She fell.
An endless fall.
Flames howled in her ears; shattered stars scattered before her eyes. Elea felt herself torn apart, reassembled, then torn again. Her consciousness drifted in the sea of fire, her soul pierced by a thousand blazing needles, yet also wrapped in soft dreams, suffocating.
This was the Blazing Abyss beneath the gods—the primal dream of the Realm-Shattering God.
No time here, no space. Only fire. Fire burning memories, burning flesh, burning every desire and fear.
Elea opened her eyes. She saw herself kneeling naked before a blazing blood-red throne, flames streaming down her spine like chains pinning her in place. Before her loomed a blurry figure of ,with contours not of human form—the projected will of the Realm-Shattering God.
The phoenix's flame shall finally be mine.
The voice cut like a blade against her eardrums, yet cooed like a lover's whisper.
"You are no god," she murmured. "You are merely… afraid I will destroy the will of fate."
The Realm-Shattering God did not anger, but laughed. The fiery figure stepped forward, fingers transforming into crimson tendrils that slid slowly across her chest. Flaming marks instantly seared into her skin, like brands of humiliation, yet she did not flinch—only stared coldly at It.
You shall be the vessel of the new world. Desire, destruction, rebirth—all shall be borne by you.
The tendrils coiled around her abdomen, her waist, even more intimate places, sealing her within a shell of blazing desire. Every inch of skin burned with passionate fire; every nerve trembled, whimpered, yet to the point of distortion.
"Do you think controlling the body can tame the will?"
Elea whispered, her voice trembling from stimulation and pain.
The soul flame within her erupted in counterattack at that moment. Phoenix fire blazed from her heart, spreading outward along the humiliating burn marks, searing away each divine tendril. She rose from before the blazing throne, her body engulfed in the fire of her own soul, lifting her head like a queen.
At the same time—
In the dream abyss on the other side, Oliphia faced her "judgment."
Imprisoned in a silver by a crescent moon, her body was surrounded by "divine envoys" incarnated by the Realm-Shattering God—hundreds of serpentine figures flames of desire. They whispered,pressed against her hungrily, pinning her down, stripping her armor, seeping divine pleasure into her deepest fears.
"You cannot betray him… you are child of the Shattered Moon Blood Pact…"
The voice, like a curse, echoed in her mind.
Oliphia bit her lip, tears and sweat mingling. Her body could no longer distinguish shame from pleasure. But in the depths of degradation, her soul awakened.
"I am child of the Shattered Moon, but I am also… master of my own will."
She slowly raised her hand. The crescent pact seal glowed in her palm, using counterforce to devour the envoy phantoms. A silver beam pierced the dream abyss, tearing her from the cage.
Elea's flames and Oliphia's silver light converged in the depths of the dream.
Both were dragged into the "Blazing Abyss Core"—the innermost consciousness of the Realm-Shattering God.
There, a colossal divine wreckage sat upon countless fire feathers. Its face was,chest pierced by phoenix fire, a shattered crescent moon floating above its head. Divine blood pooled into a lake, spreading across the entire space.
And atop that wreckage, a crystal floated in midair, containing the "Key of Truth."
—the truth of fate.
"If we take it," Oliphia whispered, "we can reset the very structure of fate."
But Elea slowly raised her hand: "No. We must—destroy it."
She saw reflected within it not only her own past and Oliphia's, but countless victims, enslaved by desire, trapped by power. It was truth, yet also a cage.
She extended her hand, soul flame gathering in her palm, as Oliphia's silver moon power merged with it.
Together, they struck the core of fate—
Shattering it in one blow.
In an instant, the entire realm trembled and collapsed, flames and dreamlight scattering. The divine wreckage crumbled, the blood moon reversed its flow. All things returned to zero.
And their figures vanished at the edge of the light.
The next moment.
On the silent volcanic mountains at the border of the ruined capital in the real world, two charred bodies slowly opened their eyes in the night wind.
They—had been reborn.
But the world was no longer the one they knew.