Chapter 171: Black Destiny and the Birth of the Primordial Beasts
Dawn in the Realm of the Eternal Dawn brought with it a reverential stillness. At the peak of the palace, Seraphina Morningstar cultivated in silence, her new Body of the Eternal Lotus Empress assimilating the immense energy reserves from the previous night. The frost surrounding her was so dense that space itself seemed to have crystallized around her, granting her absolute peace.
Samael observed her for a moment, a satisfied smile curving his lips, before turning and melting into the shadows. He had a pending appointment in the depths of the mini-world.
He descended through stone and metal until he reached the catacombs of the floating island, the geological vault where the roots of the Stellar World Tree intertwined with the core of the earth. There, nestled in a crater of enriched obsidian and constantly bathed by the Qi veins of the main matrix, rested an object Samael had obtained almost a lifetime ago.
The Mythical Grade Spiritual Beast Egg.
After six years of incubation in Sienna's accelerated time, passively absorbing the laws of the Void, Samael's Blood, and the Tree's vitality, the shell no longer looked biological. It was an immense, pulsating geode three meters tall, covered in veins of gray magma and cracks emitting a deep blue light. The egg was at its limit. The creature inside demanded to be born.
Samael stopped ten meters away. His violet eyes evaluated the density of the energy threatening to burst. If he let it hatch naturally, the shockwave of a mythical beast's birth would break the simulated dimension's barrier and alert all the Great Saints of the outer continent.
"It is not yet time for the world to know your name," the Patriarch murmured.
He raised both hands. [Law of Space + Void: Cosmic Isolation Seal]. Eight dimensional mirrors of absolute darkness surrounded the nest, creating a conceptual safe. Any sound, Qi fluctuation, or gravitational pressure occurring inside those mirrors would be devoured by the Void.
Samael nodded at the egg. "Awaken."
CRAAAAACK!
It wasn't the sound of a shell breaking; it was the sound of a tectonic fault splitting in two. The egg shattered. A gravity wave so dense it would have turned an ordinary Saint into a bloodstain on the floor struck Samael's barriers. The creature's passive [Gravity Collapse Roar] was unleashed in its first breath. The gravity inside the mirror box multiplied by a hundred, crushing the remains of the shell into diamond dust.
From the cloud of stardust and debris, the god of the underground emerged.
The Guardian of the Eternal Dawn. It was not a traditional winged dragon. Its body was colossal, serpentine, and robust, designed not to soar the skies, but to devour the earth. Hundreds of meters in length began to uncoil within the folded space. Its scales were immense plates of Iron Jade and Void Diamond, arranged in such a way that, when it moved, they looked like desert dunes shifting under a storm. Instead of membranous wings, it possessed enormous prismatic crystal fins along its spine. These fins vibrated at an inaudible frequency, "liquefying" the solid rock beneath its belly as if it were water. Its head, broad and brutal, was crowned by a wreath of thick, pure obsidian horns that crackled with black lightning, acting as lightning rods for the massive gravity it generated.
The immense serpentine head descended until it was centimeters from Samael. Its eyes, two pools of golden magma, stared at the tiny human. For a microsecond, the mythical beast's primordial instinct demanded submission. Samael didn't move. He simply released a fraction of his 20% Primordial Dragon blood.
The Guardian's obsidian horns stopped crackling. The crushing gravity dissipated instantly. The colossus closed its eyes and rested its heavy diamond chin against Samael's boot, emitting a deep purr that made the island's crust tremble. It recognized its Progenitor. It recognized the only being worthy of riding it.
Samael stroked the scales of its snout, feeling the incomprehensible hardness of its [Tectonic Mirror Scale].
"You are the earth itself," Samael said. "If anyone tries to strike my Citadel, their own weapons will shatter against your scales."
Space gently warped behind Samael and Vexia materialized. She adjusted her runic crystal glasses as the cyan hologram of her Omniscient Codex of War unfolded before her. The pages of light flipped at inhuman speeds, emitting a cold glow that illuminated the cavern like a data grid. This accounting tool of destiny didn't just calculate the probability of victory or rewrite tactical errors in combat; it also allowed her to scan the biological architecture and the "error points" of any being, as long as it was linked to the Patriarch's Bloodline Registry.
