that floated between his fingertips before being snuffed out with a simple flick.

  "But in the end," Midea said, his crimson gaze cutting through the soft numen mist still clinging to the room, "it is always the same."

  Tanya said nothing for a long moment.

  Her gaze lingered on the place where the tree had been.

  "Now," Midea said, his voice slow and deliberate as his eyes gleamed faintly beneath the muted light of the house, "when a powerful demon dies—one that has charted a new path or achieved a certain evolutionary threshold—their essence returns to the Great Tree, so to speak."

  He leaned back slightly, the wooden floor creaking softly beneath his shifting weight, while Luna's unconscious form rested undisturbed nearby. Tanya caught a whiff of the wild herbs and smoke lingering in the air from the house's protective wards, but her focus was laser-sharp on Midea's every word.

  "Their soul," he continued, "their genes, the very imprint of their existence... all of it, in fragments, can seep back into the greater Qlipoth. It's not intentional—it's not a gift or an inheritance. It's more like... a contamination."

  The demon rotated one clawed hand idly, as if illustrating the slow drifting of invisible ashes.

  "This occurrence," he said, emphasizing every syllable, "is exceedingly rare. So rare that the chance is infinitesimal. Most souls, most essences, dissolve into the Abyss or are changed by the heavens or even reincarnate before they can influence anything further."

  His crimson gaze darkened.

  "But... when it happens—it's not a blessing."

  He flicked his six-fingered hand sharply, as though dismissing any notion of romanticism.

  "When a demon evolves and inherits that remnant it tears the mind apart. Because the soul and the body are no longer a unified whole. The invading essence is alien. Discordant. It tries to overwrite or mesh with what already exists—and in doing so, can cause a host of issues."

  Tanya's fingers tightened slightly against her knees as she listened, feeling the weight of his explanation pressing down on her shoulders like a cold wind.

  "Sudden mood swings," Midea listed off clinically. "Erratic behaviors. Unfamiliar emotional impulses. Conflicting instincts."

  He glanced briefly at Luna's slumbering form, the barest flicker of something—not quite pity, but something close—passing through his otherwise impassive face.

  "And worse still," he said grimly, "memories can be inherited in this case. Not deliberately, like with the Deluvian dragons who pass lineage memories consciously, but violently. Forcefully."

  He leaned forward now, resting his elbow on the low table between them, the dark fur of the cushions catching the silver glint of some of the wares on the table.

  "It means the influence of the predecessor is particularly powerful. Especially dangerous for a being with weak cultivation or unstable emotions."

  His words settled into the room like a heavy mist, tangling with the distant creak of wood and the soft crackle of Luna's unconscious shifting.

  "This," Midea finished, voice low, "is what happened to Luna. Her Yin physique, her recent negative experiences, and the blood of the Scelus flowing through her—all of it contributed."

  Tanya's brow furrowed, her mind racing.

  "Too much darkness," Midea added, voice soft but implacable, "in one being too soon. Her cultivation is still shallow. Her soul not fully anchored. And so, the influence of her predecessor... shone through."

  Tanya sat back slightly, inhaling a slow, steady breath as she digested everything he'd said. Her wings, relaxed but half-spread behind her, stirred faintly with the motion.

  "So what you're saying," she said slowly, her dark amethyst eyes locking onto his with piercing intensity, "is that demons, through the Qlipoth, have a set of evolutions available to them."

  Midea nodded once, sharply.

  "A vast archive of paths carved by every demon who has evolved before them," Tanya continued, thinking aloud now. "A genetic library so to speak."

  Midea's lips quirked in something like approval.

  "And powerful demons," Tanya pressed on, "whose essence seeps back into that library... leave echoes. Shadows. Traces of their being that can still influence those who walk the same path."

  She tilted her head slightly, a lock of golden hair falling across her brow.

  "And that," she said, voice firm but curious, "is what's affecting Luna's personality."

  Midea's crimson eyes glinted with quiet affirmation.

  Tanya's expression twisted slightly as she followed the chain of logic to its next natural conclusion.

  "How is this ability different," she asked with curiosity, "from that of dragons?"

  Midea grinned faintly, the sharp gleam of his fangs flashing for a moment beneath the shifting light of the suns outside. He turned his head slightly, his crimson eyes reflecting the soft, multicolored rays seeping through the cracked window, the faint howl of distant wind stirring the curtains like old ghosts.

  "Demons don't pick their evolutions," Midea said, his voice carrying an easy, almost mocking cadence as he leaned against the wall, arms folding loosely across his broad chest. "What is most suited for you is what you get."

