With the disappearance of Liang Feng's anchor, the Spirit Sea lost its coherence. What was not him was expelled — Wang Lin naturally returned to his own inner ocean.
Wang Lin's Spirit Sea stabilized.
The chaos of dreams dissipated soundlessly, like a sea rendered flat after a storm too ancient to leave waves behind. He was no longer unconscious, yet not fully awake. His soul lingered in an intermediate state, coherent enough to perceive — insufficiently anchored to resist.
Before him, someone was waiting.
Liang Feng.
Not whole.
Not broken.
Incomplete.
His silhouette emitted no pressure. No Dao radiated around him as an active law. What remained was no longer authority, but a residual presence — a memory still warm, on the verge of fading.
They looked at one another for a long time.
No words were exchanged.
There was nothing to explain.
Wang Lin felt neither anger nor sorrow.
Liang Feng carried neither regret nor pride.
Only that rare, almost forgotten sensation:
recognition.
"You have made it this far," Liang Feng finally said.
His voice was no longer that of a Dragon God.
It was that of a cultivator who had accepted the end.
"Not because you were destined to survive," he continued calmly.
"But because you never stopped moving forward, even when nothing promised you a tomorrow."
Wang Lin inclined his head slightly.
Not in submission.
In respect.
"I don't understand what happened to me," he replied.
"But I know one thing."
He raised his eyes.
"If I am still here… it is because you chose not to be."
Liang Feng nodded slowly.
A simple gesture.
Final.
He then raised a hand.
Not to impose.
Not to forcibly transmit.
But to let go.
Around him, the Dao of Water and Ice manifested one last time. Not as dragons, nor as techniques, but as two fundamental currents.
One fluid, deep, patient — Water.
The other motionless, absolute, silent — Ice.
They slowly revolved around Wang Lin.
"This Dao is not a weapon," Liang Feng said.
"It is a way of existing."
The currents drew closer.
"Water will teach you how to survive.
Ice will teach you how to endure."
They entered Wang Lin's Spirit Sea.
Without pain.
Without resistance.
The Dao did not seek to impose itself.
It would anchor later — when Wang Lin was capable.
Liang Feng stepped back.
His silhouette grew more translucent.
"I will not accompany you," he said simply.
"But what I have left you will remind you that even a doomed world may still choose how it disappears."
Wang Lin opened his mouth.
Then closed it.
There was nothing to promise.
So he said only:
"I will remember."
A very faint smile crossed Liang Feng's face.
Not joy.
Quiet satisfaction.
At that moment, another presence began to draw near.
Slow.
Ancient.
Inevitable.
An alternating light, solar and lunar, reflected faintly within the Spirit Sea.
Liang Feng turned his head slightly.
"She is coming," he said.
"What remains of me does not belong to her.
But what remains of this world… does."
He looked at Wang Lin one last time.
"The contract she will offer you is not a blessing.
It is a burden."
Then, without emphasis:
"Accept it only if you are prepared to carry more than yourself."
His silhouette dissipated.
Not into particles.
Not into light.
Into accepted absence.
The silence that followed the final act resembled nothing known.
It was neither peace, nor emptiness, nor even waiting.
It was a world that had ceased, for the first time, to be observed by its own laws.
The Blue Star still breathed.
But it no longer decided.
Within the Spirit Sea, Wang Lin drifted between two heartbeats. His soul wandered through a space without direction, without sky, without ground — a place where even the memory of pain felt too heavy to endure.
Then the light changed.
It was neither day nor night.
It was their alternation condensed into a single instant.
A warm, solar glow crossed the void.
Immediately followed by a cold, lunar radiance, gentle and crushing all at once.
They did not oppose one another.
They coexisted.
Then, a presence appeared.
She did not descend.
She was already there.
She always had been.
A feminine silhouette slowly took form, surrounded by broken rings of gold and incomplete stellar circles. Her silver hair floated like cosmic tides, carrying an ancient glow, nearly extinguished.
Around her brow, a fractured solar halo intertwined with a tarnished lunar crescent.
Not as ornaments.
As remnants.
Between her hands rested a sphere.
The Blue Star.
Miniature.
Silent.
Alive.
Wang Lin's soul trembled.
Not with fear.
With recognition.
He instinctively understood:
this entity had not been born here.
She had been assigned.
Her voice resounded.
Not in the air.
Not in the mind.
Directly within the soul.
"I am the one who was condemned to watch."
