Lucien merged the new fragments into the Origin Core Shrine.

The Origin Core remained incomplete.

But it was no longer merely a collection of broken pieces.

It had begun behaving like something that remembered what it used to be.

The first change after the hundredth fragment had already been immense.

Lucien felt it spread through the near void.

Across the planetary system where the Big World moved.

Lucien opened his eyes slowly.

"So that’s how it works."

The Origin Core fragments did not expand like ordinary signals.

It was not a lamp growing brighter by a little.

It was a broken whole remembering more of its original shape.

Every fragment did not merely add range. It added lost coordinates, missing authority, and more of the original structure that had once connected everything under its rule.

That was why the range expanded so violently after one hundred fragments.

The Origin Core was not reaching farther through power alone.

It was remembering where its authority already belonged.

That realization made Lucien’s expression turn serious.

Then the second change arrived.

Pressure.

The Origin Core Shrine groaned softly.

The recorders stationed nearby stiffened.

One of them staggered.

Another dropped the tablet in his hand.

Elias, standing farther back, narrowed his eyes and immediately raised a protective barrier over the weaker attendants.

Vivian stepped forward.

"Luc."

Lucien felt the pressure too.

But it did not crush him.

Instead, it passed around him like water parting around stone.

The Tree of Creation above his Divine Energy Core stirred.

Its branches rustled inside his conceptual space, and a vast, gentle authority flowed through him. The pressure coming from the Origin Core touched him and was answered by the tree.

The Origin Core pulsed.

The Tree of Creation answered.

The Divine Energy Core hummed beneath them both.

For one breath, Lucien felt the three powers align inside and around him.

Origin.

Creation.

Divinity.

He did not understand the full connection.

But he felt enough to know that they were not unrelated pieces gathered by chance.

Three different systems.

One strange foundation.

Lucien’s foundation.

The pressure in the shrine grew heavier.

One recorder fell to one knee.

That snapped Lucien out of his thoughts.

He stepped forward.

The Origin Core pulsed again like a beast waking in a room too small for its body.

Lucien placed one hand against the fragment.

He moved his authority carefully, almost like smoothing the fur of an enormous creature that had forgotten it was terrifying everyone nearby.

The Tree of Creation helped.

Its roots sank into the pressure and gave Lucien a way to understand it. The pressure was not hostility. It was overflow. The Origin Core’s authority had grown too quickly after reaching a new threshold, and it was leaking presence into the shrine.

Lucien guided it back.

He softened its release, gave it channels, and adjusted the shrine’s arrays so the authority circulated instead of pressing outward.

The effect was immediate.

The suffocating weight faded.

The recorders breathed again.

Vivian looked at Lucien with concern.

"Are you all right?"

Lucien removed his hand from the shrine.

"Yes."

He looked at the Origin Core again.

"It was not attacking. It was stretching."

Elias stared at the incomplete core.

"That was stretching?"

Lucien smiled faintly.

"Apparently."

The recorder who had dropped his tablet picked it up with trembling hands and whispered, "I hope it does not yawn."

Lucien heard it.

He pretended not to.

Still, his mind remained on the deeper feeling.

Everything inside him seemed increasingly connected.

For now, the shrine was stable, the recorders could work again, and the world had not ended.

That was enough for the morning.

•••

Later that day, a message came from the void.

It came from the four elemental women. They were quick to realize that the signal had reached the void.

The four of them had gone there to breakthrough to the Eternal Realm.

Lucien read the message.

[We succeeded.]

Lucien’s expression changed.

Another message followed.

[Four more Eternals for Lootwell.]

Lucien stared at the words.

Then smiled.

Marie, Kaia, Sylra, and Marina had entered the Eternal Realm.

Lucien leaned back and released a breath he had not realized he was holding.

"Good."

Then Marina sent another message.

[You should praise us properly when we return.]

Kaia added:

[Preferably with gifts.]

Marie sent:

[Ignore the second message.]

Sylra sent:

[Do not ignore it completely.]

Lucien stared at the sequence.

Then laughed.

He typed back:

[Congratulations. Stabilize your realms properly first. Gifts will be prepared.]

Marina replied almost instantly.

[I knew my prince loved us.]

Lucien paused.

Then looked at the device.

The way the four of them interacted with him had changed ever since their special location.

They had become more intimate.

And strangely, Lucien did not find it uncomfortable.

That was the dangerous part.

Their care felt familiar, even when he had no clear memory to justify it. The way Marie noticed practical issues before he voiced them, the way Kaia hovered near warmth and mood, the way Sylra watched quiet details, the way Marina shamelessly tended to him as if she had always had the right.

It should have felt sudden.

Instead, it felt like something old had returned to its proper place.

Lucien shook his head.

"Dangerous women."

Still, his smile remained.

His thoughts moved toward the fruits of creation.

If those fruits matured, how would they affect the four?

They were already tied to elemental origin.

Their laws had become part of their being.

If the fruits could evolve their laws further...

He did not know.

The uncertainty made him even more impatient for the fruits to ripen.

But first, gifts.

•••

Eirene’s progress was different.

That worried Lucien quietly.

She was already at the peak of the Ninth Stage of the Celestial Realm.

In terms of talent, control, intelligence, and foundation, she should have been among the first to step into Eternal.

Yet she lingered..

That night, Lucien found above the Stillness Palace.

She did not turn when Lucien approached.

"Are you hesitating?" Lucien asked her.

Eirene was silent for a while.

Then she nodded.

"Yes."

Lucien did not ask immediately.

He looked out over Lootwell with her.

The city below breathed with soft order.

Finally, Eirene said, "The Eternal Realm is not only more power. Not for me."

"It rarely is."

Lucien turned slightly toward her.

Eirene was not stuck because she could not advance.

She was hesitating for some unknown reason.

Lucien just smiled at her.

"Then take your time."

She looked at him.

"You are not going to tell me that the world needs me to hurry?"

"The world needs many things," Lucien said. "That does not mean I should break the people I care about to provide them."

Eirene’s eyes softened.

Lucien continued, "You will reach Eternal. I am not worried about that."

"You are very confident."

"I have evidence."

That drew a small smile from her.

Lucien smiled back.

"When you step forward, you will do it properly. Probably beautifully. Probably in a way that makes everyone else feel underdressed."

Eirene laughed softly.

Some of the worry in her eyes loosened.

They talked for a while after that.

By the time Lucien left, Eirene’s expression had settled.

•••

The next day, Lucien began preparing for the next expansion.

The North Continent. He had promised Vaelcar to come there.

The West had stabilized.

The Middle had Grand Confluence.

The communication network between the two continents had begun producing not only messages, but relationships.

Now the North had to join.

If he wanted the five continents united before the next calamity arrived, he could not wait until every piece was perfect.

Perfection was a luxury apocalypse never respected.

He gathered the important people.

And the meeting lasted the whole day.

Lucien did not want to pause the Origin Core campaign while expanding north.

He wanted both.

The meeting continued.

By sunset, the first outline was complete.

The North Continent expansion would begin with contact through Vaelcar.