The air in the Star-Observatory Tower was heavy with the scent of ancient ozone and the oppressive weight of Elder Thorne's presence. The Runic Binding Circle on the floor glowed with a sickening, oily purple light, its runes specifically designed to suppress a player's mana and lock their neural interface.
"You speak of 'System Crashes' as if you are anything more than a bug in our code," Elder Thorne laughed, his voice amplified by the mechanical staff. "In the real world, you are a boy in a rusted pod. Here, you are just raw data waiting to be harvested."
Jin ignored the taunts. His world had narrowed down to the golden lines pulsing beneath the Elder's purple barrier. His Runic Eyes were working at a fever pitch, but he wasn't looking at the Elder. He was looking at Seraphina.
She was on her knees, her breath coming in ragged, silver gasps. The [Moon-Crest] rune within her soul was thrashing like a caged star, trying to expand, but it was being choked by the corporate "leash" Thorne had placed on her during her betrayal.
"Seraphina," Jin whispered, his voice cutting through the hum of the barrier. "Stop fighting it. Stop trying to hold it back."
"I... I can't," she choked out, silver tears tracing paths down her cheeks. "If it breaks free... it will burn my neural link. I'll be gone, Jin."
"No," Jin said, his hand glowing with a fierce, steady gold. "I'm the Alchemist. I don't let my materials burn. I refine them."
Jin slammed his Weighted Runic Dagger into the floor, not at the Elder, but directly into the heart of the purple Binding Circle.
[Runic Alchemy: Logic Inversion!] [Target: Elder Thorne's 'Suppressor' Script] [Processing... Primordial Bloodline Intervention...]
Instead of breaking the Elder's trap, Jin did something far more dangerous. He "re-routed" the energy of the Binding Circle. Instead of the circle draining Seraphina's power, Jin turned it into a conduit. He forced the purple energy to become the "fuel" for Seraphina's awakening.
"What are you doing?!" Thorne screamed, his mechanical staff beginning to spark. "Stop that! You're going to cause a core meltdown!"
"Let it melt," Jin growled.
He reached out and grabbed Seraphina's hand. His golden energy met her silver light. In that moment, Jin didn't see her as a player or a fallen star. He saw her as the second verse of a song his bloodline had been trying to sing since he was born.
With a mental roar, Jin used his Runic Alchemy to "etch" a series of [Expansion] and [Stability] runes directly onto the outer layer of Seraphina's soul. He was building a "hearth" to contain her fire.
[Warning: Initiating Force-Unlock of the 'Moon-Crest' Bloodline.] [Sync-Rate: 99.9%... 100%... 105% (Limit Break!)]
The Star-Observatory Tower exploded—not with fire, but with moonlight.
A pillar of pure, silver radiance erupted from Seraphina, shattering the ceiling of the tower and piercing the violet sky of the Cloud-Palace. The purple Binding Circle disintegrated into nothingness. Elder Thorne was thrown back, his mechanical staff shattering into a thousand pieces of useless scrap.
When the light dimmed, the woman standing next to Jin was no longer the tattered exile.
Seraphina stood tall, her robes now woven from starlight. Behind her, a faint, ethereal crescent moon hovered, casting a cold, beautiful glow over the courtyard. Her eyes were solid silver, devoid of pupils, reflecting the vastness of the higher dimension.
[Second Member of the 'Seven' Awakened: The Lunar Valkyrie.] [Unique Power: Moon-Phase Dominion (Rank: SSS)]
"Uncle," Seraphina said, her voice sounding like the chime of a thousand crystal bells. She didn't move, yet she was suddenly standing in front of Elder Thorne. "You told me the Moon-Crest was a curse. You told me it would destroy me."
She raised her hand. A blade of solidified moonlight materialized in her palm.
"You were wrong," she whispered. "It was only a curse because you were afraid of the night."
She swung.
The strike didn't just cut Thorne's avatar; it cut the "permissions" he had in the game. Thorne's character began to pixelate and blur, his high-level armor falling away as he was forcibly "demoted" by the authority of the Moon-Crest.
"This... this isn't over!" Thorne screamed as his body began to dissolve into the logout sequence. "The Corporation will find you in Sector 4! They'll find the girl! They'll—"
With a final flick of her wrist, Seraphina silenced him, sending his consciousness back to the real world in a state of total neural shock.
The courtyard fell silent. The other disciples stood frozen in the distance, too terrified to approach the silver goddess and the golden-eyed boy.
Jin stumbled, the massive effort of the "Soul-Etching" finally catching up to him. His vision blurred, but he felt Seraphina's arms catch him. Her skin was no longer cold; it felt like the warmth of a summer night.
"I have the Sky-Rune," she whispered, holding a shimmering, translucent crystal that had fallen from the tower's peak during the explosion. "And I have you."
She looked up at the sky, where the three suns of the higher dimension were being eclipsed by a giant, silver moon—her moon.
"Jin," she said, her silver eyes returning to their piercing blue. "My family is gone. My sect is broken. I have nowhere to go in the year 2300 but the slums. Will you take me in?"
Jin smiled weakly, the thrum in his blood finally settling into a satisfied hum. "My sister Mei is going to complain about the space. We're going to need a bigger Nano-Unit."