The hall dimmed as Xuan Mo extended his hand.
For a moment, Lin Yue thought he was going to help her up.
No. No, no. Help was far too normal.
Instead, he summoned a sphere of pure moon essence — condensed, swirling, potent enough to erase a mountain if dropped by someone clumsy.
It hummed like a captured star.
"This," he said, "is the First Lunar Resonance."
Lin Yue took a step back. "Respectfully, that looks like something that will kill me."
"If it wished to kill you," he said, "you would already be gone."
"Well that's incredibly comforting—"
He closed the distance between them.
"Hold out your hands."
"Oh yes, let me just cradle the celestial murder-orb—"
"Lin Yue."
He said her name the way storms address mountains — quietly, but with the promise of complete destruction.
She sighed and extended her hands.
The orb touched her palms.
Her body convulsed.
Not from pain — no, pain would've been polite — but from a deep rewiring of spiritual pathways, like someone was rearranging the furniture in her soul without asking.
She gasped as light shot through her veins, forming thin silver branches across her skin.
The hall vibrated.
Xuan Mo stiffened.
"That shouldn't be happening," he murmured.
Lin Yue hissed through her teeth, "Wonderful— I love— hearing— that— from people— holding unstable cosmic energy!"
He grabbed her wrists, stabilizing the energy flow. His hands were cold, impossibly cold — not winter cold, but vacuum cold, the kind that had never once felt human warmth.
"Breathe," he ordered.
"Bossing me won't fix—AH—whatever THIS is—!"
The orb dissolved into her body like water into sand.
Her vision blurred.
Her consciousness flickered.
Then—
She saw his soul.
Not clearly.Not fully.Just a flash.
A vast black ocean under a broken moon.A throne made not of stone, but of regrets stitched into a crown.A single heartbeat echoing through eternity in a rhythm of loneliness.
Lin Yue gasped.
Xuan Mo froze.
He knew what she'd seen.
His fingers tightened around her wrists — not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to pin her in reality.
"No mortal has ever perceived my inner world," he said quietly.
"Well… sorry?" she tried weakly. "I promise I didn't mean to peep."
"You saw too much."
She winced. "Honestly, your soul needs better privacy settings."
His expression flickered between offense and fascination.
"You are aligned to my path," he said. "You can survive the forbidden resonance."
Survive.
Which implied most people didn't.
She swallowed. "And if I had failed?"
"You would have been ash."
"Love that for me."