Lin Yi stepped forward, the door behind him closing without a sound. She was already there, seated and waiting. He had been certain of her presence before he even crossed the door, and now that certainty solidified into fact. It was not her appearance that confirmed her identity; she was a young girl with black hair falling loosely over her shoulders, dressed in a simple white robe with a frame that was small and unassuming. Nothing in her physical form made her unique.
It was her aura. That same Celestial presence he had sensed on Floor 33—not overwhelming in the way raw power dominates a space, but refined, absolute, and fundamentally different from everything else in the expanse. It was the same quality that had lingered within the Celestial Emperor's Abode. She looked up at him.
"Level 230," she said immediately. "So even you fell short of the goal."