  He tapped a clawed finger idly against his bicep, a soft, rhythmic click of nail on skin accompanying his words.

  "And as for our so-called 'genetic library'—" he smirked, the expression dark and wry, "—it's not a collection of scrolls or memories we can leaf through at will. It's a living thing. A single massive structure. One entity. The Qlipoth."

  He lifted a hand, drawing a simple outline in the air, as if sketching an invisible tree with eleven thick, gnarled branches reaching toward unseen skies.

  "Dragons don't have anything like that," he continued, voice dropping a little, as if confiding a secret not meant for idle ears. "They don't evolve, not in the way we do. They are stable, refined. Perfect in form from the beginning."

  Tanya watched him carefully, her wings half-flared behind her like a living tapestry of tension. Across from her, Tarak remained seated, tail flicking once against the wooden floor.

  "They simply," Midea said, "have a vast reservoir of genetic excess in their bodies—a library of mutations, abilities, memories, and adaptations—that they can pull from when necessary."

  He rolled his wrist lazily, letting purple numen shimmer faintly around his fingertips.

  "They inherit techniques and sutras perfectly, directly and cleanly, across generations. No chaos. No accidents. No battling the influence of their ancestors. We demons... don't."

  His voice dropped to a near-growl at that, though his smirk never faltered.

  "This—what happened to Luna—is an exception. Not a rule."

  Tanya felt her stomach tighten at the unspoken weight in those words. An exception. A mistake born from the bleeding heart of an ancient tree.

  "And dragons," Midea said, voice resuming its lecturing cadence, "don't truly evolve. They adapt. They refine. They can graft abilities into their bodies, taking minor traits from the genetic library—but they don't chart new paths."

  He chuckled dryly under his breath.

  "And when they trailblaze—rare as that is—whatever new thing they create, it automatically uploads into the library for future generations."

  Midea's eyes glinted sharply, catching Tanya's gaze with an almost predatory clarity.

  "How it synchronizes so perfectly with the bodies of other dragons?" he said with a slight shrug. "Even they don't seem to know. Some speculate it's tied to the nature of their origin... but that's a story for another time."

  Tanya frowned slightly, her mind whirling. Her breath stirred small motes of dust in the air as she exhaled. How curious that was. So it was like a cloud of some sort. Were the dragons some sort of hivemind. It reminded her of that old sci-fi game with the evolving swarm. Something craft or whatever.

  "There are thirteen inherent abilities," Midea continued, "already integrated into the Deluvian dragon form from their genetic library. Thirteen core pillars."

  The number hung heavy in the air.

  "And anything else they acquire after that?" he said, with a slow, deliberate tilt of his head, "is minor. Supplementary. But—" his voice sharpened slightly, "—many among their kind aren't even able to awaken all thirteen. Most live their entire lives, only managing to access half. Those who awaken all thirteen are known as dragon emperors or future emperors at least."

  Tanya's jaw slackened slightly. She knew dragons were absurd creatures, but this...

  They were born with thirteen abilities. They had a perfect genetic library. They could adapt to things their ancestors had been through. They didn't need to carve daos manually. They didn't need to suffer madness or corruption from unstable legacies. They could look through the library for perfect techniques or arts.

  She stared at the ground for a moment, her black-nailed fingertips digging slightly into the thick beast-hide cushion she sat on.

  Damn, she thought bitterly. Why couldn't I have been a dragon instead? Is this pay-to-win? Be born to win?

  She exhaled softly through her nose.

  Though, she noted grimly, Midea had said Deluvian dragons specifically. There had to be other species. It was likely not every type of dragon was so ridiculous.

  Still... thirteen innate abilities?

  And the capacity to acquire more?

  A part of her—the ambitious part, the burning part—ached at the unfairness of it. But then she tempered herself. If nothing else, she herself was already quite ridiculous; she had no real right to complain.

  As such, yet another part of her... simply filed it away. Another ladder to climb. Another peak to reach.

  Her thoughts flickered as a realization struck her.

  Why did Midea seem to know so much about them?

  He spoke of dragons often. And not just in passing. With familiarity. With a kind of practiced disdain and familiarity—and something else too. Something that even now, sitting there across the warm glow of the furs and the fire, she couldn't fully place.

  "You," Tarak said suddenly, his voice low but cutting into the silence, "talk about dragons quite a bit."

  Her brother had called it out instead of her.

