Following the map, Solanky appeared in the 30th zone of the secret region, south of Karan's territory. Before him stretched a vast icy expanse, spanning several light-years into the void. He found himself taken aback — each secret region differed wildly in appearance from the last, yet all shared one unmistakable trait: a spiritual energy fluctuation far beyond the ordinary. In the distance, he spotted multitudes of beings converging on a stone platform. He recognized it at once — a teleportation array, gateway to the true heart of the 30th zone, a space hundreds of billions of light-years wide, making it the largest and most dangerous of all the zones. Solanky joined the crowd gathering on the platform. Moments later, they were teleported together into the zone's core.
The instant he arrived, his senses caught something alarming — a powerful, potent, invisible poison gas spreading rapidly toward the group he'd arrived with. This poison ranked second only to the velvet cloud of contamination on the hierarchy of deadly toxins. Those who commanded the velvet cloud of contamination had nothing to fear from it, but the same couldn't be said for anyone else present. Activating his observational technique, Solanky traced the gas back toward its source, eager to seize the chance to learn more about it. His body dissolved into velvet mist and streaked toward the origin point; the other saint emperors scattered about, hunting their own opportunities, paid him no mind — they assumed, correctly, that he was heading straight into the most dangerous part of the zone. As a transcendent entity now, he could reshape his body's form at will, rendering it tangible or intangible as he pleased.
He slipped through a narrow opening only a few meters wide. Around its mouth lay the bodies of venerable saints and saint emperors, beings caught entirely off guard by the poison's silent spread. Past the opening, Solanky stopped short, stunned — before him lay the lifeless body of a contaminated special life form, a true peak-turn being, its corpse still exuding the deadly gas. Countless years of stillness, hundreds of trillions of years unmoving, had allowed the body to form a core of its own. With what little he understood of peak-turn beings, Solanky suspected this one had been slain by something immensely more powerful — a being several turns above it, capable of leaving the physical form untouched while utterly annihilating its will, spirit, and soul.
Still cloaked in velvet mist, he drifted closer to the body — seven trillion light-years tall, seated cross-legged, head bowed low. In that moment, he understood why the 30th zone was the largest of them all: the space around him stretched a hundred trillion light-years across, a perfect sphere in shape and volume. This alone told him countless mysteries of the 30th realm still lay buried here, waiting to be found.
Solanky shifted back into his original form and unfurled his velvet world domain, enshrouding the core left behind by the lifeless being. He wove seals with his hands and summoned his source-defying flames, intent on refining the core — a chance to strengthen his domain and push it toward the level of the true peak-turns. To succeed, he knew, he'd first need to fully decode the secrets locked within this being's remains. He expanded himself to his full, optimal height — a hundred billion light-years — dwarfing him before the seven-trillion-light-year corpse before him. Activating his observational technique, he confirmed the being had been a second peak-turn existence, its strength two thousand times that of an ordinary being at the same level.
Studying the body further, Solanky discovered it still carried treasures — hidden away in folded, separate spaces he never would have noticed without his observational technique active. Cautious as always, he sent a wisp of his spiritually powered avatar into the hidden space. The moment it crossed the threshold, he sensed something strange: no trace of the being's will or presence lingered there at all. Whoever had killed this being had done so with extraordinary caution and overwhelming power — breaking through such defenses, erasing every last mark of will and consciousness from a being's private space, required someone at least two levels above their target.
His spiritual avatar stepped through the shattered protective layer and into the space beyond, where treasures floated suspended in the still air. Of these, only three carried true peak-turn rank: a scimitar-like blade, a shield, and a net woven from blue light that Solanky immediately recognized as a domain-assisting treasure. He searched each one carefully for any lingering trace of their former owner, and found nothing — a discovery that chilled him more than anything else in that space. He understood, at last, exactly why Supremo had warned him he stood no chance against the true body of the Levian Progenitor. He sent a thread of his own spiritual power into each treasure, marking them with his life force. Dormant for untold years, the weapons stirred and accepted him as their new owner.
