The Grand Feast of the Celestial Dominion began beneath a sky that looked too beautiful to belong to ordinary reality.

Lucien had already seen the Dominion before.

Only now, with celebration alive in every direction, did the full scale of it truly settle into him.

The Celestial Dominion was vast.

Not merely larger than Lootwell in territory, though it was. Not merely older in spirit, though that was obvious everywhere one looked.

Rivers of living light moved through the air as though the sky itself had learned to flow. The divine energy in the atmosphere was denser than anything Lucien had ever felt.

Then came the feast itself.

The food was not merely delicious.

It was useful.

Every dish served some purpose beyond pleasure. Beasts raised under refined divine currents became meats that strengthened the body without leaving the usual gross heaviness behind.

Certain cuts were prepared with slow radiant braising that permanently improved the resilience of bones and vessels if one’s foundation was stable enough to accept it.

The soups were absurdly clear and fragrant, infused with spiritual roots and floating grains of concentrated vitality that could restore long-term exhaustion instead of only filling the stomach.

It was similar to the meat and food drops Lucien had obtained before from killing monsters.

The fruits were even worse.

Some sharpened comprehension slightly if eaten at the correct pace beneath the feast-arrays.

Some refined inner clarity.

Some strengthened lawful receptivity.

The wines carried no ordinary drunkenness either unless one truly insisted on foolishness. Spirit wines loosened blockages, soothed old internal strain, and settled emotional turbulence.

One after another, people began breaking through their bottlenecks.

And as if that was not enough, there were other blessings woven into the feast itself.

High above, Lucien noticed several Celestials moving from one aerial position to another in perfect coordination. At first he assumed they were merely managing ceremonial formations.

Then he looked harder.

They were building an array in the sky.

A large one.

When the final sequence settled, motes of pale gold began falling from above like sacred snow.

The lights drifted over everyone present and dissolved on contact.

Where they landed, fatigue eased. Minor injuries softened. Strain retreated. Mental pressure loosened.

The whole assembly felt lighter, steadier, and more able to enjoy the night without dragging behind them all the burdens they had carried into it.

Lucien blinked once.

That was ridiculous.

Old Celestial hospitality really had no concept of moderation.

And below that shimmering rain of sanctified light, the Dominion celebrated.

All around, cheers rose for the recovery of Virel and Aniel.

Lucien and Vivian saw it clearly then, just how deeply these people respected and loved their parents.

...

Lucien and Vivian remained for much of the evening with Luke, Cienna, Virel, and Aniel.

The six of them together felt strange at first in the most beautiful way.

Lucien and Vivian had two sets of parents now, and instead of the impossible awkwardness that might have come from such a thing, the moment felt warm, almost absurdly so.

The family spoke of the past, of small things, of foolish things, of things no one outside their circle would have cared about but which to them felt more precious than treasures.

Virel and Aniel had not changed.

Luke and Cienna got along with them almost offensively fast.

Lucien sat watching them at one point and realized that if left completely unsupervised the four of them would probably develop a private alliance of parental gossip strong enough to destabilize armies.

...

Meanwhile, beyond the family circle, the feast had truly come alive.

Marie had, naturally, found a group of daring Celestials and other festival-goers and somehow turned a perfectly dignified ceremonial dance into something more energetic and joyous without quite crossing the line into sacrilege. She kept trying to pull the others in with her.

Kaia resisted for all of three minutes.

Then she was laughing too.

Sylra looked embarrassed the entire time.

That did not stop Marie from dragging her into it anyway.

Marina, meanwhile, had fallen in love.

With the food.

She sampled one bite, froze, then promptly began hunting down the servers.

Eirene and Seraphine had found each other again too.

Lucien noticed them in a quieter section of the feast beneath a hanging lantern-tree, speaking in low voices and occasionally chuckling over something private enough that neither felt any need to explain.

Seeing that strange, gentle accord between them eased something in him each time he glanced their way.

Kael had already made himself comfortable among Celestials and the other races of the Dominion in the way only a true merchant could.

Cielius had found an elderly Celestial scholar, and the two were already deep in conversation about old magical theory. They had clinked cups more than once and now drank spirit wine like old equals delighted to discover another person still respected certain ancient absurdities.

Sebas and Elunara somehow ended up with the children.

Sebas look sharp, but children reacted to deeper truths faster than adults. They sensed gentleness in him. And once one brave little Celestial child had approached him, the rest followed.

Lucien watched from a distance as Sebas crouched slightly to speak with them eye to eye, careful, patient, and far softer than his appearance suggested. The sight dragged old memories into Lucien’s chest at once.

Elunara stood beside him with her usual calm allure, and the children eased around her almost as naturally. She had the sort of beauty that might intimidate adults, but to children it simply felt warm and safe.

All around them, Lucien’s people were having fun.

Celestials even volunteered to guide some of them on informal tours between feast intervals.

It was the kind of scene Lucien did not always trust the world to allow.

...

At one point during the feast, Virel mentioned something that caught Lucien’s full attention.

"My son, I wanted to introduce you to someone but he is not here," Virel said.