  Midea's head snapped toward Tarak the moment he finished speaking. His crimson eyes widened for just a fraction of a second—just long enough for Tanya to catch it.

  And then, just as swiftly, a smirk curled across his lips. A perfect mask.

  "Is that so," Midea said lazily, tilting his head as if in amusement.

  But Tanya saw it.

  She saw it clearly.

  The smirk wasn't the same as before. Not quite.

  There was a story there.

  And Tanya knew, with the certainty of a blade pressed against the back of her neck, that now wasn't the time to pry it free.

  "So what can we do to help Luna then," Tanya asked, her voice steady despite the whirlwind of emotions still stirring faintly beneath her skin. Her amethyst eyes caught the splintered light of the seven suns outside, reflecting it in fractured rays—cold, clear, and cutting.

  Midea tilted his head slightly, the motion oddly predatory in its grace, the around crimson iris around his abyssal pupils gleaming as he weighed her question. The onyx-hued demon leaned back against the low-beamed wall, the blue-green wood creaking slightly beneath his broad shoulders.

  "I will have to stay with her," Midea said calmly, folding his six-fingered hands atop the rough-hewn table, each claw tapping a slow, thoughtful rhythm against the gnarled wood. "To temper her impulses, so to speak. I'll have to be with her whenever I can."

  His voice didn't carry judgment. Only a regretful inevitability. Like the pronouncement of a mountain's shadow at noon.

  "But aside from that," he continued, his gaze sharpening slightly, "we need to find a Yang-based treasure. Something potent. Something pure."

  He paused, letting the words settle over them like a slow-building storm.

  "Something to balance the Yin that's overwhelming her body. And the darkness that's already starting to seep into her heart."

  Tanya exhaled slowly through her nose. A Yang treasure. She had read of such things in the scattered manuscripts of the library. Solar lotus blooms, fires from celestial beasts, the remnants of sun-crowned sovereigns. All rare. All heavily guarded, often by beasts.

  It wouldn't be easy.

  But it had to be done.

  Before Luna truly lost herself.

  Before she became something they couldn't save.

  Midea's crimson gaze flicked sharply to Tarak then, lingering.

  "That being said," he said, his voice deepening just slightly with a note of true confusion, "I'm still confused about how she hurt you, Tarak."

  The air shifted at that. Grew heavier.

  The crimson-eyed boy straightened slightly where he sat, his tail curling faintly behind him in a lazy but tense loop.

  "Even with the innate ability of the Nahemoth raising her attack power," Midea went on, tapping two claws thoughtfully against the table, "she should, as a cultivator of the sixth shackle, not have had the destructive ability to injure you so severely."

  His fingers tapped faster now—click, click, click—like a ticking clock.

  "Even mobilizing the power of Heaven... even leveraging an Eye of Heaven for a moment... her cultivation base should have bottlenecked her output. It's not supposed to be able to leap that far."

  Midea's voice dropped into a near-growl, frustration slipping through his polished tone for the first time.

  "Either I'm underestimating the innate ability of the Nahemoth," he said, leaning in ever so slightly across the table, the shadows deepening in the corners of the room, "or—"

  He tapped the table sharply with a claw.

  "—there is another factor at play here."

  Tanya leaned forward slightly, her wings folding tighter against her back as she absorbed the gravity of the words. Her mind turned over possibilities. External artifacts? A hidden inheritance? Some unknown devilry baked into Luna's altered bloodline?

  Or something deeper still?

  Beside her, she felt Tarak shift, his body still injured but posture unbowed. His crimson slit pupils flared slightly with something between caution and curiosity. When he spoke, his voice was clear, tinged with the eagerness he so rarely showed except in the pursuit of understanding.

  "The innate ability of the Nahemoth?" Tarak asked, tilting his head, curiosity sharpening his tone as his battered body seemed almost to hum with attention. His injured arm twitched slightly, but he paid it no mind. His focus was total. Eyes locked on Midea.

  Tanya saw it clearly—saw it the way only a sister could. That intense thirst for knowledge that even pain couldn't extinguish.

  The same burning need that had kept him moving through wounds that should have felled stronger men.

  "To be the center. To be loved by the heavens and the earth. To be fawned over by creation."

  Midea's voice was low, almost reverent in its weight, as he spoke.

  "Prema," he said, tapping the table once with a claw-tipped finger, as if sealing the word into the air itself, "that is the name of that power."

  The black and purple beast furs that lined the house seemed to absorb the gravity of his words, the dimming light of the seven suns outside casting longer shadows across the cracked floorboards.

