Morning came late in the Obsidian Court.
The sky was a purple bruise veiled in ash, the air thick with heat and the scent of perfume-soaked petals. Chen Ming sat in the courtyard garden, where black roses bloomed under violet sunlight. He didn't speak. He simply felt.
Every breath, every heartbeat, came heavier now. Like the world knew he was about to step into something he couldn't come back from unchanged.
He closed his eyes, listening—not just to the system's whispers, but to something deeper.
The pulse of desire. The hum of divine tension. The weight of every bond he had chosen.
[Trial of Masks: Begins in 1 hour][Status: Mentally Stable / Physically Primed / Emotionally Bound (x3)][Passive Abilities Activated: Embodied Flame | Restraint | Divine Intuition]
The sound of footsteps stirred the still air.
Mei arrived first, barefoot in a sheer sky-blue robe, her mortal beauty tinged now with a faint divine shimmer. She didn't say anything—just knelt beside him and took his hand.
"Are you scared?" she whispered.
"More than I should be," Chen admitted.
She kissed his knuckles. "Then know this—whatever they do to twist your heart, I know it. I see it. I'll remember who you are."
Her lips brushed his cheek, then lingered there, as if committing the warmth to memory.
Lanmei came next, sweat still on her brow from her dawn training. She tossed a folded cloth into his lap and sat opposite him.
"You'll need your focus in there," she said gruffly. "And your edge."
"I've got both," he replied.
She leaned in until her forehead touched his. "Then remember this edge, too."
She kissed him hard—hot and unrelenting, as if branding her passion into his soul.
"You come back to me, or I'll come in after you," she growled.
Ye Yue appeared last, silent as a moonbeam, wrapped in silver silks and sorrow. She didn't approach at first. She simply stood across from him and watched.
Her eyes glistened.
"I once took a vow to never love again," she said, voice like broken starlight. "But now… I would burn that vow a thousand times for you."
Chen rose and crossed to her.
"You were never meant to walk alone forever."
She touched his chest, right over his heart. Her fingers trembled.
"Don't lose this," she whispered.
He caught her hand.
"I'll find it again, if I do."
She kissed him then—slow, sacred, and final.
Not goodbye.
But if you come back, we'll never speak of this as fear again.
As the bell tolled from the obsidian tower, the moment shattered.
The Trial awaited.
Chen turned to them all—Ye Yue, Lanmei, Mei. His eyes shimmered not just with power, but with something deeper.
Resolve.
"I walk into their trap," he said, "but I carry all of you with me."
He stepped away from the garden, from warmth and safety—and into the corridor of silk and shadow that led to the Trial.
The last thing he heard was Ye Yue's whisper on the wind:
"Show them what the God of Yang truly is."