Chapter 26: The Awakening That Shook The Heavens II

Chapter 26: Chapter 26: The Awakening That Shook The Heavens II

Xavier’s vision blurred. For an instant, his consciousness seemed to disappear completely.

Then an overwhelming force swept through his entire body. His muscles tightened. His bones vibrated. His blood seemed to surge through his veins with renewed strength.

It wasn’t exactly painful. It felt more like every part of him was being pushed beyond its original limits.

Something fundamental was changing. Deep inside his body, countless cells seemed to awaken at once, undergoing a transformation he couldn’t possibly control.

Xavier clenched his fists as the sensation intensified.

Then the air around him began to change. A faint distortion appeared above his head. It gradually expanded into a circular opening, and from within it came two completely different streams of energy.

One was bright and pure. The other was dark and heavy. Rather than clashing, they slowly revolved around one another.

The two forces intertwined. Then, little by little, they began to merge. The result was a strange gray radiance that descended from above and enveloped Xavier’s entire body.

At almost the exact same moment, something extraordinary was happening in the room next door. Mira sat motionless on the bed.

Her eyes remained closed. A faint layer of frost had begun forming around her. Within moments, the temperature in the room dropped sharply.

Cold energy poured from her body as the dormant power within her finally began to awaken.

Then the gray radiance surrounding Xavier suddenly trembled. A thin strand of it separated from the rest. It slipped through the wall separating their rooms and entered Mira’s body.

The moment it did, the violent fluctuations surrounding her gradually became more stable.

Neither of them noticed what was happening outside. They were too deeply immersed in their own transformations. But their awakening had already begun affecting the world beyond their home. And they weren’t the only ones who would notice.

*******

Evelyn was riding her bicycle home. She was still thinking about her meeting with Xavier.

Everything had gone smoothly. The exchange had been completed, Xavier had accepted the spatial ring, and he had even allowed her to accompany him part of the way home. It was a promising start.

If Xavier obtained more rare elixirs in the future, perhaps he would contact her again. And once they became more familiar, she might even be able to approach him directly whenever she needed something.

A strange thought crossed her mind.

It felt like she had been pushing away the obvious thought that had been creeping into her mind all this while.

And she had been pushing them away because of what she stood to gain from him. She has been quite selfish. She realized.

Xavier was still the cursed mine whose wives had all died mysteriously.

Could all these pills be connected to his dead wives? How was he getting them?

Was it safe to continue trading with him? And most importantly, was Mira Sinclair safe in his hand?

He was clearly not as ordinary as he appeared, yet he had married Mira Sinclair, someone whose circumstances had become the subject of endless gossip.

What game was Xavier Kane playing?

Evelyn was still thinking about it when something suddenly changed. She slowed her bicycle. The setting sun had turned the western sky crimson.

Then a powerful wave of magical energy swept across the city.

Evelyn’s expression changed. She immediately looked up. The sight before her left her speechless.

A massive phoenix made entirely of ice had appeared above the city. Its enormous wings stretched across the sky, each feather shimmering with an otherworldly blue light.

The setting sun reflected off its crystalline body, scattering fragments of blue and gold across the clouds. Every movement of its wings left behind a trail of frost.

Evelyn stared upward.

But the phoenix wasn’t the only phenomenon. Above it, two enormous currents of energy had appeared. One was radiant and pure.

The other was dark and mysterious. They spiraled around one another, gradually forming an enormous vortex that seemed to stretch all the way toward the horizon.

Then Evelyn heard something. At first, she thought it was the wind. But it wasn’t.

It sounded like countless voices chanting from somewhere far beyond the visible world. The words were impossible to understand.

Yet the strange rhythm carried an ancient, almost sacred quality that made the entire atmosphere feel different.

A tiny point of golden light appeared at the center of the vortex. Then it divided. One became two. Two became three. And then countless points of golden light appeared. The entire sky seemed to brighten.

Golden radiance descended from above like a gentle rain.

Evelyn instinctively lifted her hand. One of the golden lights passed straight through her palm before disappearing into the ground.

Her eyes widened. She knew what this was.

"An awakening phenomenon..." she said, her voice barely audible.

Then another thought struck her. Evelyn’s expression changed. She turned sharply toward the direction she had just come from.

Toward Xavier’s home. Toward the source of the awakening.

Her eyes narrowed, different thoughts roaming through her mind.

"Is that you Xavier Kane?" The question escaped her lips before she realized she said them.

While Evelyn was battling with her thoughts, the same phenomenon that had appeared above Valemont was far larger than anyone had initially realized.

The cry of the enormous frost phoenix had traveled for hundreds of miles, reaching even the surrounding cities of Silverlake and Ashbourne. Its resonant cry rolled across the region, drawing the attention of countless people.

Evelyn Hart was only one of thousands who witnessed the extraordinary sight.

Across Valemont and its neighboring cities, people stopped whatever they were doing and looked toward the sky.

Cars pulled over. Pedestrians gathered in the streets. Martial artists rushed out of training halls and residences.

Even ordinary people who knew little about magic could tell that something extraordinary had occurred.

The massive frost phoenix remained in the sky for several minutes before suddenly folding its enormous wings and diving into the clouds. Then it disappeared.

The strange vortex above it lingered for a while longer. Dark clouds stretched across the heavens, twisting around the black and white energy before gradually thinning and fading away.

From beginning to end, the entire phenomenon lasted less than thirty minutes. But that was enough. Anyone with even a basic understanding of magic knew what such a manifestation meant.

Someone had awakened an extraordinarily powerful bloodline. And judging from the scale of the phenomenon, it was no ordinary bloodline awakening.

Within minutes, the news spread throughout Valemont. Videos flooded social media. Photographs appeared across online forums.

People began arguing over what they had witnessed. Some believed one of the great families had produced another hidden genius.

Others suspected that an unknown prodigy had awakened somewhere within the city. There were even people trying to calculate which magical bloodlines were capable of producing such an enormous manifestation.

But beneath all the speculation was one undeniable fact.

Whoever had caused it was valuable. Extremely valuable. And before long, countless forces began searching for them.