He was ready to leave when something in the distance caught his eye. Drawing closer, he found a message carved into a stone tablet by the very being who had killed the corpse before him. It was brief: this being, once full of life and power, had turned that power to slaughtering over a thousand half step peak-turn beings of the beyond realm during a war fought outside the walls of the beyond realm — and worse, had turned into a traitor, allying with enemy forces. The message was signed by one called Behan, who claimed responsibility for the killing, meant as a warning to any who might follow the same path. Behan had stripped the being of spiritual power and will entirely, cutting away every fragment of consciousness from the physical form, and ensured the beyond realm would deny it any chance of reincarnation or reform. Whoever found the body was free to claim its treasures — but was warned not to walk the same path. This being, the tablet noted, was only one of twenty who had rebelled or sided with the calamitous beings.
Solanky turned to leave, but paused deliberately at the threshold — leaving behind two treasures at the half step peak-turn level, just enough to keep other fortunate, powerful beings from suspecting the space had already been fully looted. Against the hundreds of half step peak-turn treasures still scattered within, the pieces he left behind were a trivial loss; he knew full well the treasures he kept would prove far more valuable in the coming war for the forsaken realm. Erasing every trace of his passage, he vanished from within the lifeless being, his spiritual avatar folding back into his body along with everything he'd claimed.
He sat and resumed absorbing what remained of the halo's energies — and this time, his spiritual body grew by half a trillion light-years, its form now mirroring his physical body almost exactly. Once finished, he rose, dissolved into velvet mist once more, and set off following the stone tablet's lead. Other true peak-turn beings lay lifeless throughout this hidden space beneath the 30th zone. He traveled several light-years before reaching the second corpse — another peak-turn being, long since stilled. Without hesitation, he entered its inner world and found a wealth of precious herbs and pills waiting within.
He couldn't help but feel a quiet thrill — while the others who'd assumed he was doomed fought over little more than scraps of saint emperor-level treasure on the surface, he alone reaped the true rewards buried beneath it. He visited all twenty corpses in turn, gathering more treasures and opportunities than he'd dared hope for. One corpse belonged to a fifth-level peak-turn being, its treasures strangely dismantled, leaving only fragments of what had once been a glorious weapon. But the true prize from that fifth-turn body was a pair of wings — formed from the fusion of the being's original wings with a treasure of its own. Damaged as they were, they would still let him flee from a true peak-turn being at the first or second turn, should the need ever arise.
By the time he'd visited them all, Solanky understood something deeper about the peak-turn level — the sheer disparity in strength between beings, rooted in the origins of their life forms, had driven many toward the calamitous beings and their forbidden methods of boosting a life form's base strength by several hundredfold. It explained why so many of these lifeless corpses had sacrificed their sanity chasing power enough to stand among legends.
Treasures gathered, Solanky returned to the surface of the 30th zone — though not before deliberately dialing his own power down to 50%, so as to convince the others he hadn't come through unscathed. They believed him easily enough; no one who'd learned the secrets hidden in that space had ever lived to tell of it before. One greedy saint emperor, sensing weakness, rushed toward Solanky hoping to strip him of his spoils. The others watched, unconcerned — this being carried 4.5 billion times the strength of an ISG, ranking him among the three strongest present. But before he closed within a hundred meters of Solanky, the space for a hundred thousand kilometers around them solidified, turning a deep velvet hue. Every being present froze in shock, even the strongest among them — a being 5 billion times stronger than an ISG — who frowned and muttered, "This fool's unlucky enough to provoke an old monster. The second he showed up, I already worried he wouldn't survive unless he gave everything he had..."
His words never reached the crowd's ears. The attacking being disintegrated in an instant, and Solanky's power surged, if only slightly, in its wake. The scene left everyone reeling — a single exchange, and a being of that caliber had been wiped from existence entirely. Among the stunned onlookers, one stood more terrified than all the rest — for she had already made an enemy of Solanky. It was none other than the female officiator.