THE REAL PROTEGE

The Twins' dragon-bonded essence flickered like distant suns. Enchanted Dale hissed through his teeth, hunched over the thread.

"Come to me," Enchanted Dale growled, directing the ritual blade across the silver glyph, preparing to pierce the junction point between Pharsa's seal and the twins' ancestral vein.

Just as the blade touched the glyph—

Ling Li's Interception: Wrath of the Matron

Wind shrieked.

The entire sanctum rattled, sigils bleeding from the walls as a cold pressure spread like ink in water. The blade shattered mid-motion. Glyphs exploded in bursts of blinding light.

A spiritual projection carved from air and divine fire manifested at the threshold — Ling Li, her form cloaked in stormwoven robes, her eyes gleaming white and wrathful.

She hovered above the shattered threshold, her voice rising like thunder.

Ling Li shouted angrily, "You are really courting death!"

Enchanted Dale scrambled backward, arm scorched, voice caught in a half-scream.

His barriers, layered and reinforced over days of channeling, crumpled like paper before her presence.

"You cast eyes upon my daughters. You thread sorcery through my blood. You desecrate my lineage through ritual theft." Ling Li raised her hand.

Every broken ward responded, reforming under her control and binding Enchanted Dale in a net of air and molten sigils. They didn't just immobilize him — they erased the ritual language he used, word by word, from spiritual memory.

"I let you crawl last time." Ling Li's tone froze the air. "This time, I sever."

She touched her palm to the final seal, and Enchanted Dale screamed as the ancestral conduit fractured.

Bloodline access: revoked.

==========

The Next Day: Training Psychic Fortresses

The courtyard in Russia was layered in fog as dawn broke through frost-lined trees. Kim Kim and Chin Chin stood barefoot in concentric circles painted with dream-ink and wrapped in defensive mantras. Shinsei gently adjusted their wrist sigils while Four Eyes, unusually solemn, sat beside Ling Li, his hand bracing a carved instruction scroll, eyes vigilant.

Ling Li stepped between her daughters and knelt.

"Last night, your blood was traced." She spoke without ceremony.

"Through Pharsa. Through me. Enchanted Dale sought not your aura — he sought your past."

Kim Kim stiffened.

Chin Chin furrowed her brow.

"So he wants our memories?"

"He wants to rewrite them." Ling Li said.

The twins' expressions darkened.

Ling Li placed a glimmering orb between them — the Seed of Thought, a device used to focus identity within layered dreaming. She began the Psychic Fortress Rite, her voice steady:

"Build with emotion. Guard with truth. Anchor with memory."

Under her guidance, the twins summoned personalized defenses:

Kim Kim invoked corridors of wind-carved cliffs and slingshot echoes — she built high walls but left open gates for her family.

Chin Chin constructed layered temples, mirrors with fire sigils, and a silent watchtower where she herself stood guard — her fortress was quiet, but impenetrable.

As each girl finished, the Seed of Thought pulsed. Their psychic signatures solidified.

Ling Li smiled faintly.

"Good. Now you cannot be entered without an invitation."

Pharsa's Unease and Confession

That evening, Pharsa sat quietly on the balcony overlooking the outer grove. Her tea had gone cold in her hands. The ceremony weeks ago had sealed her aura — but something pressed against her thoughts again, faint and oily.

Ling Li joined her in silence.

Pharsa didn't greet her. She said:

"Someone used my spirit imprint. Again."

Ling Li remained still.

"Not in a ritual. In search. As if testing keys against locks that never belonged to them." She said.

Ling Li took the cup from her and set it down gently.

"Enchanted Dale tried to bind your lineage to my daughters'."

Pharsa's breath caught.

"Enchanted Dale won't stop. He'll go deeper. Sometimes I wonder if this person is a machoist." Ling Li chuckled. "He just won't stop. It's his obsession to alter the world and become his."

Ling Li leaned forward.

"We'll anchor you. Re-inscribe your aura through elemental protection rites and identity mantra. Your blood is not his to rewrite."

Pharsa nodded, but her eyes were distant. She wasn't afraid — but she was changing.

And somewhere, Enchanted Dale lay bruised and stifled beneath broken sigils — eyes open, plotting again.

Pharsa's Re-inscription Ceremony: Claiming the Spirit Back

Upon his arrival in the vast, snow-kissed expanse of Russia, Shinsei quickly became aware of Pharsa's troubling plight. The weight of her predicament hung in the air like a thick fog, shrouded in uncertainty and despair. Deeply moved by her struggle, he resolved to orchestrate the Re-inscription Ceremony, an ancient and mystical rite designed to summon forth her spirit once more. With determination burning in his heart, Shinsei set about rallying the energies needed to reclaim what was lost, knowing that the ceremony would intertwine their fates in the most profound and transformative way.

Moonlight slanted through the open atrium above the sacred pool, its reflection broken only by the ripple of mineral water drawn from the frozen spring beneath the Russian mountain.

Pharsa stood at the edge, robe soaked in protective ink and threaded silver, her aura faint but stabilizing. The glow around her dimmed, waiting to be rekindled.

Ling Li, cloaked in stormwoven ceremonial robes, adjusted the altar stones ringing the pool. Each was etched with an element — wind, flame, river, and sky. Her expression held both tenderness and iron will.

At her left stood Shinsei, cloaked in layered ritual garments, the ends of his prayer beads trailing like starlight smoke. He carried the Phoenix Scroll, a relic used to verify soul alignment across temporal ruptures. His energy was calm but piercing — the quiet strength of a mountain after thunder.

As Pharsa stepped into the water, Shinsei extended his hand toward the sky and whispered a mantra under his breath. With it, the ancestral wind stirred, weaving through Ling Li's fire glyphs and wrapping around Pharsa's shoulders.

"Begin," Shinsei said softly.

Ling Li raised her hand and spoke aloud:

"Pharsa, your name has been borrowed, masked, traded. Tonight, it returns to you."

Shinsei echoed:

"Your spirit has endured fracture. Let the soul re-sound. Let the light re-thread."

Pharsa inhaled deeply. The water tingled against her skin, cool and charged. Her voice trembled as she spoke:

"My imprint was scattered. My aura was stolen. But my will remains. I reclaim my being, not as inheritance — but as choice."

At her words, the glyphs burned white-hot.