"One hundred and eighty-five meters initial length. Estimated growth to one thousand meters in adulthood," Vexia murmured, processing the holographic data. "Its [Phantom Dune Mantle] skill works perfectly. Its heat and Qi signatures are undetectable as long as it's in contact with the ground."
Vexia looked at Samael. "Logistically, Master, we didn't just incubate a simple mount. We have a biological aircraft carrier. Its [Moving Mountain Throne] function allows me to link its nervous system to the Citadel's matrices. This dragon doesn't just protect the earth, it is the earth. If you order it, this beast can drag an entire enemy sect into the subterranean abyss before they even know the battle has begun, or serve as a spatial jump drive without consuming our Stellar Tree's reserves."
Samael nodded, looking at the Guardian. "From now on, your name will be Valka. Go and merge with the Dawn."
The colossal dragon opened its jaws and let out an inaudible roar. Its crystal fins vibrated violently. In a terrifying display of its Tectonic Invisibility, the immense jade and diamond body simply sank into the solid floor of the catacombs as if it were a pool of water. It didn't leave a single hole. It didn't move a single stone.
Seconds later, Samael and Vexia felt a deep tremor, akin to a heartbeat, spreading throughout the floating island. Valka had wrapped itself around the Citadel's core. The walls, floors, and ramparts of the fortress were now backed by the mass and will of a mythical dragon. The clan's base was now, for all intents and purposes, a living, lethal, and impregnable organism.
"The perfect shield is in place," Samael said, adjusting the sleeves of his tunic. "Now, we need to sharpen the sword that will command it. Vexia, summon Lilith to the Throne Room. Prepare the Hall of Inheritances."
The Marshal nodded stiffly. "The Scarlet Inquisition and the Siege Force await their commander, Master."
Samael disappeared in a vortex of Void. The time had come for the Ash Phoenix to spread its wings over the army of death.
Time in the Realm of the Eternal Dawn flowed with the golden heaviness of a divine clock. While in the cruel outer continent barely a year of wars, intrigues, and blood had passed, within the dimension protected by the Stellar World Tree, twenty-four months had gone by. Two years of unbreakable peace, densified by a Qi five hundred times greater than that of the mortal world.
In the lush, private Gardens of the Celestial Lotus, located in the heart of the Patriarch's Palace, the sound of splashing water broke the reverential silence.
An immense bathtub carved from a single block of white quartz steamed gently. The water was not ordinary; it was a translucent medicinal decoction with a slight emerald and gold tint. Before entering her slumber to assimilate the mutation from the battle in the Labyrinth, Elowen had prepared hundreds of these essences. They were mild medicinal baths, formulated with surgical precision from diluted drops of the Origin Dragon Pond and Heaven and Earth-grade spiritual herbs. The goal was not to increase the bather's cultivation, but to forge wide, flexible, and indestructible meridians from early childhood, preparing her for when she turned six and began her martial path.
Inside the water, happily playing with a hand-carved ironwood duck, was Celeste Morningstar.
At two years old, the Patriarch's daughter was a vision of disturbing purity. Her snow-white hair fell down her back, and her large eyes—inheriting her mother's stellar coldness but with her father's chaotic spark—looked at the world with insatiable curiosity. Sitting on the edge of the bathtub, the sleeves of his imperial tunic rolled up, Samael Morningstar gently poured the medicinal water over his daughter's shoulders with a jade bowl. The Chaos Dragon, the annihilator of sects, smiled with a genuine tenderness that would have given his enemies heart attacks had they seen him.
A few meters away, under the shadow cast by the violet and crimson leaves of the great Stellar Tree, the power dome of the Morningstar Empire watched the scene. Seraphina radiated an icy, maternal calm, her silvery-blue hair floating slightly. Beside her, Lilith Morningstar maintained an elegant posture, her deep red hair waving like a living flame, her golden eyes fixed on her grand-niece with absolute, overprotective instinct. Vexia calculated in silence, her runic glasses reflecting data, while Sienna floated a handspan off the ground, her golden bell tinkling softly in the breeze.