Lucien turned toward him.

"Who?"

Virel’s expression shifted slightly.

"The man who holds the Reincarnation Disc."

That struck Lucien like a bell.

Aniel, standing nearby, continued where Virel paused.

"He is difficult to find," she said. "He never stays anywhere long enough to be called settled. And even calling him a wanderer is not quite right."

Lucien narrowed his eyes.

"Then what is he?"

Virel exhaled through his nose once and answered, "He moves with a floating territory. He reveals himself only when he wishes."

Aniel’s mouth curved faintly.

"He visits every few years. Always like a weather pattern with opinions."

Virel shook his head.

"He is detached and hard to hold in one place. When he visits, I will call you immediately."

Lucien stared into the middle distance for a moment.

Then, later, when the feast’s energy rose enough to hide a short absence, he stepped aside and used the communication artifact Seran had given him.

He sent a short question.

[Do you know the man who holds the Reincarnation Disc?]

Seran’s reply came back quickly.

[Yes.]

Then another.

[You should meet him. It will benefit you.]

Lucien’s brows rose.

[He calls himself Deadman.]

Lucien looked at the words and felt his curiosity sharpen.

Then Seran added one more message.

[He has a strange cheat. And he will get along with you. In fact, you might be the only one who can handle him.]

Lucien frowned.

Seran did not explain why.

Soon enough, Lucien put the artifact away and returned to the feast more curious than before. If Seran said meeting this Deadman would be advantageous, then there was no point pretending otherwise. He would wait.

The man sounded like the sort who appeared when ordinary timing became too polite to be interesting.

...

Later, as the celebration rose toward its brightest point, Virel and Aniel brought Lucien something unexpected.

A pouch.

Virel handed it over with suspicious calm.

Lucien looked from the pouch to him, then to Aniel, then opened it.

And nearly choked.

Inside lay a dozen Origin Core fragments.

Lucien stared.

Counted again.

Then stared harder.

He looked up slowly.

"The Celestial Dominion was hiding this much?"

Aniel laughed softly at his expression.

"They accumulated," she said.

"In the past," Virel added, "there were times we had to intervene against certain sects or powers that mistook old grudges for valid policy. Some held fragments. Some tried using them in ways that would have ended badly for everyone nearby."

Aniel folded her hands neatly and continued, "And whenever newly opened small worlds were first revealed, we made it a habit to arrive before worse people did."

Lucien blinked.

That explained a great deal.

Virel nodded once.

"There are Liberators here too. Some of them surrendered fragments to us willingly in gratitude for taking in their people and helping settle them within the Dominion."

Lucien looked back down at the pouch.

Twelve more.

With that many, once merged into the main Origin Core body back in Lootwell, the existing network might stretch more cleanly into neighboring continents.

The Middle Continent itself might start receiving the signal in reachable zones.

Lucien’s mind was already moving too fast.

He looked up with unconcealed excitement.

...

Then it happened.

Just as the feast peaked and the sky-array released another slow rain of luminous motes across the celebration, Lucien felt something brush past the world.

He froze.

The sensation was subtle for everyone else.

For him, it was not.

It was immediate.

But familiar. Too familiar.

It was...

Nihility.

Lucien’s eyes widened.

Alanthuriel.

Something had shifted on a scale far broader than the feast.

Then he understood.

Alanthuriel had taken out the lingering influence of Oblivion from the world.

Not from those who already remembered him. Nothing changed for them.

But for those who had forgotten—

memory returned.

Across the feast, Lucien felt small reactions begin like a series of hidden sparks.

Then two Celestials approached.

A man and a woman.

Lucien knew them.

They had been part of the Stillness Expedition.

They stared at him with that disbelieving brightness reserved for the moment when memory clicks back into place and suddenly rearranges a person’s whole understanding of the last stretch of history.

Then both of them clasped his hand warmly.

"Brother," they greeted. "Greetings."

Lucien smiled and returned it.

The woman looked at him carefully, then asked with visible uncertainty and growing certainty tangled together, "Brother... are you perhaps the wolf brother from Sareth?"

Lucien laughed softly.

Then nodded.

"Yes."

That was enough.

The world remembered him again.

Or enough of it did.

Lucien spoke with the two of them like old friends finding each other after an excessively rude interruption. He did, of course, ask them not to make too much noise about it yet.

But then, as he glanced back, he noticed something else.

Virel and Aniel were not surprised.

They knew that he was the "Wolf Beastman."

Perhaps not every detail, but enough.

Enough to understand the shape of him that the rest of the world had only now reclaimed.

Lucien exhaled slowly.

He did not know where Alanthuriel was.

He did not know yet whether being remembered by the world again would ultimately help him or complicate his life into something even more unreasonable than usual.

But he also knew this:

He was no longer as weak as before.

And he would only grow stronger from here.

So Lucien stood beneath the raining lights of the Celestial feast, surrounded by family, friends, rulers, lovers, old names, returning memories, and the widening future, and let the strange shape of that truth settle into him.

Whatever came next—

He would meet it.