Solanky raised his hammer to strike the anvil for the 999-millionth time. As the hammer rose toward the sky, clouds began to gather above him. The instant it fell upon the anvil, the gathered clouds released a bolt of lightning that chased the hammer's descent, trailing behind it like a streak of fire. The anvil split open on impact, and the seed of lightning buried deep within shot upward, dispersing into the clouds. The lightning brewed as the clouds gathered momentum — more dark clouds rolled in, arcs crackling and thunder roaring within them.
Solanky knew that the moment those clouds unleashed their fury, there would be no dodging, no evading — he would have to take it head-on. The space within the cauldron trembled violently; the clouds grew so dense and heavy that arcs of electricity seemed to replace their very shape.
He formed seals with his hands, and layers of energy barriers and law barriers rapidly took form around him. With a wave of his hand, an armor he'd obtained during a previous expedition into a secluded zone settled over his body — a relic that had once belonged to a third-turn peak-turn being. Even so, Black God Solanky felt a deep unease; the brewing lightning and thunder seemed to be approaching its absolute limit. He waved his hand again, summoning a shield once belonging to a fourth-turn peak-turn being, which formed a protective sphere around him.
In the distance, the clouds vanished entirely, replaced by streaking bolts that spiraled into a whirlwind above him before coalescing into a ball of lightning several meters tall. This was no ordinary lightning — a single escaped bolt could tear through the fabric of the beyond realm, capable of killing a saint emperor transcendent with nothing more than a graze.
As the lightning coalesced, Black God Solanky's spiritual body had already begun igniting the source-defying flames buried within its soul.
BOOM!
The ball of lightning shot downward in an instant, as though it had torn through space and time itself. It shattered his energy barriers and shield in a single strike and surged toward the spherical cage protecting him. Solanky watched, frozen with terror, as the cage split into countless cracks across its surface. After three breaths, it collapsed entirely, and the lightning ball continued forward, striking his armor head-on.
The lightning hadn't lost an ounce of its power — if anything, it seemed to grow stronger. The armor shattered. Lightning struck Black God Solanky's body, and in an instant, his physical form was reduced to ash, leaving only his spiritual body behind. That spiritual body opened its arms wide to receive the strike, the seeds of the source-defying flames already kindled within. Lightning and flame clashed, consuming and eroding one another — though it was clear the flames held the upper hand.
The lightning and thunder intensified to their absolute peak, scorching the continent beneath Solanky black, scarring the earth with countless lightning marks.
With the aid of the source-defying flames and the awareness of his second-turn early-stage spiritual body, he began the painstaking work of integrating the lightning into his very essence. It was a gamble that bordered on suicidal — even beings with spiritual awareness at the fifth-turn would have hesitated, for this lightning was capable of wounding sixth and seventh-turn spiritual bodies, even true peak-turn beings at the sixth-turn. But with the source-defying flames tempering its fury, he managed to minimize the danger. After what felt like an hour, he achieved full fusion.
A flood of information poured into his memory. He learned that the lightning he had just absorbed was known as the nine lightning tribulation — a calamity-based law discovered beyond the boundaries of the beyond realm. Solanky was stunned; he had never known laws could exist — let alone take form — outside the beyond realm. The nine lightning tribulation had been forged by a powerful ninth-turn calamitous lifeform, a being who had stood at the absolute peak billions of samsaras ago and was believed to have already touched a power above the true peak-turns level.
The lightning had been discovered by Bragon during an expedition into the world and realm from which all existence had sprouted — a place utterly borderless and boundless, with no known end, even for beings who expanded themselves across billions of light-years. Those who attempted to measure it felt like specks of dust adrift in an infinite void. In time, they came to call this place the Draft-world — a realm so terrifying that only beings who had reached or surpassed the fifth-turn could roam it freely.
After absorbing the knowledge of the Draft-world and the origins of the nine lightning tribulation, Bragon's voice resounded once more within the cauldron.
"Haha, very good — exactly as I expected. You are now my successor, the worthiest candidate to inherit this treasure of mine. You're likely wondering about the other floors and pyramids — haha, those were simply bonuses. I assumed no being would be capable of merging with the lightning. Even if you hadn't chosen the lightning cauldron and forged a true peak-turn technique, you would still have needed to claim the lightning seed displayed within the seventh pyramid. But that's unnecessary now — the lightning within that pyramid dissipated the instant you began your merging and integration."
Solanky was momentarily taken aback, his thoughts drifting to the forging of a true peak-turn weapon to pass the pyramid's trial. But before he could voice the question, Bragon's voice answered it before it formed. A portion of the clouds and the continent itself dislodged and coalesced, taking shape as the figure of Bragon.
This form bore no resemblance to the coiled humanoid silhouette from before — this was Bragon's true body. A towering humanoid figure with a long tail and four faces — those of a seahorse, a hawk, a man, and a dragon — crowned by eight stars orbiting what appeared to be a pearl of lightning above his head. His torso bore six powerful arms, beneath which extended two legs and a long, sweeping tail. Before this true form, Solanky felt utterly insignificant, dwarfed by Bragon's overwhelming presence. Though merely a remnant of spiritual energy sealed within the cauldron, it carried a spiritual sense above the fifth-turn — the primary remnant needed to gather the others, revive the clone waiting outside, and restore the world treasure.
Bragon spoke. "I sense a familiar defying law woven into your spiritual body — one that belonged to an old companion of mine. Though he stood only at the eighth-turn, his power and methods were unfathomable; even ninth-turn true peak-turns beings tread carefully around him. You must be connected to him. I speak of Supremo."
Solanky's spiritual body nodded affirmatively.
"No wonder," Bragon continued, "you managed to shatter the shackles of the saint transcendent entity and break directly into the second-turn of true peak-turns, without ever refining or sacrificing the saint halo of your physical body. I'll be waiting for you to claim the seventh pyramid. I believe Behan is officiating this competition — I'll send word to him to weave a similar space, overlapping this world so the competition's elites notice nothing. Once that's done, hand the world treasure to him for safekeeping until your main body breaks through to the true peak-turns level. Only then can I borrow your body to begin its restoration.
"Don't worry — you'll gain even deeper insight along your path toward becoming a guardian-level ancestor figure, fifth-turn or above. Use this lightning to forge yourself a new body; the strength you can unleash will rise from 730 billion to 750 billion times the power of an ISG — the absolute ceiling for any calamitous lifeform.
"That woman trapped within the fire cauldron is truly resilient, terrifyingly so — commanding 48% of those flames at her level is no small feat. But if you wish to claim the final pyramid and the world treasure, you'll have no choice but to kill this clone of hers. I can sense her true body, hidden within a world ring among the elites of her sect."