And although no one saw them, the protection was absolute. In the shadows of the obsidian pillars, Malak the Shinigami held his breath, his Eclipse Veil ready to devour any threat. And merged with the stone floor, less than ten meters from the girl, stood the titanic, silent, and terrifying presence of the Crimson Void Eternal General, his black helm and tattered cape standing unwavering guard over the royal bloodline.
Samael lifted Celeste out of the water. The girl let out a crystalline giggle as her father wrapped her in a dimensional spider silk towel, drying her carefully before dressing her in a small black tunic embroidered with blue lotuses and silver dragons.
"Her meridians are already wider than those of a cultivator in the Qi Sea Realm," Vexia commented, closing her holographic Codex with a metallic click. "Physically, the young mistress is ready to withstand the pressure of the void. Her biological growth is optimal, Master."
Samael nodded, taking Celeste in his arms and walking toward the center of the garden, where the women awaited him. The girl immediately reached out to Seraphina, who took her with a gentleness that belied the absolute zero temperature ruling her body.
"She has my blood and your physique, Seraphina," Samael said, looking at his daughter. "But we have never checked what the Heavens have in store for her. What role Destiny will try to assign her on this board."
Lilith frowned, her red eyes shining with sparks of ash. "She is a Morningstar. Destiny doesn't assign her a role; she takes it by force."
Samael smiled at his aunt's words. "Let's see if the Heavens agree with you, Aunt Lilith."
Samael took a step back. He invoked the power of the Bloodline Registry (Stellar River Scripture), linking it directly to his deepest ocular ability. His eyes abandoned their usual crimson violet. A cosmic, ancient, and detached light flooded his pupils as he observed Celeste's small figure in her mother's arms.
[ACTIVATING EYE OF DESTINY...]
The world became monochromatic to Samael. Souls revealed their true colors, the karmic threads binding living beings to the great fabric of the universe. Samael expected to see something spectacular in his daughter. He expected to see the Golden aura of a Child of Destiny, a protagonist of heaven with limitless potential and the world's blessing. Or perhaps, inheriting the aggressiveness of his blood, a Red aura, the mark of a taboo, a calamity destined to be purged by the natural order. He would have even accepted the majestic Blue or Purple of a historical hero.
But what he saw left him breathless. His eyes widened, a reaction so rare in the Sovereign of the Void that Seraphina and Lilith instantly tensed, ready for battle.
Around little Celeste, who was laughing while playing with a lock of Seraphina's silver hair, there was no color. There was no gold, no red, no purple. There was a Black Hole.
An aura of absolute, dense, devouring, and infinite darkness. It wasn't the black of the shadow element; it was the black of negation. The Eye of Destiny showed him how the luminous threads of the future and karma floating freely in the air snapped, twisted, and were sucked into her. Where the girl stepped, the universe's "script" was simply erased. The light of others' destinies was extinguished as they approached her conceptual gravitational field.
System panels burst in front of Samael's vision in flashing red and abyssal black letters:
[TARGET ANALYSIS: CELESTE MORNINGSTAR]
[Destiny Type:] BLACK (RULE BREAKER / ABSOLUTE ANOMALY).
[Description:] A being who is not registered in the Heavenly Dao's Book of Life and Death. Her future is unwritten. She is the end of prophecies. Her existence is a paradox that this System cannot calculate with current metrics.
[Potential:] Infinite / End-of-Era Calamity.
Samael blinked and deactivated the Eye. The garden returned to normal. A heavy silence fell over the group. Seraphina, with her Empress intuition, knew something massive had just been revealed. "What did you see, Samael?" the Matriarch asked, her voice icy but tinged with maternal concern.
Samael looked at Celeste. Then, a low, hoarse, and deeply proud laugh erupted from his chest. There was no fear in him. There was absolute delight. "I have seen that our daughter is not part of this world, Seraphina." Samael caressed the girl's cheek. "The outside world classifies geniuses with golden auras. Monsters with red auras. But Celeste... Celeste is a black hole. A Rule Breaker. Her destiny is an absolute Black. She does not follow Heaven's script; she devours it."
Vexia's eyes widened behind her glasses, and she quickly began typing on her Codex. "An Omega-class Anomaly," the Marshal murmured, a sadistic smile appearing on her lips. "Incalculable. Her mere existence is an insult to the universe's probability. Master, if the Heavenly Wills or the fossilized Emperors manage to detect the nature of her destiny, they will send cosmic tribulations and divine armies just to erase her before she grows."