  "It is broad," Midea continued, "and wide-reaching—even among the powers of the Kabbalistic demons. Prema is not some paltry trick. It is a sovereign right."

  His crimson eyes narrowed slightly, glinting with a faint trace of something—respect, or perhaps caution.

  "To my understanding," he said, "it allows one to cultivate faster, not by brute force, but by influencing ambient numen to love them. To want to be absorbed. It allows them to strike harder by doing something akin to chanting, but without speaking a word—and then they can chant atop that if they choose."

  Tanya's wings twitched faintly at that, her mind wandering over applications.

  "It allows the user to create illusions so vivid they bend the perception of heaven itself," Midea added, rotating his six-fingered hand lazily, as if drawing the concept into existence. "It grants astonishing luck. Not the kind bought with coins tossed into wells, but the kind that lets you survive what should have killed you. It can strengthen ward formations. Strengthen fates. Twist battles."

  The miniature dark tree of numen he had formed earlier reappeared at his side, the eleven glowing fruits pulsing like silent heartbeats.

  "And," Midea said, leaning forward just slightly, "some records hint that it can do even more than that. Things even I would hesitate to name."

  "I can understand," Midea continued, "how she called on such an attack—with the knowledge of an old Nahemoth layered atop her—and resisted the strain by using Prema to bear the cost."

  He tapped the table again—once, sharp.

  "But it still shouldn't have been that powerful."

  The statement hung in the air like a guillotine waiting to fall.

  Across from her, Tarak shifted slightly, his breathing steady but his eyes still curious.. He sat stiffly, his battered body still bleeding faint trickles where the worst of the ice had pierced him, though the wounds were slowly closing.

  "Before she called the ugly eye," he said flatly, his voice carrying that same mechanical calm he always used—but Tanya could tell.

  He wasn't unaffected.

  Not this time.

  There was a tremor there. Small. Almost invisible. But to someone who knew him as well as she did, it was as plain as blood on snow.

  She reached out instinctively, brushing her fingers lightly over his hand.

  His hand twitched under hers. Just slightly. Enough.

  Her chest tightened.

  He was still just a boy.

  For all his terrifying strength. For all his battle-born instincts. For all the brutality he could unleash when cornered.

  He was still her brother.

  Tanya's amethyst gaze lifted and locked onto Midea.

  "Do you have any ideas about that?" she asked coolly, though her voice carried a slight hardness to it now—a faint edge of protectiveness she didn't bother to hide.

  Midea's crimson gaze lingered on her for a moment, measuring, weighing. Then he turned his head slightly, staring out the narrow window into the dying light of the day.

  "If you're asking if there's anything related to your mother that I know of... no," he said at last, his voice even. "If Lervea had a widely known weakness, she wouldn't have the reputation she does. She would have been offed long before now."

  Tanya nodded slightly, her jaw tight. That much she could believe. Lervea was too careful. Too terrible in her strength to allow such a thing. Tanya had been curious. Were Tyrannius particularly susceptible to ice? Did they have a kryptonite, so to speak? That sort of knowledge was what she had desired. But naturally, Midea would have no real idea, so she'd have to chug on and hope someone didn't pull out some rock that debilitated her completely and utterly. As for why Tarak was so harmed, she would continue to investigate.

  "But," Midea said, flicking his crimson gaze back toward them, "I do have some ideas." the demon spoke up.

  The light caught his horns, casting crooked shadows across the floorboards.

  "It's better," he said, tone firm, "to wait to confirm them."

  Tanya exhaled slowly through her nose, letting it go for now. Pressing would do no good.

  She turned her head slightly, catching the angle of the suns as they dipped lower on the horizon, staining the sky with broad swaths of crimson and gold. The dying light washed over the battered house, throwing long, jagged shadows across the walls.

  It would be time soon.

  Sol would be coming.

  And there was much still to figure out. How to heal Luna. How to deal with the consequences of today. How to move forward.

  But not now.

  For now, her world was smaller.

  She squeezed Tarak's hand gently again, grounding herself—and him—in the silence between heartbeats.

  "That's enough of that."

  Tanya's voice cut through the fading conversation with a quiet finality. She rose, her body moving with the grace of a drawn bow, then turned and extended a hand to her brother, who blinked up at her, confusion flickering across his crimson-slit pupils.

  "Tarak, let's take a nap," she said simply, no room for argument in her tone.

