The first thing I felt was grief.
Not mine.
Ancient.
Heavy enough to drown kingdoms.
I stood beneath a sky with no moons.
No stars.
No sun.
Only endless silver-grey stretches. This stretches all of existence, literally emptiness stretching above a dead ocean of still water.
The Moonwater Realm was gone.
Or rather—
This was what it had been before it became a realm.
A memory.
The inside of the Lunar Heart.
The woman crying stood alone at the centre of the endless water.
Barefoot.
White robes stained with silver blood.
Long black hair falling like midnight over her shoulders.
She knelt with both hands pressed against the surface of the sea, and every tear that touched the water became moonlight.
I didn't need ARINA to tell me who she was.
The first Moon Sovereign.
The one who created the seal.
The original warden.
She was beautiful in the way storms were beautiful.
And broken in the way only gods could be.
I took one careful step forward.
The water beneath my feet did not ripple.
This place wasn't real.
Not physically.
But the sorrow was here.
She spoke before turning.
"I wondered how long it would take."
Her voice was soft.
Tired.
As if she had been speaking to silence for centuries.
I stopped.
"You can see me?"
She laughed quietly.
"No."
Finally, someone honest.
She slowly rose and turned.
Her face looked strangely familiar.
Not identical to Yue Xiang.
But connected.
Same eyes.
Same impossible calm beneath the pain.
She studied me for a long moment.
Then her gaze dropped to my chest.
To the Phoenix Mark.
And for the first time—
Her expression changed.
"Ah."
Not fear.
Recognition.
That was becoming a disturbing trend.
"So the fire still remembers."
I folded my arms.
"People keep saying things like that and never explaining them."
She smiled faintly.
"Yes. Mortals and gods are equally terrible at communication."
I liked her already.
Which probably meant emotional damage was coming.
She stepped across the dead water toward me.
No sound.
No movement.
Just inevitability.
"I am called many things in broken histories."
She touched the surface of the sea.
"The First Moon."
"The Silver Sovereign."
"The Woman Who Closed the Gate."
Her eyes met mine.
"But before all of that…"
A pause.
"I was simply Yue."
Not Yue Xiang.
Before the title.
Before the burden.
Just Yue.
I swallowed slowly.
Because I already knew this wasn't going to be a happy story.
"Let me guess," I said.
"Everything went terribly."
She actually smiled.
"Astonishingly so."
Fair.
She looked toward the horizon.
And the memory changed.
The Dead Sea became a battlefield.
Massive gates of black stone split the sky open.
Countless sovereigns stood together beneath them.
Flame goddesses wrapped in phoenix fire.
Moon rulers crowned in silver rivers.
Dragon kings.
Forest queens.
Storm empresses.
All of them are facing the same impossible darkness beyond the gate.
The thing behind it had no form.
Only hunger.
Only pressure.
The kind of presence that made existence feel like a mistake.
Even remembering it made my skin crawl.
Yue's voice echoed beside me.
"The final gate was never meant to open."
I stared at the vision.
"Then why did it?"
She looked tired.
"Because mortals always mistake curiosity for wisdom."
That also sounded familiar.
Probably because humanity was aggressively consistent.
She continued.
"The World Gates were created to connect realms."
Her hand moved.
The image shifted.
"The first sovereigns believed balance required unity."
Worlds linked.
Power shared.
Knowledge exchanged.
It sounded ideal.
Until it wasn't.
"One gate touched another."
Then another.
Then another.
Until eventually—
They reached something that should have remained untouched.
The final gate.
I watched the darkness beyond it move.
Not attack.
Observe.
As if it had only just noticed reality.
My throat tightened.
"What is it?"
Yue answered quietly.
"We never learned its true name."
Her voice lowered.
"So we called it what fear always names the unknown."
Abyss.
Of course.
The simplest word.
The worst meaning.
"When the final gate opened, the Abyss learned how to enter."
The battlefield shifted.
I watched sovereigns die.
Flame worlds are burning.
Moon realms are drowning.
Dragons falling from shattered skies.
Not war.
Consumption.
The Abyss didn't conquer.
It infected.
Ashborn's words returned to me.
Your goddesses will be the first to die.
Because they were the locks.
The sovereigns were never rulers.
They were seals.
I looked at Yue.
"That's why they're targeted."
She nodded.
"The Covenant believes control is safer than freedom."
Another familiar line.
"They are wrong."
"But not entirely."
That stopped me.
She stepped closer.
"If the final gate opens fully, the sovereigns die first."
Her voice was calm.
"Then the realms."
"Then whatever remains learns what silence means."
No pressure.
Just universal extinction.
Excellent.
I rubbed my face.
"So my choices are to save everyone or disappoint literally all of existence."
"Yes."
"Great."
She almost laughed.
Almost.
Then her expression changed.
Softer.
Sad.
"The fire chose you because once, long ago…"
She looked toward the battlefield.
"…there was another."
The vision shifted again.
A man standing beside the First Flame Sovereign.
Golden fire in his hands.
A phoenix mark on his chest.
Not a god.
Not fully mortal either.
A bridge.
Like me.
"He failed?"
I asked quietly.
Yue's eyes reflected old grief.
"He chose love over duty."
That answer hurt more than expected.
Because it sounded human.
Real.
Not heroic.
Just painfully real.
"And everything burnt."
Silence.
The dead sea returned around us.
The memory settled.
I stood there trying to process the fact that my job description had somehow become cosmic emotional disaster management.
Then I asked the only question that mattered.
"Professor Mehra."
Yue's expression shifted again.
Ah.
There it was.
"He came here."
Not a question.
She nodded once.
"He walked this memory."
Hope and dread hit at the same time.
"What did he learn?"
Her answer came like a blade.
"That saving the world may require choosing who must be lost."
I hated that instantly.
"No."
Her gaze did not move.
"He asked the same thing."
That sounded exactly like him.
I clenched my fists.
"I'm not accepting that."
For the first time, Yue smiled fully.
Tired.
Proud.
And heartbreakingly familiar.
"Good."
She touched the Phoenix Mark lightly.
"That is why the fire still answers you."
The dead sky above us cracked.
The memory was ending.
The Lunar Heart was pulling me back.
Yue stepped away.
"One final truth, Ishaan."
Her voice echoed across the endless silver sea.
"The next gate will not test your strength."
The world began dissolving into moonlight.
"It will test who you are willing to become."
And then—
darkness.
I fell upward.
Toward the real world.
Toward Yue Xiang.
Toward the abyss waiting outside.
And now—
toward a truth I could no longer ignore.
Saving everyone might be impossible.
Which meant I would have to do something far harder.
Prove destiny wrong.