Heian dispersed herself through the formation Yoshika had created, focusing her essence into the mana stone. Even though it was unattuned, the sheer power of the stone still resisted her at first, eroding her essence rather than being converted by it. The formation helped—from every direction, Heian’s power forced its way through, eventually overwhelming the stone’s resistance.

All at once, the world shifted. The soft white glow of the mana crystal turned inky black, with a tiny pinprick of purple light in the center. The formation and mana stone lit up within Heian’s awareness, each of them now part of her. Just like that, she had a real, physical presence.

But she wasn’t done—not by a long shot. The power within the stone was immense—more than she’d expected, but not more than she was prepared for. The Sovereign’s Tear had prepared her for much worse.

An ominous pressure descended on her—the unwelcome attention of the heavens taking notice of what she was doing. Heian would have to move fast—her new soul core was a powerful refuge, but it wasn’t likely to be enough on its own.

Heian focused inward, and found for the first time since her birth that her soul did not lead to Yoshika’s. The connection was still there, but where her mother’s soul had once been a comforting warmth surrounding her at all times, it was now merely adjacent. It was unsettling, but she’d get used to it. Starting from the bridge to Yoshika’s soul, Heian quickly began establishing her own inner realm.

Her soul was a place of bright darkness, cold flames, and life beyond death. She was the manifestation of things between—twilight and shadow. Heian wasn’t human, but she wasn’t entirely a spirit anymore either. She was both and neither, a liminal existence that refused such dichotomy.

Maybe it was lucky that her nature was so compatible with what she was trying to do, or maybe on some level she’d always known that it was who she was meant to be.

A soul realm was the intersection of spiritual and physical realities. Heian had spent a great deal of time helping Yoshika to maintain one artificially, but for her it came naturally. A liminal space within her soul, both physical and ethereal, yet also neither.

Within that space, her true self emerged. The long, messy black tresses she kept—Heian had always enjoyed getting Eui to brush her hair. Likewise, her cat ears and tail remained, as an acknowledgement of her progenitor—the shadow spirit she was no longer part of. Her eyes were the first thing to change, taking on a deeper violet hue instead of the previous bright blue. She was taller, and while she still resembled Yoshika, it was only through family resemblance rather than being an exact copy of her mother’s body.

Her new soul core settled into the sternum of her human body, beneath her chest. At the same time, her new body took shape around her spiritual core. In that moment, Heian was reborn as spirit and human alike, her body and soul coexisting within both realms.

And as Heian opened her eyes and expanded her domain to experience the world of flesh for the first time, the sky cracked open and heaven delivered its judgment.

The wards of the Sky Hall activated, but only the simple support formations could function without being attuned to her first. Directly shielding her against the lightning would be a form of interference, and result in a harsher punishment for both Heian and the unlucky mage responsible for the formation.

However, that wasn’t a problem for Heian. Though she now had physical form, she was still a being of essence. Her domain flooded through the Sky Hall’s formations, and she seized them as her own. Heian became the Sky Hall, and as the first bolt crashed down towards her, she brought forth a great barrier to deflect it.

Seong Min screeched in alarm.

“What are you doing?! Those formations are ancient and irreplaceable! You can’t just—”

The thunderous crash of the second bolt cut her off, once more blocked by the Sky Hall’s barrier. While Heian had energy to spare, the barrier formation itself wasn’t made to directly withstand tribulation lightning—only contain the damage—and was unable to channel enough energy to keep up.

The third bolt shattered the barrier entirely and struck Heian head-on. Her sturdy new body withstood the weakened bolt, but the fourth was already beginning to crackle through the ominous cloud above her.

There wasn’t much time to think—Heian had the entire Sky Hall at her disposal, but she wasn’t familiar with its spells, and the tribulation gave her no time to breathe. Leaning on the drills that she’d been practicing with Haeun and Narae, Heian hastily modified the formation her mother had made for her, connecting it to the Sky Hall and redirecting all of the leftover essence from the spent lightning bolts back into herself.

The fourth bolt was already orders of magnitude stronger than the first, and without a barrier to block it, Heian could only redirect as much of it as possible into the new formation. Even with its power so dispersed, she could feel its energy flooding her meridians and it was all she could do to redirect that power away from her most vital areas—and especially her core.

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What would she have done if she didn’t have Yoshika’s experience to draw on? Until a few seconds ago she’d never even had meridians. There wasn’t enough time to consider it as the heavens reeled back for another blow.

Heian tried to rebuild the barrier, constructing layer after layer as quickly as she could before the fifth bolt smashed through them like porcelain. She fell to her knees, smoke rising from her body and blood running from her eyes, nose, and mouth. Blood was another first she could have done without.