  For a moment, he hesitated—not out of defiance, but almost as if the suggestion hadn't registered immediately. His mind was still spinning in that muted, mechanical way of his after a battle. Processing everything. Calculating things that no child should ever have to calculate. Blood still stained the edges of his torn tunic, but the wounds had closed. His body had already stemmed the bleeding with that monstrous vitality of his. At the very least, Tanya thought, they wouldn't wake up drowning in a puddle of it.

  Tarak's hand—still scratched, still rough—reached out and found hers. She pulled him gently to his feet, her own body moving carefully, as if afraid he might fall apart if jostled too hard. He didn't resist. He never would, not with her.

  "You must be exhausted," she murmured as she led him toward the cushioned resting alcove, each step creaking softly against the purple-stained wood, "and angry."

  The words weren't an accusation. They were an observation. A balm. A permission to lay down burdens too heavy to carry alone.

  "Just rest for a while," Tanya whispered, pulling him into her arms.

  Tarak stiffened briefly out of reflex—he always did—but then melted into her embrace. She sat down against the plush cushions, dragging him with her, and folded her wings around them both. Her great silver wings curved inward, cocooning him in velvet darkness and warmth, shutting out the world beyond.

  Tarak's head came to rest lightly against her shoulder, his hair brushing her collarbone. His breathing was quick at first—still stuck in the echoes of battle—but it slowed gradually as her hands threaded through his black-and-white hair in soothing, repetitive motions.

  His eyes stayed open for a while longer, a thin gleam of red shining against the shadows. Tanya or rather Surya simply held him closer, murmuring nonsense under her breath—words without weight, without meaning, just sound to fill the spaces fear would otherwise invade.

  And slowly, inevitably, his eyes began to drift closed. First one, then the other. His body relaxed further against her, the tension bleeding out of his muscles as the weight of exhaustion and safety both claimed him.

  Wrapped in one another's warmth, the two little monsters fell into slumber.

  ____________

  Lervea tucked the medallion away into a flicker of subspace, the artifact slipping through reality with a faint shimmer like a stone sinking into water. She sealed the tear with a snap of her fingers, subtle and sharp, before turning her gaze back toward Vanar, who sat casually against the cracked earth, watching her with a glint of curiosity in his crimson eyes.

  "You made one of those, huh," he said, raising a brow, his voice carrying that easygoing, irritating drawl that made it hard to tell when he was joking and when he wasn't. His golden-furred monkey tail thumped lazily against the ground at his side, the motion rhythmic, almost bored.

  "Makes sense," Vanar continued, shrugging. "It's not like you can use those fancy rings these cultivators love to flaunt."

  He leaned back, planting a palm against the scorched, broken battlefield, the smoldering light of the dying stars above catching on his tattered clothes and casting long shadows across the land. The lingering heat from the battlefield—the one she had crafted with her own hands and burned into existence—still sizzled faintly around them, but was already beginning to dissipate, like steam escaping a broken pipe. Threads of flaming light wrapped around their bodies, casting both of them in an eerie, restless glow, as if the sky itself mourned the aftermath.

  "Where did you get it from?" she asked, her voice slicing cleanly through the slow, heavy air. There was no softness to her tone anymore. Only a rigid, inevitable sharpness.

  "Did you just find it?" she pressed, her pupils narrowing slightly, the tension beneath her skin starting to coil. Her golden wings flaring to her sides.

  Vanar tilted his head at her, amused at her sudden edge, though something in his posture stiffened. His tail stilled. "That's not what my informant told me," she added, the words like iron nails being hammered into the silence.

  The stars overhead glittered like knives scattered across black velvet, sharp, cold, and silent witnesses to what came next.

  Vanar scratched the side of his head absentmindedly before answering, his voice as casual as ever.

  "I found it off some blue people," he said simply, almost dismissively, as if the details weren't worth mentioning. "Pretty short folks. They said they got it from some place called secto—"

  "The old Sector 925 out of the 1008," Lervea finished for him, her voice low and brittle, cutting through his words with a blade's precision.

  Vanar blinked once, slowly, then grinned. "That is the case," he said without resistance, rising to his feet in one smooth, unbothered motion.

  But Lervea wasn't looking at him anymore.

  She couldn't.

  The moment the truth clicked into place, her body rejected the world around her.

  All she felt was rage.

  And rage.

  And rage.

  It poured out of her like a broken dam, an ancient, primordial flood that had been waiting, festering beneath her skin for an eternity. Her body trembled, but not from fear—no, never from fear. From the sheer, uncontainable violence that shuddered in every fiber of her being.