"Let them come," Lilith hissed, her hair igniting in gray fire for a second, ash falling to the ground and instantly rotting the grass. "I will turn their divine armies into fertilizer for this garden if they dare to look at my girl."
"No one will touch her," Seraphina decreed, her blue eyes shining with the promise of eternal stasis. "Because before they reach my daughter, they will have to go through Absolute Zero."
Samael nodded. His family's protection was impenetrable, but Celeste would also need her own sword in the shadows. A guardian bound to that same anomalous darkness she possessed.
With a wave of his hand, Samael opened the System inventory. The space in front of them tore open, and a massive object floated toward the center of the garden, descending gently onto the grass.
It was the Mythical Beast Egg. Unlike the geological egg that had given birth to the Tectonic Guardian, this one was a perfect oval of polished obsidian. It had no magma cracks. Instead, it pulsed rhythmically, like a heartbeat, emitting a deep violet glow from within that seemed to swallow the Eternal Dawn's ambient light. It was a receptacle of pure Void, Shadow, and Destiny Affinity.
"I kept it in stasis in the clan's Vault until she was ready," Samael explained. "A divine-grade beast. But unlike the colossus nesting beneath our feet, this beast is designed to be an assassin shadow. And it requires a blood bond to hatch."
Samael looked at Seraphina, who set Celeste down on the ground. The two-year-old girl, showing not a shred of fear at the immense dark egg pulsating in front of her, walked with unsteady but determined steps. The egg's violet energy seemed to call her, singing a song that only a Black Destiny could hear.
"Celeste," Samael called softly. "Touch the shell."
The girl reached out her small, pale hand and rested her palm against the cold, smooth obsidian surface. In that instant, Samael flicked an imperceptible drop of his own Primordial Dragon Blood toward the girl's hand, acting as the ultimate catalyst. The Progenitor's blood, the girl's destiny anomaly, and the mythical egg collided in a perfect trinity.
The garden erupted. It wasn't an explosion of fire or sound. It was an implosion of light. The sky of the Realm of the Eternal Dawn, always illuminated by indigo, violet, and gold auroras, darkened abruptly within a one-kilometer radius. An unnatural "mini-eclipse" formed directly above them. From the surface of the egg, dozens of tendrils of pure shadow sprouted upward, writhing like hungry snakes and piercing the fabric of reality. The leaves of the Stellar Tree vibrated violently, and the shadows of constellations they cast on the ground began to swirl, being sucked into the egg.
A storm of Void Wind lashed the garden. Lilith took a step forward to cover Celeste, but Samael raised a hand to stop her. "Watch, Lilith. It's not hurting her. It's acknowledging her."
The obsidian egg began to dissolve. It didn't crack; it melted into a puddle of starry black liquid that floated in the air, condensing rapidly. A blinding violet light flickered in the center of the dark mass, beating to the same rhythm as Celeste's tiny heart. And then, with a sharp screech that sounded like glass tearing dimensional silk, the beast was born.
The eclipse dissipated, and the aurora's light returned to the garden, revealing the newest member of the Morningstar Clan.
It was not a colossal monster. It was an elegant, lethal creature of sinister beauty, the size of a large leopard. It was a dragoness. Her sleek, feline body was covered in scales that didn't reflect light; they were the color of the deepest night, speckled with tiny white dots that flashed sporadically, like a mantle of extinct stars. She had four legs ending in sharp black crystal claws, and a pair of dark membranous wings that, when folded over her back, looked like a cloak of liquid shadows. Her head was streamlined, crowned by two slender backward-curving horns, and her eyes were two jewels of dazzling violet, identical to those of the Patriarch when he used his power.
She was the Eternal Night Dragon.
The little dragoness shook herself, tiny wisps of void smoke escaping her nostrils. Her initial cultivation level was low, barely at the Qi Sea Realm, perfectly attuned to her little mistress's age and nonexistent cultivation base. They would grow together. She turned her head, and her violet eyes locked onto Celeste.
Samael crouched to his daughter's height, his gaze brimming with pride. "What will you name her, my little anomaly?"
