h4Chapter 1764: Chapter 1763/h4

    The light that lingered above the tree slowly dimmed into a golden twilight, though the sky beyond still pulsed with soft radiance - as if night and day had finally surrendered their boundaries to something new. Judey at the center of it all, encircled by the twelve women who had be more than lovers, more thanpanions. They were pieces of him now, facets of one shared pulse. The moss cradled them like skin, breathing with them, around them, holding them in warmth as the echoes of their union drifted like music through the air.

    Lucy stirred first, her fingers gently trailing down Jude’s stomach, curlingzily around the line of hair beneath his navel. "We’re still glowing," she murmured, pressing a kiss against his chest. "Even after all that."

    He smiled, eyes still closed. "It doesn’t fade."

    "It can’t," Rose whispered, her cheek against his shoulder. "Not after what we’ve be."

    Ste’s giggle rippled from the other side of him. "So what are we now? Wives of a god? Priestesses of a seed-bearer? Or just... really well-loved?"

    "Thatst one," Zoey said, stretching like a cat. "Definitely that one."

    But Emma, whose eyes had been fixed on the slow rise and fall of Jude’s chest, sat up slowly. Her skin shimmered faintly, her breath steady, but her expression had shifted into something more serious. "It’s not over," she said quietly. "The ind... it’s still moving."

    They followed her gaze.

    Outside the crystal tree’s blooming chamber, the silver grass of the endless field had begun to ripple again - not like wind across a meadow, but like water. Or breath. And far in the distance, where the stars touched the ground in delicate patterns, a new shape began to emerge.

    A dome.

    Smooth, translucent, and growing.

    Natalie rose next, brushing golden dust from her thighs, her face tense. "Do you think it’s... more of them? Like ra?"

    "I don’t know," Jude said, sitting up slowly. "But we’re being called again. I feel it."

    Scarlet leaned into his side, her hair tumbling across his arm. "What if it’s something dangerous?"

    "We are not what we were," Rose said, standing now, the light catching the curve of her body like me on silk. "We are not weak. We are not scattered. Whatever waits for us out there... we meet it together."

    Sophie’s arms wrapped around Jude from behind. "Always together."

    The others nodded, rising one by one, bare and gleaming like stars brought to earth. They stepped out from the tree’s warmth and into the silver grass once more. The air smelled sweeter now,ced with blossoms none of them had seen before - orchids shaped like mouths, ferns that whispered as they passed, petals that shimmered like scales in starlight.

    As they approached the dome, it changed - rising higher, curving open like a flower, revealing a space within not unlike the one they had just left. Only here, at the center, stood a structure: a temple grown from the same crystal as the heartstone, its edges softened by vines and glowing with steady pulse. At its base stood a circle of figures.

    Twelve of them.

    Naked.

    Radiant.

    But not the same as Jude’s wives.

    They were other.

    Different.

    A man stood at the center, his skin dark as midnight, his hair braided with bone-white blossoms, his chest marked with glowing glyphs. Around him stood eleven women - tall, serene, each glowing with a different hue. Their bodies bore different stories: some scarred, some adorned, all powerful.

    The man stepped forward first, stopping just outside the boundary of the dome.

    "You’ve heard the song," he said, voice low and thunderous. "You’ve answered it."

    Jude held Lucy’s hand tighter, stepping forward with her. "We did."

    The man smiled faintly. "So did we. Long ago."

    Rose stepped beside Jude. "Who are you?"

    "I am Tarek," the man said. "Seed-bearer of thest dream. These are my bonded."

    Zoey cocked her head. "Last dream?"

    Tarek’s gaze fell on Jude, studying him deeply. "The ind doesn’t forget. It merely waits. Sleeps. You woke it. As we once did."

    Emma’s brow furrowed. "What happened to your dream?"

    "It ended," one of the women said, her voice like rain. "As all things do. We faded. The ind grieved. Then it began to call again."

    Sophie’s hand tightened around Jude’s. "Is that what we are? A recement?"

    "No," said another woman, stepping forward. "You are rebirth."

    The domed field began to shift again - ground splitting gently, revealing long, petal-shaped alcoves in the earth. Vines moved with slow invitation, wrapping into tforms, beds, thrones of living moss.

    "We’ve been waiting," Tarek said. "For you. To join us. Or to begin anew."

    Jude took a step closer. "What are you offering?"

    The women moved together then, not toward them, but around Tarek. Their hands caressed him, kissed his skin, murmured into his body with a grace and need that mirrored Jude’s own lovers. It was not a performance - it was truth. Their bond was old. Real. Lust and love and sacred rhythm.

    Tarek held Jude’s gaze. "To learn. To share. To build."

    Jude nced at Lucy, then Rose, then each of the others in turn. No one moved. But no one turned away either.

    Grace whispered, "We’ve only just begun."

    Natalie’s eyes were wide. "But what if they’re like us?"

    "They are," Emma said. "Or they were."

    Sophie nodded. "And if we keep going... we’ll be more."

    Tarek extended his hand.

    Jude stepped forward and took it.

    And the moment their palms touched, the world shifted again.

    Not violently.

    Not painfully.

    But with reverence.

    The stars above shimmered like waves. The grass beneath their feet turned gold.

    And then came the images - visions not unlike those from the pool, but this time shared. Their minds joined. Jude saw Tarek’s first union, the women who hade to him, the temple they had built from breath and flesh and promise.

    He saw their children - blossoms born not from wombs but from light. Ideas. Memories. Dream-souls. He saw their love. Their fall. Their surrender.