The dream didn't begin with light. It began with silence.
Not the silence of peace—but the hush before revelation. Before something important is spoken.
Chen stood in a void of soft gold and drifting petals, his bare feet touching nothing and everything at once. The world here was undefined—like a memory barely remembered, or a story not yet written.
"So you returned," came the voice—not aloud, but within him.
It was gentle. Feminine. Ageless.
He turned toward it, and there she was.
Lysaria.
She stood as if sculpted from moonlight and ancient flame, her form elegant and shrouded in silken veils. No court markings adorned her. No divine seal. Her eyes held a serenity deeper than oceans.
"You felt my presence," she said, stepping toward him. "In the trial. In the void."
Chen nodded slowly. "I didn't understand… not fully. But I knew you were there."
Her smile was sad and proud at once. "And that's why I can reach you now."
She lifted a hand, and the void shimmered. Suddenly, Chen saw three images around him, suspended like mirrors.
A blazing court drenched in lust and fire.
A crystalline palace bound in cold judgment.
A withered grove—ancient, forgotten, yet pulsing with a slow heartbeat.
"These are the forces that define divinity," Lysaria said. "Passion. Order. Decay."
"But you, Chen Ming… are something new."
He swallowed. "Why me?"
Her eyes burned softly. "Because you walk between them. You love, but do not kneel. You fight, but do not hate. You desire, but you see."
The Gift Unlocked
She touched his chest.
The moment her fingers grazed him, fire and moonlight spiraled around his body—no longer just desire… but refined purpose.
System windows flickered open like blossoms.
🌀 [Hidden Trait Awakened: Balanceflame Core]— The union of desire, devotion, and divine resonance.— Grants passive resistance to mind-altering effects.— Increases bonding strength with divine entities.— Unlocks "Shared Flame" — allows the user to channel emotional energy into power for allies.
🌀 [New Active Skill: Lysaria's Echo]— Once per day, call upon a protective aura that shields all bonded from fatal harm. Duration: 1 minute. Cooldown: 24 hours.
🌀 [Affinity Unlocked: Goddess of Balance – Lysaria (??%)]
Chen exhaled. His body pulsed with warmth—not lustful heat, but a steady, radiant grace.
Lysaria stepped back, her form already beginning to blur.
"This gift is not without risk," she warned. "There are those who will feel its pulse and know… that I have touched you. They will hunt you for it."
"Let them come," Chen said softly. "I'll burn brighter."
Her smile returned. "Spoken like one worthy of the true flame."
She faded—into light, into wind, into memory.
Return to the Sanctuary
He awoke still in the glade, Ye Yue and Lanmei on either side, sleeping peacefully. The moon had not shifted. The world had not moved.
But he had changed.
He brushed his fingers through their hair and whispered, "It's beginning… for real this time."
And far beyond that quiet realm, in a ruined grove lost to the divine charts, a withered shrine bloomed again—just once.
A pulse.
A promise.
The first breath of a goddess the world had tried to forget.