System: Daily login!!, jackpot on the first day!!!

As Kiara's palm touched the spiral, the symbol pulsed once, like a heartbeat... And then began to unravel.

Not open... Unravel.

The spiral twisted inwards, swallowing the wood and silver-like liquid drawn into a whirlpool. The entire door folded into itself without a sound, revealing a darkness so pure, so absolute, that even the torchlight behind Kiara dared not enter it.

Shasha tensed.

The air itself recoiled like the palace was holding its breath.

And then came the whisper... Not from the corridor, not from the door, but from somewhere far, far beyond it.

A voice stirred.

It wasn't sound; it was echo and memory, vast and ancient, pressing against her awareness like waves against the glass.

"I've been waiting..."

The words didn't pierce the air, they sank into her, resonating in the marrow of her bones. Kiara barely registered them. She was adrift, caught in a semi-conscious state, like dreaming with her eyes open.

Everything felt distant, blurred at the edges. The shadows moved like thoughts, fluid and intangible, wrapping around her limbs with a reverent stillness.

The voice wasn't speaking to her.

It was calling to something else... Something entwined with her soul.

Something is hidden in her blood, ancient and watching.

She felt it stir now, responding to the call.

And though she didn't understand, her body moved, drawn forward, step by step...

Shasha moved instinctively, ready to pull her back, but the shadows didn't consume the girl. Instead, they embraced her, winding around her like living silk, parting with reverence for each of her steps. The darkness recognized her. Accepted her.

As she crossed the threshold, the palace faded behind her, swallowed by silence.

She entered a realm untethered from time and space...

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Deep within the ancient crypt beneath the Sapphire Mountains, as the last seal dissolved, the air stilled, then cracked like frozen glass.

The Wyrmheart, First King of the Blue Dragons, slowly opened his eyes.

Eyes of pure starlight, older than time itself.

He was no longer flesh, not entirely. His body was made of flowing crystal scales, etched with frozen runes of a language only the world itself remembered.

His breath did not stir wind or fire, it bent the very concept of time, freezing it with every exhale.

Born from the Basukhi Fragment, the Wyrmheart was not just the first of his kind; he was the closest thing to a divine being.

In the Throne of Ice and Stars

As the cocooned throne pulsed, a fragment of Wyrmheart's consciousness, an echo he left behind before his long slumber, spoke through the frozen air.

"The Time Has Coming..."

--------

For a while, Kiara floated... Ghalf-asleep, half-aware adrift in the velvet dark.

But then something shifted.

A sharp breath. A cold weight pressed against her chest. A flicker of clarity.

And suddenly, Kiara knew.

She was awake.

Truly awake.

The strange, floating realm no longer felt distant or dreamlike. It was real... The cold shimmer of the crystal stars above her, the impossible throne in the distance, the shadows breathing around her like living mist. Every detail sharpened with terrifying clarity.

She was here.

Alone.

She had always been more mature than the others her age, quiet, observant, and thoughtful beyond her years, but none of that mattered now. Her small hands trembled. Her heartbeat raced.

This place was not meant for someone like her.

Her breaths came in quick, shallow gasps. The stillness that had felt surreal moments ago now closed in on her like an unseen pressure, and the sheer scale of the void made her feel tiny, exposed, like a spark in the middle of a dead sky.

"Where am I?" She whispered, her voice swallowed by the silence.

No answer came. Only the distant hum of ancient power and the memory of that voice:

"I've been waiting..."

She clutched her arms tightly around herself, eyes darting across the endless expanse. The shadows no longer felt gentle. They felt like watchers. Listeners.

She wanted to run, to scream, to wake up in her own bed.

But there was no escape, only that throne, and the thing within her that had brought her here.

"... W-Who are you!? Where's my Mommy and Daddy!! Where's my Brother? My sister?!!"

Her voice broke at the end, trembling like the last note of a lullaby no one else remembered. The silence that followed wasn't empty but it listened.

It lingered.

Then came the flicker.

Not light, not sound. A feeling. Like the air had just blinked.

From the edges of the throne's shadow, something moved.

Not footsteps.

A presence.

It didn't advance... It simply was, and suddenly Kiara wasn't alone. She felt it, like a second heartbeat pressed against her own, syncing with her terror. Not trying to calm it. Not trying to hurt her. Just… Matching her.

Then, for the first time…

Something responded.

"Welcome, little one"

The voice didn't echo through the chamber. It resonated inside her thoughts... Gentle, steady, impossibly close.