“Heian!”

Narae’s pained cry echoed through the hall as Eui held her back.

“There’s nothing we can do for her but trust that she’ll make it.”

That was right. Heian was on her own now. She’d wanted this. When Yoshika had ascended, she’d been there to help, because she was part of Yoshika. Now that she wasn’t, her mother couldn’t do anything to help her. It felt so unfair, especially when her own tribulation felt so much more brutal than Yoshika’s had.

Did the heavens truly hate her that much? Even twisted by the influence of the divine seal, it seemed too cruel to be true.

Heian continued altering the formations beneath her, desperately adding more layers, more dimensions, anything that might help her survive even just a moment longer. The tribulation didn’t wait for her, and the sixth bolt badly ravaged her already injured form.

Her new body was strong, but it was new. Unlike her friends and family, she’d never been given the opportunity to train in body-strengthening martial arts. Once it failed, the only thing between her soul and complete annihilation would be her knowledge of the arcane. She silently thanked her mother for teaching her magic despite how much she’d spurned it, and Iseul for sharing what she knew despite their rivalry.

Heian’s body held together, albeit barely, and her gamble paid off. Linked with the Sky Hall and Yoshika’s formation, Heian wove her spell through a grand formation unlike anything she’d ever attempted before. She drew on everything she’d ever learned from the soul realm, from watching her mother, and from the intensive magical practice she’d undergone in preparation for that very moment.

The spell was more than a barrier. It was a wall, a moat, a labyrinth, a castle—an entire fortress through which the power of the seventh bolt was distributed. It didn’t stop the tribulation’s power, but it weakened it, split it up, and spread it out such that Heian could deal with each part of it on her own terms.

The formation was enormously expensive. Even the Sky Hall’s prodigious mana-gathering and the ingenious recycling of the tribulation’s power couldn’t keep up with the sheer volume of essence her spell demanded.

The eighth bolt struck with such power that even through Heian’s defenses, it shook her to the core. The seemingly inexhaustible reserves of the mana stone Yoshika had given her to create her core nearly ran dry, and still the heavens did not relent.

It wasn’t enough. Heian didn’t have enough power to resist it by herself. But she’d nearly forgotten—no child of Yoshika’s could ever truly be alone.

Her connection to Yoshika still existed. The bridge holding them together was the very center of her soul—the deepest sanctuary of her soul realm—and it went straight from one sanctuary to another. Heian wasn’t part of Yoshika anymore, but Yoshika was still part of her. Her mother’s words echoed in her mind as she reached across that bridge to desperately grasp at the power she needed to survive.

“Nothing but the best for my little girl.”

The unfettered power of the Sovereign’s Tear flowed through her, shared freely by its mistress. Heian channeled that power through her spell, strengthening it far beyond anything the Sky Hall’s creators could have possibly imagined.

The ninth bolt struck with cataclysmic force, shaking the earth and cracking the sky. Even Heian’s supercharged formation could barely slow it down as it smashed into her with purifying essence. She could feel the malice behind it—the fear and hatred. Heian was anathema, and her existence needed to be purged. She refused that cruel edict and stood her ground, resisting with every fiber of her being as she clung to life and weathered the blast.

After what felt like an eternity, the lightning bolt was spent and Heian collapsed to the ground, coughing up blood.

She tried to stagger to her feet as her friends ran to her aid. Her ears were ringing, and she couldn’t hear anything, but her mother was shouting something. She seemed so concerned, but it was over. Heian had finally—

The final bolt struck without warning. The world froze as Heian felt it streaking inexorably through her soul, targeting her precious core with deadly accuracy and lethal intent.

There was no time for thought or ingenuity. Only pure instinct, rising up from the deepest reaches of her timeless ancestral memories. Heian was the spirit of things between—light and dark, heat and cold, life and death. As a fledgling goddess of all things liminal, teetering on the edge of death, she’d never been stronger.

The lightning struck her, and it didn’t. She died and she lived. Her domain enveloped the tribulation’s destructive energy and robbed its spark of divine energy. With that spark, Heian weaved her will upon the world, and her dying body switched places with her dauntless spirit.

It seared her flesh and bones, but went no further—the tribulation already too exhausted to manage much more than a cheap parting shot.

Heian was dimly aware of her friends and family rushing to her aid, but she was completely spent and her consciousness was rapidly fading. The damage to her body hadn’t been healed, merely moved. It was going to be a brutal recovery, but she had done it. She was whole.

As her consciousness faded, Heian heard her mother’s words in her soul—gentle and soothing.

“Rest now, sweetheart. I’m so proud of you.”