  Her primal fear—that instinctive weapon of her race, that monstrous pressure that had once been legend—erupted from her like a supernova.

  The world reacted instantly.

  The very planet buckled beneath her, the ground spiderwebbing into massive cracks radiating outward from her small form. Entire mountains in the distance shook and crumbled at their peaks, avalanches pouring down their sides. The skies dimmed and the stars above seemed to flinch, flickering uncertainly, as if even the heavens had to shrink back from her unleashed being.

  The weight of her presence was absolute.

  No wind dared to blow.

  No beast dared to breathe.

  Nothing moved.

  Everything—soil, stone, tree, star—froze beneath the unbearable gravity of her wrath. Even the flames that had hung in the air from the battle dimmed, suppressed under the crushing dominance of her soul.

  Lervea stood there, her silhouette sharp and trembling against the searing horizon, her silver hair catching firelight, her wings spread just slightly—enough to blot out the sky behind her. The air itself sang with tension, a trembling hum like the prelude to a cataclysmic storm.

  Sector 925.

  That cursed name.

  The memories clawed their way up her throat, unbidden, unwelcome—but she bit them back, forcing herself to breathe through the inferno boiling in her chest.

  "Hey, let's go."

  Her head snapped up at the voice, the chains of her spiraling fury fracturing just slightly. Vanar stood there, just a few paces away, grinning at her with that aggravatingly handsome face of his. His messy hair caught the broken starlight, his sharp jawline framed by that eternal smirk she just knew he wore all the time. And, gods help her, that single dimple carved into his cheek pulled her attention for a second longer than she intended.

  Lervea felt herself hesitate. Just for a breath. Just long enough for the raging pulse of her power to falter and the planet beneath her to cease its trembling.

  Vanar tilted his head, his monkey tail flicking lazily behind him like a question mark drawn across the broken earth.

  "The Tyrannius aren't particularly united or close to one another outside of family," he said with a lazy shrug, like he was discussing the weather. His crimson eyes caught the last glimmer of molten gold from the ruptured field. "But at the very least, I can't have you thinking our race is made up of pieces of shit."

  He laughed then—a short, almost self-deprecating bark of a laugh—and the tension bleeding off her body seemed to lighten, just a little. The world breathed again.

  "I don't know what you're looking for," he continued, voice low but firm as he slung his hands into the pockets of his torn cloak. "But I'll go with you."

  The stars shifted in the sky, the remnants of the battlefield warping away completely as reality knitted itself back together.

  "Let's show them," Vanar said, flashing her a grin full of teeth and conviction, "that the epithet 'the Great Hunting Race' was earned, not given."

  His tail lashed once through the air, a sharp crack against the silence, and he turned, walking ahead of her with the easy confidence of someone who had decided his course and would not be moved.

  Something inside Lervea snapped—not with rage this time, but with stubbornness, the old kind, the kind she had buried deep beneath centuries of solitude.

  Without thinking, she surged forward, faster than the sound of her own heartbeat, planting a firm hand against his chest and shoving him back behind her.

  "What are you doing walking ahead of me?" she snapped, the edges of her words sharper than necessary, more snark than she usually allowed to show.

  "You're helping me out! This is the story of Lervea and Vanar!" she declared, azure eyes sparking like wildfire, her silver hair whipping behind her in the low gravitic currents.

  Vanar stumbled back half a step, then narrowed his eyes mischievously. His smirk widened into a full-blown grin.

  "Vanar and Lervea!" he shot back, lunging forward with a burst of speed, overtaking her.

  "Lervea and Vanar!" she retorted, shoving past him again with a lightness in her step she hadn't felt in what felt like a lifetime.

  Their forms blurred as they chased and pushed each other, their laughter carrying into the thinning atmosphere as they both gathered speed. With a final burst, wings flaring and tails streaming behind them, they shot up—ascending past the fractured remains of the battlefield, past the layers of cloud, past the exosphere, breaching the void of space itself.

  The stars bent and twisted around their forms, casting them as silver and gold streaks against the canvas of infinity.

  To anyone watching, they would have seemed immature—two ancient beings, acting like children fighting for some imagined title.

  And maybe they were.

  But in the eyes of their own kind—their own ancient, brutal, untamed race—they were simply young.

  They were just entering the gates of true adulthood.

  Two monsters born of pride and survival, bound by shared blood, ascending into the infinite void, laughing in the face of creation itself.

  And for that fleeting moment, amidst the stars and the silence, they were simply free.