Each word carried the weight of millions of years.
"When they banished me, this world was never meant to bear life.
But a goddess bound to the cycle of day and night… cannot cease to impose time."
The sphere pulsed faintly.
"Day was born.
Night answered.
And in the interval… humanity emerged."
Wang Lin understood.
The Blue Star was not blessed.
It was the byproduct of a divine punishment.
The goddess lowered her gaze slightly toward him.
Her eyes were neither benevolent nor cruel.
They were tired.
"Liang Feng paid the passage.
His disappearance opened the way."
A silence.
"But what he left you is incomplete.
For I… cannot leave this world."
The truth fell like a verdict.
"However, you, Wang Lin… can."
She made no unnecessary promises.
"I will not save you.
I will not protect you.
And I will grant you no power without a price."
The solar light weakened.
The lunar glow prevailed.
"I offer you a Fanuel Contract."
The words anchored themselves within his soul.
"I will guide your growth.
I will help you survive beyond this world.
I will open paths mortals were never meant to tread."
Then, without detour:
"In exchange, you will carry my will.
You will seek the truth.
You will pursue those who banished me.
And when the time comes… you will help me take my revenge."
Silence returned.
Then, without threat:
"Accept, and you will leave the Blue Star.
Refuse… and time will erase you here, as it erases me."
Wang Lin inhaled.
For the first time since the beginning of this tragedy…
he had a choice.
And the Blue Star, suspended between the hands of a fallen goddess, awaited his answer.
Wang Lin remained silent for a long moment.
He looked neither at the sphere in the goddess's hands nor at the remnants of solar and lunar light surrounding her. He looked at what remained of himself.
Then, he spoke.
"So… my future self was not wrong."
The goddess did not react.
"You did indeed offer me a contract."
A very slight movement passed through the broken rings around her. Not approval. Confirmation.
Wang Lin inhaled.
"Very well. I accept."
The lunar light pulsed.
Then, before she could respond, he added:
"But I have three conditions."
Silence froze.
For the first time since her appearance, the goddess truly looked at him.
"…What?"
The tone was neither surprised nor irritated. It was cold. Ancient.
Wang Lin met her gaze.
"I will inform you of them later," he said calmly.
"But before that, I have a question."
He paused.
"How can I be certain you will keep your promise?"
The goddess stared at him for a long time. Then her voice descended, heavy, sovereign.
"My child. I am a goddess.
I never lie."
Wang Lin let out a brief laugh. Without mockery. Without insolence.
"That is exactly what those who betrayed you once said."
The solar light wavered.
"And yet… you have not obtained your revenge, madam goddess."
The silence tightened. For an instant, day and night ceased their alternation.
"…Ingrate."
The word fell without anger. Without warmth.
"I offer you an escape from this world.
I offer you guidance no mortal has ever received.
And you dare to doubt me?"
Wang Lin lifted his chin slightly.
"Precisely because you are a goddess."
He did not retreat.
"Gods make promises.
Contracts prevent them from escaping them."
Something changed.
The goddess remained silent. Then, slowly, she raised a hand.
"…Very well."
The Blue Star sphere began to rotate slowly.
"There exists a technique.
Ancient.
Forbidden even among my kind."
Her voice grew heavier.
"It seals a contract at the level of the soul.
If I violate even a single clause…"
She stopped. Then finished, without emphasis:
"…I will die."
Wang Lin's heart tightened. But he did not avert his gaze.
"Then do it," he said simply.
Silence.
Then, for the first time, an unreadable glint crossed the goddess's eyes. Neither anger nor amusement. Something older.
"…So be it."
Solar and lunar light intertwined.
"Prepare yourself, Wang Lin."
The Spirit Sea trembled.
"From this moment on…
there will be no turning back."
Wang Lin closed his eyes.
"I know."
And the Fanuel Contract truly began to form.
The contract was sealed.
Solar and lunar light slowly receded, as though the sky itself were catching its breath after a wound too deep.
Then, the goddess rose.
She did not float.
She did not levitate.
Space itself yielded beneath her.
Wang Lin raised his eyes.
"There is one more thing," she said.
Her voice was no longer solemn. It was pragmatic. Almost cold.
"I cannot remain here either."
Silence.
"I cannot teach you, nor guide you from the outside.
Not after what has just been set in motion."
Wang Lin frowned slightly.
"Then?"
The goddess looked at him.
"I will add a second contract.
A secondary Fanuel Contract."
