The Glorious Evolution

As these words resounded in Idriss’s ears, crimson light erupted around them, and his expression crumbled as he realized what she intended to do.

He had been waiting for Fang to reach him... intending to grab the wolf during the attack and take him into his own Dominion as a final desperate measure.

Even if he only survived a few moments inside, the girls would have a chance to escape.

He never imagined that Shia could take his place!

Only now... did he finally realize that his daughter was no longer a Warden Daywalker.

Any other time, he would have celebrated this proud moment... but now, her Dominion felt like a curse.

She had reached his rank, yet she was still no match for Fang.

And the father, who always worried, tried to seize her shoulder, to pull her back before the Dominion accepted her challenge.

Alas... his ruined body couldn’t obey that desperate wish.

Under his stunned, bleeding eyes, a dark red trunk emerged before him.

Branches rose into the sky, filling with crystal leaves that bled over Idriss as his knees struck the ground.

He still held Fin’Sho upright, both hands gripping its hilt as his daughter’s blood fell over his ruined shoulders, running down his arms to mingle with his own.

He had bled for her... broken his own body to remain standing between her and that monster.

Now her tree bled over him, while he knelt helplessly before it...

Dozens of meters away, another gigantic trunk rose from the ruined ground... Fang’s Dominion Tree!

Crimson veins marked its black bark, while silver crescents formed along the branches.

The leaves changed through the moon’s phases until hundreds of miniature blood moons matched the one overhead... their crimson glow reaching Idriss as he knelt before his daughter’s bleeding tree.

Whatever happened inside... he was no longer part of it, nor was Jasmine, whose brush hovered over an unfinished signature on a new scroll.

The painting itself was complete.

Two portals waited beside three figures... one beside Jasmine, the other beside Shia and Idriss.

Once she signed, the portals would appear next to them, giving them a chance to escape.

Shia would still need to help her father through their portal... and Jasmine could only hope they managed it before Fang reached them again.

She had used the time Idriss’ attack bought her to finish it.

But maintaining the Erasure barrier had nearly exhausted her remaining energy... activating both portals together would require sacrificing her own life force as a price.

A few decades of her life, at that... yet Jasmine had already accepted the price.

Alas... just as Idriss was willing to sacrifice his body for them, and she was sacrificing a few decades, Shia was faster.

Her brush had already begun the signature when Shia took Fang inside the Rift of Binding Laws.

’I was almost done...’

Jasmine looked toward the bleeding tree, waiting for something to change... for her friend to appear again, injured and furious, demanding to know why the portal wasn’t ready.

But Shia remained inside.

Finishing the painting now wouldn’t bring her back.

Jasmine lowered her gaze to the scroll, her hands shaking... in it, all three of them escaped together... a future she was ready to surrender decades of her life to make real.

Yet, she was too slow.

’The Heir of Creation and Erasure...’ Jasmine’s lips trembled. ’How useless am I...’

She knew how powerful her Aspects were. Bringing her paintings into reality, erasing whatever stood in her way, opening passages between distant locations... how many people could do such things?

At first, preparing paintings and spending energy to bring them to life seemed like a fair price.

It was powerful... terrifyingly powerful.

But now, she hated its limitations just as much.

A prepared painting only helped if it suited the situation. Otherwise, she needed another scroll, another drawing, another signature... all while an enemy like Fang could reach her before she completed a single stroke!

And finishing the painting didn’t solve everything.

The more complicated its effects or the stronger the target, the more brutally it devoured her energy.

Those spatial portals weren’t simple drawings... she was manipulating space itself, interfering with laws beyond her current rank.

Recovering her energy took time even when using Growth Totems... and whatever energy returned barely kept her afloat.

Before this mission, those weaknesses didn’t seem so unbearable.

Now, Idriss knelt before his daughter’s tree while he was covered in their blood... and Jasmine finally understood how helpless she was against someone strong enough to overwhelm her preparations.

Meanwhile, Levi was wreaking havoc among their enemies with his Nine Senses Seed alone.

He kept his Sun and Void powers hidden for their own sake and the planet’s safety while Jasmine exhausted herself just trying to get them away from Fang.

As the Heir of Creation and Erasure... she felt like this was shameful.

The thought of him reminded her that he still didn’t know about their horrid situation.

But just as she was beginning to form a dimensional message, a golden flash crossed her black-and-white vision.

Her hidden eye followed it through the ruined forest... straight toward the battlefield where Levi was still fighting Rain.

’No...’

Only one enemy here possessed that golden power.

The Hound!

He had escaped the burning pit somehow... and was heading to finish off Levi, who was already busy fighting Rain!

’Levi! The Hound is free!’

She sent the warning through their dimensional connection before her thoughts scattered.

’I can’t breathe...’

Her heart started beating so rapidly that she pressed a hand against her chest... her breathing turned short and uneven, and for a moment, she couldn’t arrange a single clear thought.

Her eyes kept darting between the two Trees and Idriss, who remained kneeling before his daughter’s trunk, bleeding and unmoving... waiting for a daughter he couldn’t follow.

Then toward Levi, who was about to face Rain and the Hound together!

His Nine Senses Seed alone wouldn’t be enough... he would have to use his Sun and Void powers.

And Jasmine didn’t want him to.

She had supported his decision to keep them hidden because she understood what revealing them would mean... his life would turn into hell.

The Celestial was slowly becoming a symbol of resistance against the tyranny of the Radians’ and Oblivars’ followers.

People cheered for him, believed in him... some were finally finding the courage to resist because of him.

While it was mostly limited to the dimensional network, Jasmine knew that neither the Radians’ followers nor their nemesis forces would care.

The Celestial was a plague... a virus... a blasphemous existence that left a disgusting smudge on their divinities’ reputation.

Levi always worried about what exposing his secret would mean for his brother, his friends, and everyone connected to him.

As for Jasmine? She was worried for him.

She didn’t want him to spend his life hunted by fanatics who considered his existence blasphemy.

Yet, if she remained helpless here, he would have to risk that future to save them... and she knew he wouldn’t hesitate to use whatever to save them all.

Jasmine looked down at her brush... she had blamed her powers for failing her, but how much of Creation and Erasure had she actually understood?

Two Aspects.

Ink.

Erasure.

She was the Heir of Creation and Erasure... yet she kept judging what she could accomplish by the limits of the only means of creation she had mastered.

’Scripture...’

Her gaze returned to the unfinished painting... It showed the escape she wanted, but every figure, every portal, every detail had taken time to draw... time they didn’t have.

A sentence could express that same intention in a few words... but she had never made those words reshape reality without relying on a painting.

Even ’Halt’ had needed her drawing to define what should stop.

She had been trying to make words stand in for every detail of a painting... when perhaps all she needed to describe was the change.

The people already existed... so did the places they occupied.

Why did she need to draw them again before she could change the relationship between them?

Now, as she thought of Levi facing those two alone, the first words formed in her mind.

And deep within her soul... her Origin Seed stirred for the first time in a long, long while.