The world didn't shatter when she arrived.
It bowed.
The shadow crown shimmered on her head—dark fire dancing where jewels should be. Her robe trailed behind her like a veil of night, and every step she took rewrote the air.
Lyra stared in frozen disbelief.
Her mother—Shadow Phoenix—was not fading, nor flickering like a fading script line.
She was rendering in real-time, against the system's will.
Liora stepped back instinctively, her form glitching.
"This isn't allowed," the little girl whispered.
The system voice echoed coldly:
"Unauthorized creator access detected. Termination pending…"
But the woman raised a single hand—and the warning silenced.
"I'm not here as a creator," she said. "I'm here as a mother."
Lyra felt something ancient stir inside her.
It wasn't rage. It wasn't longing.
It was recognition.
Not of a character. Not of a villain.But of the first spark.
This woman wasn't just her past.
She was the reason any of this existed.
