THE REAL PROTEGE

Ling Li stood amid the cracked courtyard stones, wind ghosting past her ceremonial robes. Moonlight glimmered faintly on the shards of broken talismans. Pharsa, visibly drained, leaned against Chatty as they turned away, robes trailing, steps slow but steady.

"You two, go back to your wedding chamber," Ling Li said softly. Her voice now held warmth, not command — the kind used to protect without hovering.

Pharsa managed a faint nod, her lips pale, eyes heavy with spent power. Chatty wrapped his arm more tightly around her waist and led her away in reverent silence.

"Make sure to do the deed tonight," Ling Li added.

Pharsa "...."

'Are you truly my sister? Do you not tell the extent of my exhaustion?" Pharsa mulled in dismay. Nevertheless, her ears are noticeably red.

Chatty's face darkened, as deep as ink. 'We already did, but it was disrupted,' he angrily thought. His desire to skin Enchanted Dale alive was strong. He even sent the Enfield to Rockie so it wouldn't disturb them tonight. 'Now, my wife is too tired after fighting… I'm so pitiful.' Chatty desperately wanted to cry, but no tears came.

"...."

Ling Li turned then, eyes narrowing as she watched the pale elemental mist still coiling through the garden, not dissipating, but lingering.

"Shinsei," she said, voice quieter now, laced with contemplation. "Pharsa unleashed a very powerful move tonight — something none of us expected."

The monk gave his long white beard a thoughtful stroke, gaze fixed on the ground where Enchanted Dale's etheric presence had once stood.

"I noticed," Shinsei murmured. "But that move… that wasn't learned. It wasn't taught. It was awakened."

Ling Li turned her face fully toward him, her mind racing.

"You mean… inherited."

Shinsei nodded solemnly. "Yes. What erupted from her wasn't cultivated — it came from a bloodline capable of merging elemental law with spiritual inversion. That kind of power doesn't just knock a man down… it unmakes his tether to reality."

Ling Li shivered slightly, remembering the moment — how Enchanted Dale had choked, not just on magic, but on a force he couldn't comprehend.

She looked toward the night sky.

"Pharsa's bloodline… It's not simple."

Shinsei met her gaze. "No. It's ancient. Forbidden in some sects. Revered in others."

His voice deepened. "What she cast tonight… was called Vessel Reversal. A type of energy pulse that doesn't merely attack — it turns the invoker's spiritual claim inside out. It's one thing to resist dark magic. It's another to use their own binding threads to unravel the sorcerer's essence."

Ling Li's eyes widened.

"A mirror strike…"

"Exactly. Only those born of dual elemental fusion and blessed astral lineage can cast it — and only once unless properly trained." Shinsei's gaze grew distant. "It's not just a gift. It's a warning sign. Pharsa is not only the prey in this story; she's also the predator. She may be its *fulcrum."

Ling Li's jaw clenched.

"Could it be… they placed her at your temple not to protect her, but to delay her awakening?"

Shinsei paused, silent for a long moment.

Then:

"Hm. Now that you mention it… It's possible."

The wind stirred again.

Ling Li stood with her arms folded across her chest, staring out at the moon-streaked garden, where the remnants of a magical collision still shimmered faintly in the air.

Shinsei's words hung heavy between them.

She turned back to face him.

"Sealed inheritance… awakened by proximity to corrupted convergence," Ling Li murmured. "A bloodline dormant for decades, now alive and exposed."

Shinsei gave a slow nod, his fingers stroking his beard again, eyes distant and burning with ancestral memory.

"Her parents must have sealed it," he repeated quietly. "But with Enchanted Dale's intrusion tonight —his ritual pull, his volatile intent —it must have triggered a deep resonance. That kind of power doesn't awaken softly. It surges."

Ling Li exhaled slowly, remembering how Pharsa had stood —spirit lit from within, energy erupting like ocean thunder, casting not only Enchanted Dale back but unbinding parts of reality itself.

"This power," Shinsei continued, "is not an art that others study. It's a blessing born of fusion… of celestial and elemental bloodlines. It allows her to invert spiritual claims —to mirror them and sever the caster's tether.

And that, Ling Li, is why it must remain hidden."

Ling Li's expression hardened.

"If word of it leaks, sects will scramble. Some will want to wield her, while others will want to destroy her. Every scholar will argue lineage. Every elder will offer 'protection.' But none will honor her choice."

Shinsei nodded grimly.

"To them, Pharsa will become an artifact, not a soul."

A gust of wind rustled the broken prayer flags above the courtyard. From the shadows of the upper walkway, Kim Kim and Chin Chin peeked again, wide-eyed, their eyes fixed, ears pressed forward to catch every word. They sensed tension too layered for their youth to unravel —but felt, instinctively, that Pharsa was more than kin now. She was a legacy.

Ling Li looked to the stars.

"We'll keep Pharsa safe," she said, voice like tempered steel. "And when the time is right… We'll help her reclaim it not as a burden, but as a birthright."

==========

Enchanted Dale: Backlash and Revelation

The chamber stank of scorched ash and betrayal.

Enchanted Dale lay sprawled across the shattered floor, blood smearing the runes beneath him as fractured soul chains spasmed like severed nerves. His breathing was shallow, erratic — each inhale a dagger, each exhale a curse. He had never felt recoil like this. Pharsa's sealing had ruptured not just his tether, but the core sigil that sustained his spiritual binding.

His fingertips twitched violently. The dagger in his grip was cracked — the firestone dulled. He coughed once, then again — a harsh, wet sound that stained his lips crimson with blood.

"You weren't supposed to have that power," he muttered, voice unraveling.

Flames guttered low around him, refusing to respond to his command. The mirror, once vibrant with scrying light, had dulled to obsidian. But Enchanted Dale wasn't done.

Gritting his teeth, he dragged himself across the fractured circle, his aura flickering like a dying star. Reaching the base of the scrying altar, he pressed his bloody palm against the polished onyx mirror.

"Show me what's hidden," he hissed.

The mirror hesitated — then shimmered.

Faint silhouettes swirled forth: rooms, robes, rituals. The Li estate, serene again under moonlight. And then, shadows of two small figures peeking behind ceremonial curtains — wide eyes glimmering, breath caught in awe.

---------- *Fulcrum - means The Backbone —the Core, or the Foundation. ----------