Chapter 51Light. Then silence.Then… breath.Adrian gasped as air flooded his lungs not the searing, cosmic breath of a god balancing existence, but the mundane inhale of an ordinary man waking in a warm bed. His heartbeat was calm. The mattress beneath him was soft. Curtains fluttered lazily in the morning breeze. A bird chirped somewhere nearby.He sat up too fast, half-expecting the void to claw at his soul. But it didn’t.A quiet home. A wooden floor. A small table with two breakfast bowls. A kettle steaming.A hum came from the adjoining room. Then her voice."Adrian, are you up? You're going to be late for the institute again."Seraphina.He turned, and she stepped into view. No armor. No temporal scars. No memory of their shared agony. Just a simple dress, her hair loosely tied, holding a mug of tea with a sleepy smile.He rose, legs shaking. "Seraphina...""Still groggy?" she said, unaware of the storm behind his eyes. "I told you not to stay up reading those dusty journals.

Chapter 53Lady Margaret Parker, matriarch of the Parker family and a living legend in the magical circles of the empire, was not a woman easily fooled. When she looked at Adrian her supposedly meek and talentless grandson-in-law she saw a puzzle that refused to be solved. And Lady Margaret hated unsolved puzzles.With her usual imperious poise, she summoned Adrian before the entire family to the ancestral garden a sprawling courtyard laced with arcane energy and enchanted flora, reserved only for the most sacred of Parker trials."We will conduct a few simple evaluations," she said, her voice as crisp as winter air. "Nothing difficult. Just enough to test whether the boy my granddaughter married has a drop of magical aptitude."Adrian gave her a sheepish smile, deliberately wrinkling his robe and rubbing the back of his head. "I’ll try my best, Lady Margaret. But I’ve never been good with… fancy stuff."Several Parker relatives snorted with laughter. Marcus rolled his eyes from the s

Chapter 55The days after Master Chen's disastrous attempt at divination passed with an odd stillness in the Parker household. Whispers floated among the family, fueled by curiosity, confusion, and the lingering scent of burnt cards and ego. Adrian remained silent about it, always polite and reserved, content to sip tea in the sunlit garden while tending to blooming roses that hadn’t blossomed in years.Seraphina had started watching him differently.At first, she dismissed it as coincidence. A flower blooming when he passed by. The way he could always guess who was about to knock. But then the dreams came vivid images of dragons soaring across shattered skies, of battles waged across stars, of a man cloaked in both darkness and light. And always, Adrian was there.She couldn’t explain the strange ache in her chest when she looked at him now, like some missing piece was slowly clicking into place.During dinner one evening, Lord Parker took it upon himself to reignite his usual mocker

Chapter 57The first rays of dawn sliced through the horizon like the opening of a divine eye, golden and watchful. The Parker estate's private arena a grand circle etched with ancient runes and lined with golden bricks buzzed with nobles, magical scholars, and curious onlookers from across the city.Adrian stood quietly at the far end, eyes half-lidded, his hands tucked behind his back like a man preparing for a funeral not a duel. His expression was unreadable, a mixture of faint amusement and reluctant resolve. Around him, the air shimmered faintly, almost imperceptibly, as if reality itself held its breath.Across from him, Vincent Cross radiated controlled fury.Clad in a black and crimson dueling coat stitched with sigils of amplification, he walked the perimeter of the circle like a predator savoring the taste of impending triumph. Cheers rose from the Parker family seating area, where Lord Parker and Marcus smirked in unison, already celebrating a victory not yet won.Seraphin

Chapter 59The rooftop meeting changed everything.Seraphina didn’t speak for a long time after Adrian admitted the truthonly watched him with searching eyes, her heart and mind caught between two timelines. The moonlight cast silver patterns across her face as the wind ruffled her hair, and in that still moment, Adrian waited for her to run.But she didn’t.Instead, she stepped closer, took his hand, and whispered, “Show me.”So he did.Over the next several days, Adrian carefully revealed pieces of the truth never all at once, never more than she could handle. He demonstrated his control over probability by walking blindfolded through the estate’s crowded garden without touching a single object. He conjured glowing symbols from the air, each representing moments from their past: the crest of the dragon order, the sigil of the Hollow Sky, a fading echo of the bridge realm where they once sacrificed everything.Each time, Seraphina watched with a mixture of awe and quiet grief.“I tho