His hand closed around the horn.
The moment flesh met destiny, everything shattered.
The Dreaming Sleep collapsed in a burst of divine resonance — not violent, but absolute. The black void around him fractured like crystal, each shard reflecting a different version of himself: boy, son, savior, sinner, god. He stood in the center, finally whole. Not fully angel. Not fully human. Not even a fusion of both.
Louis Paulissen had become something else entirely.
And in the waking world, the change struck like thunder wrapped in silence.
The air within the Paulissen Estate turned heavy, humming with a pulse older than the stars. The ancestral chamber trembled. Golden fire licked at the edges of the sigil-etched walls. The very fabric of space twisted around the bed as the seals woven by Everestus and the Elders flared to life, struggling to contain the blooming miracle.
Louis's eyes snapped open.
