THE REAL PROTEGE

Around them, spectators gathered.

Old Master Li and Madam Li, together with Mr. and Mrs. Xu, stood quietly beside a lantern, their fingers intertwined in prayer. Despite layers of silk and ceremonial grace, their faces betrayed a sense of anxiety. These were their grandchildren, after all — and no amount of magical aptitude could dull the ache of worry.

Pharsa stood beside Chattyt, her heart aching as she watched the twins endure strict training. She felt guilty and frustrated, knowing the twins were targeted because of her.

Ling Li approached the twins, her tone gentle but resonant.

"Today, you do not fight. You face. Illusions may lie, but fear always tells the truth."

Four Eyes stood at her side, arms crossed tightly. He wasn't just watching — he was calculating. Every gesture from the girls was measured against every nightmare he had ever had about losing them.

Shinsei stepped forward and opened the scroll.

"The Rite of Spirit-Echo. You will each walk alone into a field of conjured memory and projected dread. You will not be harmed, but you will be tested."

He tapped his staff against the floor.

The chamber darkened.

Then pulsed with light.

The stone floor spiraled outward, revealing the Astral Wells beneath — glittering voids laced with interwoven energy and dream-mist.

Kim Kim stepped into hers first.

Her vision blurred, then cleared inside the projection:

A temple corridor. Broken pillars. A wounded Ling Li is fading in and out of light.

From the shadows, a twisted spirit rose — its face wearing Ling Li's voice, but hissing.

"You were never ready. You were born to watch others burn."

Kim Kim clenched her fists, trembling.

But then she whispered her sigil aloud — and the illusion cracked. The spirit shrieked, and the corridor collapsed into starlight.

Across the room, Chin Chin screamed once inside her well, facing an illusion of Dale reaching for Pharsa while the family crumbled into ash. But she didn't run.

She stepped forward and said:

"You can't touch what I protect."

She drew her blade — not real, but summoned in spirit — and slashed through the hallucination. It shattered.

The chamber pulsed once.

Then calmed.

Kim Kim and Chin Chin collapsed into one another, breathing hard.

Ling Li rushed forward, holding them close.

Madam Li wept openly, while Old Master Li bowed his head and whispered thanks.

Shinsei closed the scroll.

"They will be ready."

==========

Dale's New Descent: The Genealogy Ritual Begins

Far away, deep within his hidden sanctum, now wrapped in necrotic sigils and void-stone pillars, Enchanted Dale carved into the skin of reality with a blade etched from ancestral bone.

He no longer wanted aura.

He wanted the origin.

He began the Genealogy Rites — a forbidden series of spiritual forensics that traced bloodlines not forward, but backward, bypassing protective naming seals and uncovering untethered ancestral links.

He spilled ink mixed with memory dust and soul fragments stolen from failed rituals.

Images twisted forth: not faces, but threads — spiritual veins reaching toward the Li daughters.

"Their blood comes from fire-born ancestors and dragon-bonded matriarchs," he muttered. "If I harvest even one of these threads… I can corrupt the root."

He conjured a mirror.

But instead of a reflection, it showed a tree — ancient, cracked, its roots glimmering. Two of the origins flickered with gold and white.

He smiled.

"Forget the fruit. I'll poison the tree."

Dale's Desperation: Rewriting the Ancestral Thread

Enchanted Dale knelt before an obsidian altar inscribed with the names of ancient priestesses, many of whom had been erased from the record.

The air was heavy with the scent of fermented root smoke and bone powder. His hands trembled —not with weakness, but with maddened purpose —his obsession.

Before him lay an artifact: a Memory Bloom, a cursed relic capable of stitching through time by binding ancestral spirits to corrupted intention.

He had studied Ling Li's lineage through forbidden genealogical rites, and one thread pulsed with what he needed —her maternal ancestor, known only in temple scripture as Yue Qiren, a celestial tactician who carried the Dragon's Whisper seal.

She was dead.

But through corrupted remembrance, Dale could force a moment of contact — bend the echo, whisper lies, and unravel inherited clarity.

He offered blood. His own memories. A segment of Pharsa's broken aura.

Then he spoke:

"Yue Qiren… matron of wind and mother of the protector… your descendant has deviated from fate. Help me restore the thread. Help me shape her daughters."

The altar pulsed.

Then cracked.

A glimmer formed — faint, translucent.

But it wasn't Yue Qiren.

It was Ling Li's immortal echo, sent as an ancestral defense —triggered the moment Dale touched her bloodline with deceit.

The vision smirked.

"You invoked the wrong spirit."

Before Enchanted Dale could respond, a blade of ancestral wind surged from the altar, slashing his arm open and flinging him against the wall.

Enchanted Dale screamed.

But it was only beginning.

==========

Ling Li's Retaliation: Fury of the Dragon Matron

Back at the Li Estate, Ling Li gasped sharply from meditation. Her vision flared — she felt the tremor, saw the violation. Enchanted Dale had tried to rewrite the thread. Not merely steal power — but twist her bloodline.

Ling Li stood.

In her chamber, sacred blades and celestial cords drifted into motion on their own. Her immortal aura surged from her spine in waves, pressing against the walls. The ground whispered.

She didn't need a gate.

She became the gate.

Final Strike: When Immortality Calls the Storm

Enchanted Dale staggered into his upper sanctum, bleeding, fractured, gasping. He reached for his final scrying mirror.

He saw them.

Kim Kim and Chin Chin sparring under a protective veil, practicing dream sigils. Pharsa is watching from the balcony. Four Eyes is adjusting the twins' posture. Shinsei is chanting softly nearby.

Enchanted Dale raised his hand.

He cast a shatter spell into the mirror — designed to splinter the barrier and drag the twins into his ether domain.

But before the spell landed—

Ling Li appeared in complete immortal form — no robe, no veil, only energy woven into divine threads of wind, flame, and judgment.

She raised one hand.

The mirror imploded.

Dale screamed — shards piercing his body, sigils backfiring.

"You touched my bloodline," Ling Li said, voice echoing across the dimensions.

"You tried to shape my daughters."

Ling Li stepped forward. With each motion, reality warped around her.

Dale summoned every remaining talisman. They burned in his palms.

He cast six chains.

Ling Li sliced through them without blinking.

She spoke a single word in the ancestral tongue — "Return."

A typhoon of soulstorm magic surged forward, imbued with all her lineage: Yue Qiren, dragon whispers, phoenix threads, sealed rites.