They stood like that for a moment—father and son—watching each other from across the still-crackling aftermath of something no one in the room truly understood.
Dominic didn't blink.
Damien didn't falter.
He stood tall, skin bare and damp with condensation, the residual heat of his Awakening still dancing along the floor beneath his feet. There was no outward display of power now—no elemental halo or raw surge—but Dominic didn't need any of that. He could feel it. A subtle density in the air. The way the mana bent ever so slightly toward Damien like it wanted to orbit again. That presence—undeniably Awakened.
But more than that, there was clarity in the boy's eyes.
A clarity that hadn't been there before.
'Thank god,' Dominic thought.
Not with relief.
Not with surrender.
Just... acceptance.
