CHAPTER 418: TWO WORLDS AS ONE

All across Anbord, the skies trembled, and so did the hearts of its people.

It began with a soundless pulse, a shiver in the fabric of existence that swept across mountains, oceans, and cities like a quiet breath of divinity. Then came the sight no mortal had ever witnessed before, two moons rising side by side above the world.

One glowed a serene silver, its light cascading over half the empire like gentle waves of blessing. The other shimmered crimson, veiling the opposite half in a soft, nocturnal hue. For the first time in history, day and night existed together, split across a single horizon.

Gasps filled the streets. Crowds spilled from homes and skyrails, from market districts and academies, pointing at the heavens as the impossible unfolded before them.

"Two moons..."

"Is this real?"

"Look, the sun and the moons! Both at once!"

And then they saw it, far beyond the atmospheric veil, vast trees, their roots piercing through clouds and their canopies stretching into the stars. Some of them towered so high they made even Anbord’s tallest skyscrapers and floating citadels look like toys. Each leaf shimmered with its own bioluminescent rhythm, alive with otherworldly color.

The merged world, the Beast Plane, had become visible.

From the daylight side of Anbord, one could glimpse massive landmasses floating in the new heavens, some linked by bridges of light and roots. Ethereal birds of impossible design glided between them. From the night side, where the crimson moon reigned, one could see the silhouettes of entire forests hanging upside-down in the sky, dripping faint energy like falling stars.

The Beast Plane, too, stirred in awe. The denizens, from the mighty E’Sheril Queens to the T’Shalari seers, gazed upward, beholding the glittering mechanical structures of Anbord now suspended like constellations above their world. Steel and stone coexisted with spirit and root, magic and machine entwined like breath and pulse.

"The Emperor..." a priest whispered in disbelief, eyes fixed on the horizon that bled light and shadow together.

"That is the work of the Emperor!" shouted another.

"Gods!" came a third voice, trembling with awe and reverence. "He’s a god!"

And then the chant began, spreading like wildfire: "Long live the Emperor! Long live Emperor Ethan Kael’Dri!"

...

Meanwhile, high above the merging line of twilight, fleets of media airships soared through the trembling skies. Among them was Revel Jr., his red hair whipping in the wind as he leaned over the rail of his ship, the VelRay Seeker.

"Keep the cameras steady!" he barked into his communicator. "We’re witnessing history! No, more than history, we’re watching creation itself!"

His team scrambled around him, pilots, broadcasters, spirit technicians, all barely able to contain their awe as their screens lit up with scenes beyond comprehension.

The ship had crossed into the night side, and what they saw defied everything they knew about the world. The ground below shimmered with glowing rivers that pulsed like veins. Gigantic, luminescent flora bent toward the red moon above, while ghostly silhouettes moved gracefully through the mist, not monsters, but beings of beauty and mystery.

The Will Clan’s races.

Even with all the emperor’s briefings and images, seeing them firsthand was an entirely different experience.

Some of the Will Clan’s inhabitants were breathtakingly alien. The T’Shalari, with their smooth, red scaly skin and silvery-blue eyes, moved with silent elegance, their eyes glowing with psychic energy. The E’Sheril, four-armed and blue-skinned, appeared to be sculpted from water and moonlight, their forms refracting blue and silver hues with each motion.

And then there were others, the Brelores, their dark golden eyes sharp and alive, the beast tattoos on their backs moving subtly like living sigils; and the Frost Spirits, blue-skinned with angelic-looking wings and ethereal, walking in clusters that left trails of crystalline snow behind them even under the blood moon.

"By the Core... look at them," one of the cameramen muttered, voice trembling as he zoomed in on a Brelores hunter drawing a bow whose string was made of pure sound. Revel just grinned, a mix of fear and exhilaration dancing in his eyes.

"The Emperor wasn’t kidding. These are the children of another Anbord."

The ship shook lightly as another ripple coursed through the merged skies. Revel steadied himself, looking out at the border where both halves of existence met, day and night, sun and twin moons, science and magic.

He whispered, almost reverently, "We’re not just recording history... we’re standing in the dawn of a new era."

...

The air was still, unnaturally still.

Every vibration, every whisper of magic that had filled the Labyrinth Grove moments ago had quieted into an almost reverent silence. The only sound that remained was the faint hum of the merged worlds above, resonating through the earth like the heartbeat of something newly born.

At the center of the grove, surrounded by sigils now dimming from blinding silver to a deep, pulsating gold, Ethan Voryn Kael’Dri lay unconscious in Barki’s arms. His silvery-white hair, streaked faintly with threads of gold and blue, shimmered as if the very essence of the two worlds was weaving itself into him.