It wasn't the ancient, immense whisper that had first called out. This voice was different.

It felt... Familiar.

Not in a way she could name. Not a memory, but like the warmth of a forgotten dream brushing against her skin.

Kiara froze, her breath caught in her throat.

"Finally," The voice murmured again, almost amused. "After many unworthy vessels... The worthy one comes. That is good"

Each word settled into her mind like falling leaves, soft, but heavy with meaning. The panic in her chest didn't vanish, but it changed. Transformed.

Fear became curiosity. Confusion bloomed into a quiet, trembling awe.

She opened her mouth, but no words came... Only questions, spiraling through her like wind through empty halls.

The presence inside her shifted. Not invading. Not controlling. Just there like it had always been. Watching. Waiting.

Kiara swallowed hard, her throat dry and trembling. Her voice cracked as she forced out a whisper, each word fragile as glass.

"W- Who are you? I'll have you know… My Daddy and Mommy are very strong"

The reply came not with anger but with a series of soft giggles, childlike, yet hollow, like laughter echoing from the bottom of a well. The mirth lingered for a moment, chilling the air… Then died abruptly.

Silence followed. Heavy. Expectant.

Then came the voice again.

This time calm, deliberate, and laced with something ancient.

"Who am I…?"

The shadows seemed to lean in, and even the flickering torches on the stone walls dimmed slightly. The voice dropped lower, deeper, almost reverent.

"I am a shard of what sleeps… A whisper of what waits"

Then...

The throne pulsed.

The crystal stars above shifted, and the vastness of the space seemed to fold, like pages in a book turning to a single chapter.

Ahead, the throne no longer sat empty.

A figure now rested upon it... Not fully formed, not fully awake.

Its shape flickered like a dream resisting reality. Wings made of refracted starlight, eyes closed, body curled within a mantle of shadows and ice.

The figure rose from the throne with unsettling grace, like a shadow peeling itself from the void. As he stepped forward, the very fabric of the Realm trembled. Not with noise, but with a low, resonant hum that thrummed through the bones, like the world itself feared his presence.

Each footfall sent subtle ripples through the air as if reality were water disturbed by his movement.

Kiara's instincts screamed at her to run. She tried to back away, her heels scraping against the obsidian floor, but something was wrong. No matter how she moved, the space between them only seemed to shrink.

It was as if the Realm betrayed her, bending to his will.

The distance warped, and her breath quickened.

She wasn't moving toward him.

He wasn't closing in.

And yet… They were now only a few steps apart.

The figure's eyes glowing faintly like embers buried beneath centuries of ash, pierced through the veil of darkness.

And they were locked on her.

Unblinking. Unyielding. Inevitable.

Then came the voice again, no longer playful, no longer a whisper. It echoed with ancient authority, as though the Realm itself listened and obeyed.

"The time has come," He said, his tone heavy with longing and finality. "I have waited… So long. So long for the one who is worthy to come"

His next step sent another pulse through the Realm, and Kiara felt it deep in her chest, like a drumbeat from something older than time itself.

"Now that you are here…"

He extended a hand, not threatening, but commanding.

"Let us be one. Fulfill your obligations... As one of my descendants"

A chill raced down her spine. Not just from fear, but from the weight of something greater awakening within her blood. Something ancient. Something… Inevitable.

But before the figure could take another step… A sound cut through the tension like a blade through silk.

A single footstep.

Then another.

Two sets, deliberate, steady, echoing through the vast hall like the ticking of a long-forgotten clock. Each one is a declaration.

The air shifted.

The throne's pulsing slowed, almost uncertain. The oppressive weight pressing down on Kiara lessened, if only slightly as if the Realm itself turned to look toward the newcomers.

From the far end of the chamber, through the swirling haze of shadow and time, two silhouettes emerged, walking side by side, their presence refusing to be ignored.

One of them radiated a quiet, controlled power. The other burned with something wilder, more dangerous... Like a storm barely restrained.

"'Let's be one'? That sounds so lewd, you know?"

The words rang out with playful sarcasm, echoing across the hall like a slap to the face of solemnity. Kiara's eyes widened as one of the two newcomers stepped forward, hands casually tucked into his pockets, a lopsided grin tugging at his lips.

But the look in his eyes was anything but casual.

Sharp. Cold. Watchful.

He stopped a few paces ahead of the other, his presence almost daring the darkness to swallow him.

"What are you, some kind of pervert ancestor or something? You can't say that you know? Not to my daughter especially"

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