Celeste stared fixedly into the dragoness's violet eyes. For an absolute instant, time seemed to stop for the girl. Her pupils lost focus, plunging into a mystical, deep, and silent trance, as if she were listening to a whisper coming from the end of the universe or reading a thread of destiny she had just devoured. It was only a second. Then, she blinked. The trance disappeared, replaced by the innocent twinkle in her large eyes, and with a meltingly tender expression, she reached her little arms out to the beast.
"Kala!" she exclaimed with her sweet little voice.
Samael let out a soft laugh. "Kala it is. The Eternal Night Dragon."
The dragoness, responding to her new name, let out a deep, low purr that made the ground vibrate. In a blink that defied visual perception—her passive [Eternal Night Blink] skill—the beast vanished from her spot and reappeared instantly in front of Celeste, rubbing her scaly snout against the girl's cheek, causing her to let out a joyful laugh and hug the dark neck.
Vexia, always impassive to magic, raised her Omniscient Codex of War. The holographic pages hummed frantically, synced with Samael's authority network. Because Kala had just been sealed with the Patriarch's blood, her Codex had full access to her hidden biological and conceptual structure; otherwise, attempting to read the destiny or abilities of a divine beast of pure shadow would have irreparably fried her calculation matrices.
"Impressive, Master," the Marshal said, her fingers tracing equations in the air. "She is, logically speaking, the perfect bodyguard. She is small enough to play in the Palace, but her potential is apocalyptic."
Vexia read aloud for the Matriarchs present: "Her first skill is the [Umbral Cradle Mantle]. This dragoness can collapse her physical body and become a two-dimensional shadow that will reside permanently in Young Mistress Celeste's shadow. While there, she will grant partial immunity to attacks from behind and function as a malicious intent radar within a fifty-meter radius."
Lilith nodded approvingly, crossing her arms. "An assassin trying to stab her in the back will find that the girl's shadow has teeth. I like it."
"There's more," Vexia continued, adjusting her glasses. "Her primary attack, the [Extinct Stars Breath], is not ordinary fire. It's collapsed stellar energy. If she exhales on an enemy, it doesn't burn their flesh; it devours their Qi and their luck, destabilizing their cultivation base and extinguishing their techniques. Furthermore, she possesses a [Vitality Link]. If, by a statistical miracle, Celeste is wounded, the dragon will absorb the damage into her own body, regenerating using the ambient energy of the Stellar Tree."
Seraphina looked at her daughter sitting in the grass hugging Kala, both creatures radiating an aura of dark royalty and cosmic anomaly. "And what does she eat?" Seraphina asked, her calculating mind already thinking about the clan's supplies. "Spiritual stones? Beast meat?"
Samael shook his head, a predator's smile forming on his face. "She doesn't eat meat, my Empress. Her growth ability is the most terrifying of all: [Growth by Slaughter]. This dragoness feeds on the 'threads of destiny' of the enemies that we or she murders. The more calamities, geniuses, and so-called Children of Destiny the clan kills, the faster she will evolve to adulthood. She feeds on the despair of the Heavens."
A chill that had nothing to do with Seraphina's cold ran through the garden. A girl whose destiny erased the rules of the universe, accompanied by a void dragon that fed on the destiny of others. It was a blasphemous combination that would have made the ancient ancestors of the orthodox lands weep in terror.
"Enough familial tenderness for one day," Samael said, his tone suddenly turning cold, sharp, and martial. "The foundations for the clan's future are set. But to ensure Celeste can walk this world without anyone daring to raise their voice at her, I need my army ready to march and burn the horizon."
Samael looked at Lilith Morningstar. The red-haired woman glared back fiercely, knowing exactly what was coming.
"Aunt Lilith. Accompany me to the Throne Room. It is time to open the doors to the Hall of Inheritances and awaken your true Phoenix. The Dead Blood Guard needs their Supreme Commander."
Lilith bowed in a perfect military reverence, her aura of ash and entropic heat beginning to leak into the air. "At your orders, Patriarch."
The Chaos Dragon and the Ash Phoenix vanished into the void, leaving the Matriarch and the Marshal alone with the Anomaly and her lethal new pet. The calm was over. The Morningstar Empire was about to grease its gears with blood.