Around them, the air was saturated with divine residue, energy so pure and so heavy that the very atmosphere seemed to bend under its weight. It rolled in gentle waves, distorting light, space, and even time around the emperor’s body.

Barki held him carefully, her orange eyes scanning his face. Despite his exhaustion, there was a faint, almost boyish smile tugging at his lips, the kind of expression that carried both madness and triumph.

"You would really be the death of us," she murmured, brushing a lock of his hair aside. Her tone was teasing, but her hands trembled slightly as she said it. "Honestly, Ethan... you just had to play god, didn’t you?"

Her words broke the stillness like a ripple.

From the edge of the grove, Asteria and Vaeloria stepped closer, their forms outlined by a faint divine glow. Asteria’s blue-white aura flickered with a faint dissonance, reacting instinctively to the newborn divinity saturating the grove. Her expression was unreadable, somewhere between awe, disbelief, and an almost reluctant admiration.

She knelt beside Barki, her eyes lingering on the faint runes that still floated around Ethan’s chest. "He’s crossed the boundary..." she whispered, her voice low, melodic, and almost trembling. "Do you even understand what this means, Barki? What he did wasn’t just linking worlds; he merged two planes of existence with distinct laws of creation."

She looked up toward the sky, where two suns and two moons now hung in perfect paradox. "He’s working within the framework of gods, the domain of reality itself. And he did it..." she paused, her tone softening as her gaze returned to Ethan, "...without divine infrastructure. Without a pantheon. Without permission."

Vaeloria stepped forward, her silvery-blue eyes glowing faintly as she looked down at Ethan’s resting form. The faint hum of power rolling off his body made even her deep, ancient blood stir uneasily. Her usual composed demeanor cracked slightly as she placed a hand over her heart.

"I can feel it... something’s changing in him," she said quietly. "It’s not just his aura, it’s his soul. It’s reshaping itself."

The ground beneath them shivered, and the sigils flared for a heartbeat before dimming again. Then came a pulse, faint but immense.

It wasn’t just energy; it was divinity.

The trees of the grove, ancient, conscious, and bound to the fabric of the world, bent toward him as if paying homage. The runes carved into the stones glowed in unison, echoing with whispers in languages long forgotten. Even the wind changed its direction, converging toward Ethan’s still form as though nature itself recognized a new axis around which to move.

Asteria’s expression tightened, both proud and fearful. "This... this isn’t normal divinity. It’s not born of worship or ascension, it’s synthesis. He’s absorbing fragments of both worlds’ governing essences."

"Will he survive that?" Vaeloria asked quietly, her tone laced with an uncharacteristic fragility.

Asteria closed her eyes for a moment, feeling the frequency of his pulse, not through touch, but through the web of creation itself. "If it were anyone else," she said slowly, "they’d have been unmade the moment they attempted it. But him..."

She looked down at Ethan again, her voice falling into a whisper. "He’s not just holding the bridge, he is the bridge."

Barki looked at the glowing lines forming faintly beneath Ethan’s skin, traces of runic script that resembled neither human magic nor divine sigils, but something entirely new. "What’s happening to him right now?" she asked.

"His essence is adapting," Asteria replied softly. "Both planes, Anbord and the Beast Plane, are rewriting their laws to coexist. And he’s serving as the mediator, the stabilizer, the living conduit. The resonance you feel... It’s his divinity awakening."

The earth pulsed again, stronger this time. Ethan’s body glowed faintly, his veins lighting up with alternating colors of red and silver, the hues of both worlds. Around him, space rippled, a faint shimmer like heat distortion, but vast enough to make the grove feel infinite for a moment.

Vaeloria shielded her eyes as fragments of light began to rise from his chest, not flames, but conceptual motes, pieces of essence torn from the barrier between existence. Each one pulsed with immense, unidentifiable energy before dissolving into the air.

"His soul is evolving," Asteria said, awe finally slipping into her tone. "He’s not becoming a god... not yet. He’s becoming the seed of one, a divinity without a throne, a god of convergence."

Barki smirked faintly, tightening her hold around Ethan’s limp body. "Tch. Figures. Always going overboard. You’d think saving the world twice was enough."

Vaeloria chuckled softly, though her voice quivered faintly. "And yet, I can’t help but think he’ll wake up and ask for tea like nothing happened."

The three women fell silent for a moment, watching as the lights faded, leaving only the faint glow of equilibrium behind. The two worlds had stabilized, for now, and at their nexus lay the man who had rewritten creation itself.

Asteria finally broke the silence. "When he wakes up," she said quietly, "the world will not see an emperor anymore..."

Barki glanced at her. "Then what will they see?"

Asteria’s gaze softened, glowing with golden reverence as she looked toward the man who had once defied even her divine reason.

"...They’ll see the Axis of Realms."

"I can hear all that, you know?"