Her broken rings vibrated.
"It will allow me to reside within your Spirit Sea."
A heartbeat.
"As a resident entity."
Wang Lin did not respond immediately.
Yet within him, something smiled.
Indeed… my future self was right.
So this is the true Fanuel Contract.
The one that prepares the host.
The one that infiltrates.
But she did not know.
We are within the second Spirit Sea.
A domain without direct anchoring.
Without real control.
A space she could neither measure nor dominate.
She believes she has trapped me with words.
She will regret it.
Wang Lin calmly raised his head.
"Very well, madam.
I accept."
A very slight pause passed through the goddess. Then she nodded.
"Good.
Listen carefully."
She joined her hands.
For the first time, she spoke a true name.
契冥·双界寄灵
Qì Míng · Shuāng Jiè Jì Líng
Fanuel Contract — Dual-Realm Soul Residence
Wang Lin's inner world trembled.
Not violently.
Not painfully.
As if an ancient door had just been acknowledged.
Solar and lunar light condensed, then stretched into a circular seal, engraved with impossible runes whose logic followed neither mortal Dao nor divine law.
"It is done," the goddess said.
Wang Lin felt a change.
But it was not him.
"Wang Lin," she continued,
"I will carry the Blue Star into my own Spirit Sea."
Her eyes darkened.
"My true body remains banished upon that planet.
And as long as it exists… I cannot abandon it."
A heartbeat.
"I will attempt to preserve what remains of the surviving humans."
She slowly opened her arms.
日月归藏·星界纳魂
Rì Yuè Guī Cáng · Xīng Jiè Nà Hún
Return of Sun and Moon — Stellar Interment of the World-Soul
This was not absorption.
It was repatriation.
The Blue Star folded in upon itself, not in mass, but in existence. Continents, oceans, lines of life and death were compressed into a sphere of alternating light.
Then —
it vanished.
And Wang Lin's second Spirit Sea opened.
The entire planet anchored within it, like a captive star in an inner sky.
Silence.
Total.
Wang Lin found himself alone.
No sky.
No ground.
No planet.
A naked void.
His breathing quickened.
"Goddess?
Where are you?"
A voice answered immediately.
Calm. Close.
"Calm yourself, Wang Lin."
He then felt a presence. Not before him. Within him.
"I now reside within your Spirit Sea.
The true one."
Wang Lin closed his eyes.
Opened them again.
"…And now?"
A very light laugh echoed. Weary. Ancient.
"Now?
Now your preparation begins."
A heartbeat.
"And you will understand why no mortal should ever bear two Spirit Seas."
Something within Wang Lin changed.
Not yet visible.
Not yet measurable.
But irreversible.
This was not a takeover.
It was the first time his existence refused to be simple.
Wang Lin's abyssal blue eyes were altered the very moment the pact was sealed. Not revealed. Not released. Altered.
At the deepest level of their structure, something silently reorganized. The abyss took on a different density, a different depth — as though sight itself ceased to be a mere sense and became a vessel.
Wang Lin did not notice.
Nor did the goddess.
Yet within those pupils concealed beneath the bandage, ancient patterns began to form: fractured solar traces, incomplete lunar arcs, interwoven with the abyssal blue like divine scars.
Not visible.
But active.
From within Wang Lin's Spirit Sea, the goddess slowly raised her hand. Her body was no longer present — only her residual authority.
"It is time."
She traced a circle within the inner void. This was not a gate forged by force. It was recognition.
The heavens responded.
A celestial portal opened, silent and vertical, composed of layered planes of light, each belonging to a different world. The laws of the Blue Star slid away from its surface, unable to cling.
Wang Lin was pulled through.
At the precise instant of crossing, the goddess paused. A fleeting hesitation.
"…This child."
She sensed something. A pressure that should not exist.
"Such an amount of spiritual energy…
No. Not vast."
Her voice deepened.
"Pure. Continuous. Almost… infinite."
A soft laugh echoed within the Spirit Sea. Weary. But satisfied.
"I was right to form this contract."
She still did not notice the eyes.
The bandage remained intact.
But the moment Wang Lin fully passed through the celestial portal, something, somewhere, stirred.
In another world.
A place where the laws were not yet broken.
Something sensed their arrival.
Not the goddess.
Not the portal.
Him.
Two eyelids slowly opened within the darkness.
An ancient gaze settled upon the sky.
And the world understood — without yet knowing why —
that what had just crossed over was not a mere mortal.