I could feel the light seeping into my bones.
It wasn't warm. Not entirely.
It was more like being torn open and rebuilt from the inside out—each thread of my soul unraveling, reshaped by something far greater than I could comprehend.
The Sacred Altar beneath me pulsed with divine rhythm, syncing with my heartbeat. I tried to focus on that, to anchor myself in the rhythm, but my mind drifted.
Somewhere, amidst the searing light, I could sense her gaze.
Elizabeth.
She was watching me.
Not the world-shattering princess. Not the Apex Existence. Just her—Elizabeth.
I don't know how, but I always feel it when she's near. Like an invisible tether pulls me toward her whenever I'm falling.
Even now.
Even through the agony.
Far above the platform, Elizabeth stood in silence, her incarnation hovering like a pale mirage—watching.
Her golden eyes never left Xiao.
He was bathed in divine radiance, his body slowly adapting to the awakening. Most saw a prince in the making. A future legend.
But to her, he was still that little boy—wild hair, stubborn eyes, heart too big for his own good—the one who made her existence feel real.
Her life had been a loop of perfection: praised, adored, revered. And yet, behind every smile she offered the world was an abyss of silence.
She had once believed she would live a flawless eternity.
And then… he came.
Xiao didn't break her world. He illuminated it.
His laugh. His clumsy attempts at cooking. The time he made her a gift from scrap metal—ugly and imperfect and completely priceless.
He was warmth.
Now he winced, and her chest tightened.
She wanted to move—to tear through the distance and cradle him in her arms. But she couldn't. Not now.
This pain, this awakening… it was necessary. Inevitable.
She had gone through it herself, long ago. But Xiao, he endured it with such quiet strength, even in agony.
Still, it hurt her to do nothing.
The Mental Stairway Trial will begin soon, she thought, trying to calm the rising anxiety within her.
If Xiao'er passes, he'll obtain a drop of Mental Origin… that will help him construct his Mental Space later.
It would accelerate his path by decades, perhaps even centuries.
But even that didn't settle her heart.
Because something far more dangerous loomed on the horizon.
He was becoming... too beautiful.
I could hear my heartbeat again. Louder now.
The light was starting to bend around me—colors folding in ways they shouldn't.
I tried to ground myself, but another sensation clawed at the back of my mind.
A presence.
No… two.
Elizabeth's golden eyes narrowed.
They've arrived.
Her expression turned blank, her aura growing cold—unnaturally so. For a moment, the very sky above the Imperial Planet responded.
Clouds twisted into nothing. Winds stopped.
Then—
CRACK.
The sky above the Awakening Platform shattered like glass.
From the rupture descended two figures, their beauty so overwhelming that the crowd below forgot to breathe.
The first was a tall, statuesque woman with flowing silver-black hair cascading past her waist. She wore an ornate hanfu—white laced with silver patterns—each thread humming with subtle energy. Golden leaf-shaped ornaments adorned her ears, and her golden eyes were as sharp as celestial blades.
This was Elizabeth's true body.
Her incarnation dissolved into mist the moment her real self arrived.
The second figure beside her was a young girl with soft platinum-blonde hair tied with blooming cherry blossoms. Her eyes shimmered a gentle pink, and her frilly pink dress fluttered like sakura petals. She seemed cheerful… almost innocent.
But her eyes—those eyes—calculated the worth of every being present with dispassionate precision.
From my position, I couldn't see them clearly at first. But I felt it.
The weight.
It wasn't pressure. Not exactly.
It was… instinct. My body understood before my mind did. These two—these women—weren't ordinary.
They were beyond.
Everyone around me dropped to their knees.
It wasn't submission by choice—it was survival. A primal instinct. As if the universe itself whispered:
You. Are.an.insect
I finally looked up.
And my breath caught.
The silver-haired woman… her eyes met mine. For a fleeting second, the cold vanished. She looked at me—not as a being of power, not as the Crown Prince—but as Xiao.
And there it was again—that tether.
The other girl stepped forward, her pink eyes wide with barely contained excitement. She clasped her hands, smile too sweet to be real.
And then—she whispered my name.
"…Xiao."
The sound of it on her lips was soft. Too soft.
But it echoed.
Somewhere deep in my bones, it echoed.
I swallowed hard.
The light, the pain, the power—it all faded for a moment.
Because the real danger wasn't the trial ahead.
It was them.
Elizabeth.
And… her.
They had arrived.
And my life… was about to get a lot more complicated.