Chapter 1426: Truths Hidden in Silent Souls

The Monster’s smile slowly faded as her thoughts deepened.

Then there was the Primordial Lotus.

That troubled her more.

Even across the greatest Realms where Primordials walked and histories stretched backward through spans of time Earth possessed no language to measure, the Lotus had disappeared so completely that billions of years might pass without a single confirmed appearance. Some believed it extinct while others claimed it had withdrawn beyond the reach of creation itself.

A few old monsters argued that extinction was a meaningless word when speaking of something no one had ever truly understood in the first place.

Yet Phei had carried its Blessing within his Soul.

’All along!’

The Monster stared upward; the question rising within her genuinely offended her pride—

’How?’

She had probed him before— endlessly even.

She studied and obsessed over him to an extent she would never willingly quantify.

Yet a Blessing ancient Primordials had failed to encounter across billions of years had rested inside Phei without her ever sensing it.

The question widened with unpleasant speed.

’What else have I missed?’

Being a Cosmic Dragon had already been enough to make Phei one of the strangest existences she had ever encountered. Now an Angel Bloodline had awakened, the Primordial Lotus had chosen and anointed him.

He could carry multiple major bloodlines without either devouring the other!

His Soul continued revealing things that refused to fit within anything expected from a seventeen-year-old Dragon.

And those were only the secrets she had uncovered.

A far less comfortable thought entered the Monster’s mind.

Had she been arrogant?

Possibly.

She had spent years believing she understood the forces surrounding Phei better than Phei himself did—

From the outside, his family sometimes appeared to be guiding him toward a path already chosen, guarding and guiding him while slowly shaping the Cosmic Dragon into whatever future they believed he should one day fulfill— like he was pawn of theirs.

The Monster had even entertained the suspicion that Phei was being controlled by people whose love for him prevented them from recognizing how tightly they were steering his life.

Tonight forced her to reconsider that belief.

’Perhaps none of them knows shit.’

The possibility almost made her laugh.

Perhaps Sienna, Maya, Ashworth, the family and every two ancient existence orbiting Phei were not conducting some grand hidden design meant to mold him into a future they already understood.

Perhaps they were doing exactly what Lucienne was doing right now:

’Trying to keep up with who he is.’Helping wherever they could— containing disasters whenever containment remained possible— watching the Young Dragon become something none of them had truly predicted while pretending the situation remained slightly more understandable than it actually was.

The Monster’s eyes drifted toward Maya.

Then toward Sienna.

Then back toward the impossible Lotus dominating the hidden heavens.

Her smile returned faintly.

"What am I even thinking?"

She almost laughed at herself. She did not know what Phei’s family intended. She did not know anything Maya wanted. She certainly did not know everything as much as Sienna knew—

Assuming she understood their purpose simply because she had spent years observing from outside was exactly the kind of arrogance that tonight had just been punished.

’Better to stop assuming. Better to watch.’

Especially because even the beings closest to Phei were staring upward with expressions that revealed the same uncomfortable truth.

They had not expected this either and they certainly did not know what he was awakening either apart from it being an Angel Bloodline! What exactly that bloodline was? They knew no shit!

Sienna remained the calmest among them, but even she could not completely conceal the interest burning beneath her violet eyes. That alone said more than open astonishment would have. Sienna had lived through enough impossible things to make surprise an expensive emotion, yet her gaze followed every pulse through Phei’s body with an intensity that revealed she was learning along with everyone else.

Ashworth stood nearby with his arms folded, studying the changing radiance around Phei as though entire theories within his mind were being dismantled and rebuilt one after another. He had carried the Great Immortal God’s Core to Sienna knowing the moment beneath the Primordial Lotus might never return, but even he had not expected the result to become something this profound.

Dragon Lady stared upward without restraint.

Pride shone openly in her silver-white eyes.

