It took another week for Sylra and Marina to reach the peak of Ascendance.
Without Lucien rejoining the cultivation circle midway through those final days, it likely would have taken longer.
When they finally woke from ditation, their auras were no longer rely strong.
They were complete.
Lucien did not waste ti.
He gathered the four of them and explained the thod in full.
The Empty Vessel. The synchronized reflection. The first tempering through the Abyssal Pool.
Then the second stage, where their true bodies would have to enter and be acknowledged by that blackness directly.
The more he explained, the brighter their eyes beca.
Marie leaned forward first.
"So if this works..." she said, almost grinning, "our Celestial bodies won’t just be strong. They’ll be absurd."
Kaia crossed her arms, looking far too pleased with that thought.
"Good. I was already offended by the ordinary thods."
Marina clasped both hands near her chest.
"My Prince, this sounds terrifying," she said.
Lucien glanced at her.
Marina smiled sweetly.
"And wonderful."
Sylra stayed quieter than the others, but even she did not look afraid.
Only focused.
Lucien looked at all four of them and sighed inwardly.
As expected, none of them were intimidated by the right parts.
"You are all excited," he said, "which is exactly why I need to repeat this. This thod is dangerous."
Marie waved one hand.
"You already said that."
"I’m saying it again."
Kaia smiled.
"That ans he’s worried."
Lucien just sighed.
Kaia, anwhile, had already done sothing even more reckless.
She had broken her old Celestial body.
Her realm had fallen back to the peak of Ascendance, but nothing else had collapsed with it. No lasting internal damage. No ruin of foundation. No spiral of instability.
Seeing it firsthand made Lucien understand more clearly just how unnatural their new constitutions truly were.
They did not rely strengthen the body. They gave absurd control over it.
The realization made Lucien think of his own.
He opened his status.
***
Constitution:
• Primordial Vessel (Evolving)
***
Lucien looked at it for a long mont.
Primordial Vessel.
That much already sounded excessive.
But the word beside it had always bothered him more.
Evolving.
If his understanding was correct, then this body of his might one day escape the limits of the Big World entirely and approach the level of a Primordial existence.
That alone should have been enough to unsettle anyone.
But if it was still evolving...
Then what, exactly, was it evolving toward?
Lucien felt a brief chill.
’Was there sothing above Primordials?’
The thought itself was enough to make the space behind his eyes tighten.
He closed the status window.
’Not now.’
There were already enough impossible things before him.
•••
That sa day, Lucien brought the four won with him to inform the others.
They would be gone for so ti.
Breaking through to the Celestial Realm was not the work of a day. One had to wrestle oneself into agreent with a greater law of existence, and that kind of transformation could take months or years depending on thod, comprehension, and survival.
The people of Lootwell ca to see them off.
Eirene and Lilith even accompanied them all the way to the Palace of Stillness.
The journey through its great halls passed in relative quiet.
Even Marie, who usually had to fill silence with sothing, only started a few random topics on the way and then abandoned them halfway, as if the gravity of the place kept swallowing them before they could beco nonsense.
By the ti they reached the chamber of the Abyssal Pool, no one was speaking anymore.
The sea of blackness waited for them.
This was it.
If they succeeded, they would rise beyond what they had been.
If they failed...
Lucien did not continue that thought.
Instead, he raised one hand.
The five Empty Vessels appeared.
They had already been arranged near the Pool, seated cross-legged in silence like patient shells waiting for the souls that would borrow them.
The four won recognized theirs almost imdiately.
Marie walked toward hers first and then stopped short.
"For a second," she said, eyes widening, "I really thought I had a twin sister."
Kaia crouched beside her own vessel and inspected it with much less dignity than Lucien would have preferred.
"Right," she muttered. Then, after checking sothing with her hands, added, "Even the asurents are the sa."
Lucien coughed into one fist.
Marie imdiately turned.
"What asurents?"
Kaia looked up at her without sha.
"The important ones."
Sylra stood before her own vessel with her brows furrowed, not disturbed, but deeply focused.
Marina, naturally, looked delighted.
"My Prince," she said, smiling brightly, "we can play with my doll later, hehe."
The other three turned and stared at her.
Marina went silent at once.
Lucien closed his eyes for one brief second.
"Ahem," he said. "Be serious."
Lucien continued.
"Now do it. Cut off a fragnt of your soul and transfer it into the vessel. Once the authority settles, we begin."
This ti, no one joked.
They all sat before their respective vessels.
Lucien sat as well.
Then he turned inward.
He reached into himself and descended deeper.... past surface thought, past spirit, and into the place where his soul could be perceived directly.
Or rather—
souls.
For this ti, he saw it clearly enough to stop.
His soul did not appear singular.
It looked... stitched, layered, and nded together from multiple pieces until they had beco one functioning whole.
Lucien stared.
For a brief second, even the Abyssal Pool behind him seed less important than that sight.
But there was no ti to untangle that mystery now.
He searched through the structure of his own soul, looking for the right place to cut.
Then he found a region that felt familiar.
As though that portion carried much of the weight of the "Lucien" who now ruled, decided, and endured.
He chose it.
When he severed the fragnt, a sharp pain lanced through his mind. For a heartbeat, the world around him dimd.
Lucien gritted his teeth and endured it.
Then he guided the soul fragnt forward and pressed it into the Empty Vessel.
The reaction ca at once.
A connection.
The vessel was no longer rely a crafted shell.
It had beco sothing he could inhabit at will.
Just then, he looked sideways.
The others were pale.
Cutting away a fragnt of soul was no trivial thing.
But it was a controlled sacrifice, and one that could be restored later once the process ended.
Lucien steadied himself.
Then he commanded the vessel.
Its eyes opened.
A faint, cold aura spilled out from it the mont awareness entered the shell. It rose slowly, stretched once, and then stood with eerie obedience under his distant control.
Lucien nodded.
’Perfect.’
Then sothing flew at him.
Marina’s vessel launched itself directly toward his.
Lucien reacted instantly and caught her before she collided with him badly.
Kaia’s vessel moved next, grabbing at Marina’s from behind.
Marie joined in with the exact kind of enthusiasm that suggested she had been waiting for any excuse to cause confusion.
Sylra’s vessel approached more carefully.
Then, to Lucien’s surprise, it reached out and poked his Empty Vessel once in the arm.
Lucien blinked.
Everyone turned toward the real Sylra.
Sylra coughed lightly and looked away.
"It seems," she said, "that if it isn’t my real body... I’m fine touching n."
A beat passed.
Then she added, even quieter, "Or maybe... just Luc."
The silence that followed was imdiate and brutal.
Marie’s vessel stopped moving.
Kaia slowly turned her head.
Marina looked between Sylra and Lucien with the kind of expression that promised future trouble.
Sylra’s face turned slightly red, and she looked as if she regretted language as a concept.
Finally, Lucien cleared his throat.
"We are starting now," he said.
Once the foolishness settled, Lucien stood and moved between the four.
Then he invoked Origin Rewrite.
He only transford their inner structure.
The changes unfolded beneath their skin like threads being rewoven in silence. The synchronized constitution of the Mirrorhorn Duants was mirrored carefully within them, adapted not as a full identity rewrite but as a resonance frawork.
One by one, the inner patterns settled.
Then they felt the connection imdiately.
He stepped back and looked at them.
Five bodies.
Five soul-links.
Five vessels prepared to step into annihilation first so that the true ones might survive later.
Beyond them, the Abyssal Pool waited in perfect stillness.
Lucien exhaled once.
Then he looked at the four won.
They nodded.
Everything had been prepared.
The path to the Celestial Realm lay open before them now.
And the first true step was about to begin.
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