Hours flowed through the Soul Realm like water through open fingers.
Seven branches already complete and one nearly finished.
Dex worked with growing concentration, his hand movements becoming more fluid with each completed structure. Crimson-black energy responded to his commands like a natural extension of his will.
"Eighth branch complete," he announced, watching the perfect structure solidify around the black sun.
Echidna appeared at his side—she had already finished her seventh branch.
"You've accelerated," she commented, studying her husband and student's work with approval. "The sub-branches are almost as perfect as mine now."
"Almost?" Dex asked with a provocative smile.
"Almost," she confirmed without any shame. "But you're progressing frighteningly fast. Perhaps you'll surpass me when we build our second soul."
Dex turned to her, stepping slightly away from the trunk he had just finished working on. "Then let's make a bet."
Echidna's crimson eyes gleamed with immediate interest. "What kind of bet?"
"The last two branches," Dex said, pointing to the two remaining trunks extending alone from the black sun. "We do them simultaneously. Whoever finishes first... wins."
"Wins what exactly?" she asked, approaching him with a predatory smile.
"Whatever the winner wants from the loser," Dex replied simply.
Echidna fell silent for a moment, processing. Then she smiled—small but dangerous.
"I accept. But don't cry when you lose and I force you to do... interesting things."
"The same goes for you."
They moved simultaneously—Dex to the ninth trunk, Echidna to the tenth.
"Three," Echidna counted aloud.
"Two," Dex continued.
"One," they said together.
And they began.
POV Sylvia:
Sylvia meditated deeply, following the instructions in the grimoire before her with meticulous precision. Controlled breathing. Absolute concentration. Feel the mana around her.
The process consisted of activating the circle that had been formed in the awakening ceremony as a mage. It was already there, but still needed to be jump-started.
But something... interrupted her concentration.
The Yggdrasil seed—which floated peacefully above her open palm—began to pulse.
It wasn't the first time it had reacted since they entered the Cultivation Hall. But now...
Now it was different.
The seed vibrated intensely, emitting golden light in increasingly stronger rhythmic waves. As if... responding to something.
Sylvia opened her eyes, confused and alarmed.
'What's happening?'
And then she felt it.
It wasn't mana. It wasn't aura. It was something... different. A presence that filled the entire hall—invisible but undeniable.
She turned her head slightly to the left.
Dex and Echidna remained seated in meditation position, bodies completely motionless.
But around them...
The air distorted visually—waves of spiritual heat emanating in concentric circles. And crimson-black energy began to leak from their bodies, forming fractal patterns that resembled... branches of a tree.
The seed in Sylvia's hand pulsed violently, almost jumping.
And then, for the first time in her life as a saint, she heard the voice of the World Tree through the seed:
"What are you doing... Echidna?"
Sylvia froze, shocked.
POV Tiamat:
Tiamat observed the fifty students meditating with professional attention, slowly circling the hall to ensure no one made dangerous mistakes during the awakening process.
But then... she felt it.
It wasn't draconic energy.
Not the passive presence she already expected from the ThunderBird couple.
But rather active energy. Growing. Expanding.
Her pearlescent eyes immediately fixed on Dex and Echidna.
And what she saw made her vertical pupils dilate with genuine shock.
Around the two twins, structures of crimson-black energy materialized visually—not just in the Spiritual Realm, but bleeding into physical reality.
She didn't know if it was real until she heard it.
Squelch!
The structures were like blades piercing the flesh of reality.
Thick trunks. Perfect fractal branches. Geometrically precise sub-branches.
A tree that seemed to cut through reality.
'Impossible,' Tiamat thought, approaching slowly. 'They're... building a visible cultivation structure?'
But there it was, manifesting physically.
And then she realized the devastating truth.
'They're using... something completely new.'
Tiamat stopped three meters away, observing with growing fascination as the crimson-black tree continued to grow around the two.
And she murmured to herself, so low that no one could hear:
"What a monstrous method..."
POV Dex and Echidna:
"Done!" Dex and Echidna shouted simultaneously.
Both stepped away from the completed branches, turning to look at each other with identical expressions of surprise and competitiveness.
"I finished first," Dex insisted.
"I clearly finished before," Echidna counter-argued.
They fell silent for a moment, staring at each other.
Then Echidna smiled—predatory but amused.
"Tie?"
Dex sighed, but smiled too. "Tie."
They turned together to observe the complete structure.
The black sun at the center of the Realm was now completely enveloped by a colossal tree of crimson-black energy—ten main trunks extending in all directions, each branching into a hundred perfect branches, each branch dividing into ten sub-branches.