The transformed figure inside the Lotus looked increasingly unlike merely the ridiculous older brother who teased her, healed her wounds, brought her food and occasionally behaved as though bothering an ancient Dragon were a sacred duty. White-gold radiance flowed around him like a heavenly sea, enormous structures continued unfolding from his back and every pulse of the Genesis Core deepened the new presence gathering around him.

Yet to Dragon Lady, he was still Phei.

That familiarity only made her pride stronger.

The Undead Queen remained reverently near Sienna while repeatedly stealing upward glances she probably believed nobody noticed. Each time another change appeared within the Lotus, her head lifted a fraction farther before discipline remembered itself and lowered again.

The conflict had become increasingly amusing to Eira.

Cassiopeia had simply abandoned any remaining obligation to understand what was happening.

She stood near Eira and watched the Primordial Lotus turn around Phei with the exhausted acceptance of a woman whose standards for impossible events had been abused so thoroughly that seeing a celestial flower anoint someone she knew no longer qualified as the strangest event of her week. Her eyes followed the growing structures behind Phei, shifted briefly toward Sienna as if wondering whether asking for an explanation was worth the risk of receiving one that created five more questions, then returned to the Lotus without attempting to solve anything.

Maya, however, noticed that Phei’s transformation was becoming clearer before anyone.

The great structures emerging from his back continued unfolding through the white-gold brilliance, spreading farther with every deep pulse of the Genesis Core. Their outlines sharpened beneath the surrounding World Essence. Golden light ran along long branching structures within them before vanishing again beneath waves of radiance, while countless smaller shapes seemed to be forming along the widening span.

The markings across Phei’s body brightened as well.

For brief moments, Eira could see delicate luminous lines travelling over his shoulders and arms before the celestial curtains covered them again. The mark upon his forehead became more distinct each time the surrounding light dimmed between pulses, and World Essence gathered around every new change until Phei himself seemed less like someone standing within the Primordial Lotus and more like the point around which the flower had chosen to arrange itself.

The Lotus pulsed—

Every petal brightened together.

The immense curtains of white-gold radiance bowed inward around Phei while the amber mist below him rose in sweeping waves. Golden motes ignited across the entire sanctuary until the heavens became filled with innumerable points of light; in a breathtaking instant everyone watching felt the same impossible presence deepen.

Life flowed through it.

Not mere vitality, but something closer to the first promise that living things were allowed to continue.

Beginning rested beneath that life, a purity so ancient it seemed to remember creation before countless lesser had been born.

Judgment followed behind both, stern and absolute, carrying the quiet certainty that protection meant little without the power to decide what threatened the things being protected.

And beyond Judgment waited End.

It did not feel like Death.

Sienna and the Undead Queen recognized that immediately.

What surrounded Phei was different. End felt broader, quieter and strangely cleaner. It carried no hatred toward what concluded beneath it. It simply existed as the far edge beyond which continuation no longer remained.

Righteousness flooded through the white-gold radiance with enough purity to cleanse what it touched.

Yet beneath that sacred brilliance remained the contradiction they had sensed from the beginning.

Something capable of changing creation so thoroughly that one day even corruption might require another name.

Sienna watched that current more carefully than the rest.

She understood enough to know that whatever Phei was awakening could never be explained by calling it merely holy, righteous or Angelic. Those words described fragments. The Angel before her carried gentleness vast enough to restore life and a severity powerful enough to redefine what stood beneath its gaze.

The same hand that healed could one day decide that something needed to become different before healing could even begin.

Lucienne felt the contradiction too, and her fascination returned stronger than before.

For years she had thought the Cosmic Dragon was the mystery.

That impossible bloodline had been enough to consume her curiosity, enough to convince her that understanding Phei’s draconic existence meant eventually understanding why he stood apart from everyone else.

Now she watched a second bloodline rise beside it beneath a Primordial Lotus that should not have existed anymore, while new marks spread across his body and wings slowly unfolded through heaven-colored light.

Her old certainty finally collapsed without protest.

The Cosmic Dragon had never been the whole mystery.

Apparently it had only been the cover of what he truly was!