Chapter 1420: Celestial Lotus!

They appeared first between the existing currents of Mana, deep-gold filaments weaving themselves into energies that had flowed through Hell’s Paradise Island since long before Phei was born.

Some threaded through Elemental Essences without disturbing them. Others wound through spiritual currents, ran along the Void-Ice essence and brushed the edges of the Void without being swallowed by the Void’s emptiness. Countless filaments hung in the air, while others sank into the soil, slipped into rivers, entered stone and joined the hidden veins of power running beneath the island.

World Essence had entered the land itself, and it did not behave like the brief overflow of some cultivator’s breakthrough. It settled, as naturally and as permanently as if it had always been there.

The first wave rolled away into the distance, but the outpouring from Phei did not stop.

More World Essence streamed from Phei, and his body rose slowly off the frozen ground without his limbs moving at all. He was lifted a short height into the air and turned upright, his glowing form suspended within the brilliance while golden currents kept streaming from his chest and spine.

Then, guided by an instinct deeper than thought, he folded his legs beneath him and settled into meditative pose in the middle of the air.

The moment Phei crossed his legs, the world around him became magnificent.

More World Essence burst from his chest, back and limbs in colossal golden torrents.

Some twisted upward in spirals wide enough to swallow ancient trees, climbing far higher than the forest canopy before curling back toward him. Others curved around his body in vast arcs, colliding and splitting into thousands of smaller streams that braided together before joining greater rivers farther out.

Golden mist poured through the gaps between them, so thick with motes of radiance that every movement left a glittering wake.

Within the storm, Essence began to condense.

Some clusters were no larger than a fist, bright little spheres hanging between the currents.

Others swelled until they resembled small suns, great golden orbs burning far off while streams of World Essence spiraled around them before being flung elsewhere into the tempest. Within moments the clearing and much of the forest around it had vanished beneath a celestial storm of liquid gold, mist and shining spheres.

Cassiopeia stared without blinking. The Undead Queen forgot to smile; even the Dragon Lady’s silver-blue-white eyes widened, her great pupils reflected the impossible radiance surrounding Phei.

At the very heart of it all, Phei remained perfectly still, and the contrast bordered on insolence.

Around him churned more Essence than Eira had ever seen her Master command at once.

Rivers of gold tore through the air, shining spirals wound around one another, great curtains of World Essence folded overhead, and newborn spheres of condensed power burned between them, a storm vast enough to swallow several forests and still hunger for more.

Yet around Phei himself lay a circle of perfect serenity.

The same Essence that raged like a celestial catastrophe farther out changed the instant it entered that circle. Torrents softened into quiet streams. Violent spirals unfurled into graceful arcs. Golden motes drifted around his shoulders and white hair at their leisure before sinking gently into his skin.

His breathing stayed slow and his expression stayed peaceful, but his body had become almost impossible to look upon. Golden channels glowed beneath every visible stretch of his skin. Fine branching webs spread through his fingers and hands while thicker rivers climbed his arms and vanished beneath his clothing. The light within his chest burned brightest of all, so concentrated that its shape showed even through fabric, and countless threads reached outward from it until his torso resembled the heart of a living constellation whose stars had become channels carrying World Essence.

Every sinew seemed alight and every pathway carried gold, and even the faintest rise of his breath sent another shining pulse through the whole web.

Eira swallowed slowly.

Whatever happened within had not merely granted him command of World Essence. It had filled him with more than his body knew how to hold and his Soul could not keep every trace folded inward, and so the excess had simply begun to spill into the world.

Cassiopeia suddenly raised a hand and pointed upward, her voice nearly lost beneath the storm:

"Look."

They followed her gesture.

High above Phei, beyond the raging currents and burning spheres, something had begun to form.

It began as a single speck of white, so small that it should have vanished within the overwhelming golden tempest, yet the purity condensed within it made it impossible to ignore. The World Essence around it looked almost tainted by comparison, and even the darkness drew back slightly from that tiny point, as though the night itself knew that standing too close would only reveal how impure it was.

The speck pulsed, then pulsed again, and with every beat the light condensed further until white brilliance gathered into a blinding heart hanging directly above Phei.

Golden threads emerged from it.

At first only a handful reached outward, impossibly slender strands curved through the darkness, moving with exquisite precision, refusing to fall and instead stretching in deliberate directions before bending back toward one another.

Dozens followed, then hundreds, then thousands.

Golden threads spread across the sky in every direction, branching into finer strands as they travelled and weaving through their neighbors without ever tangling. Some climbed higher before curving down again, while others formed vast loops through the storm.

Up close the pattern might have seemed impossibly chaotic, but from below its intent slowly became unmistakable.

Petals began to emerge.

The enormous translucent petal shapes of white-gold light unfolded around the central heart, one layer after another, each new ring broader than the last, with golden veins moved slowly within every shining petal and shifting their patterns whenever the white heart above Phei pulsed. Another ring opened, then another, and the flower spread farther across the heavens.

A lotus.

An immense celestial lotuswas blooming above Phei!

Its outer petals stretched beyond the clearing and on across the Endless Forest until the flower grew too vast for the eye to take in at once. Intricate patterns formed within every layer: circles folded through petal-shaped designs, golden threads joined distant reaches across impossible distances, and countless forms nested within greater ones, until the manifestation resembled the hidden weave of creation laid bare in light.

The patterns themselves carried meaning!

Every curve answered another somewhere else within the vast flower, every thread eventually returned to the central heart, and every pattern seemed at once delicate and absolute, as though the deeper order beneath World Essence had revealed itself for a moment because the one seated beneath it had earned its recognition.

The white heart at the lotus’s center grew brighter still, until even Eira struggled to look at it.

The brilliance condensed until it no longer resembled ordinary light at all, but something closer to a doorway into a realm where radiance knew no end. Thin golden halos formed around it, layer upon translucent layer, and each pulse sent waves of light rolling across the whole celestial lotus.

Then motes began to appear; they were a few became hundreds, and hundreds became thousands, until the darkness around the lotus filled with drifting golden lights, some no larger than dust and others burning like distant stars but they did not fall—

They drifted through a slowly thickening amber haze that began to descend toward Phei, pale gold mingling with warm ivory and soft champagne radiance gathering between them. The golden tempest around Phei remained vast enough to stir instinctive dread, yet those colors changed the whole scene; beauty entered the destruction without weakening it.

The air filled with shining dust, slow-wandering stars and softly glowing mist drifting between torrents that could have swallowed mountains.

Some motes circled Phei. Others drifted near Eira, Cassiopeia, the Dragon Lady and the Undead Queen before moving on, treating the four women as little more than onlookers standing at the edge of something far greater.