Ten thousand final pathways. All connected. All perfect.
Echidna took his hand, pulling him gently. "The project is finished. Now we need to activate it, but we'd better do it on the island."
Dex, while being dragged to the floating island that hovered over the vastness of the void, asked: "Can't we activate Yggdrasil near the soul?"
"As you said before, the area near it is hot. So when we put fuel into it, the temperature will increase even more."
She turned to him with a provocative smile. "And I don't think you want to become barbecue, right?"
Dex let out a short laugh, but the tension was palpable. Now that they were here, about to activate what they had built, the reality of the moment weighed on them.
"So..." he began, looking at the crimson-black tree pulsing in the distance. "How exactly do we do this?"
Echidna released his hand and began to walk in a circle, arms crossed, clearly organizing her thoughts.
"Normally, mortal knights awaken their soul using the Forced Saturation method," she said, stopping to face him. "They release all their aura at once and force the channel as an aura entrance, instead of the method you used to recover from that cave attack."
"Yes, I remember I recovered the aura slowly," he confirmed.
"They do practically the same thing, but use the channel by force to fill the soul as quickly as possible." She said while creating a diagram showing one of the channels contorting as it pulled maximum aura.
Dex frowned. "That sounds... painful."
"It is. And inefficient," she said while pointing to a part of the channel. "This here is the reason we don't use that method." A part of the channel appeared torn.
Dex then noticed. "If we use that method—"
"—We'll destroy our entire system," Echidna completed.
"So what's the alternative?" Dex asked, though something in Echidna's smile suggested she already had an answer.
Echidna approached him slowly, crimson eyes shining with renewed intensity.
"Do you remember the information I gave you?" she asked softly, stopping centimeters from him. "When we were... together. Completely. And the soul reacted?"
Dex blushed slightly, immediately understanding what she referred to. "Yes, I remember."
"The soul didn't respond to aura at that moment," Echidna continued, raising her hand to touch lightly on his chest. "It responded to our connection. So if the intensity of our fusion is strong enough, I think those simple pulses of a dying heart can become like a drum capable of activating it completely."
Dex's eyes widened with understanding. "You want to use..."
"Soul Eclipse," Echidna said firmly. "Five minutes of absolute fusion. We don't force the energy—we become the energy."
System of the Ruler of Sins
Soul Eclipse - An eclipse that fuses the two parts of the soul and bodies for five minutes.
"Yggdrasil doesn't need to be forcefully filled," Echidna continued, her hand still on his chest. "It needs to be awakened to self-fill. And to awaken something so vast, we need perfect unity."
Echidna stepped away, moving to the exact center of the island. With a gesture, she traced a circle on the ground with crimson energy—not a complex magic circle, but something simple. Functional.
"Stay here," she instructed, pointing to the center.
Dex obeyed, positioning himself so they were separated by only half a meter. Close enough to touch, but still with room to breathe.
"When we activate Soul Eclipse," Echidna explained, her voice low but firm, "it will be different from other times. It's not just to feel each other. It's to channel. All the energy of our souls will flow directly to Yggdrasil."
"Ready?" she asked, extending her hands.
Dex intertwined his fingers with hers. "Ready."
They brought their foreheads together, touching lightly. The proximity made the air between them seem electrically charged.
"Soul Eclipse," they said in unison.
The outlines of Dex and Echidna trembled—not like muscles, but as if reality itself around them was losing definition.
It wasn't gradual. It was like watching two images overlapping until they became indistinguishable.
Crimson-black light exploded from the point where they touched, blinding. When it dissipated—
A figure floated where two had been.
Silver-white hair undulated as if underwater, crimson and purple strands at the tips glowing with their own light. Four black horns curved from the head—two backward, two upward—all pulsing with crimson veins.
The body was feminine—generous curves, defined waist—but there was something primordial in the presence.
And then their eyes opened.
There is no more "I".
There is no more "you".
There is only... us.
The fused consciousness pulsed with power. Through four overlapping eyes, they saw the Soul Realm with crystalline clarity.
'Interesting choice of form,' Dex's voice echoed in the shared thoughts.
'I thought you didn't care about appearances?' Echidna responded, amused even through the fusion.
'I don't care. But you do. And you chose... this.'
'Of course. We have to be impressive and beautiful.'
Despite the situation, Dex would have laughed if he had individual control over the body. Instead, the fused lips curved into a smile—half his amusement, half her satisfaction.
And both, from this new body, said: "Let's wake up our little baby."