Flash Reversion activated—his body snapped back to its last anchored motion, Luminal Edge descending.
The cultivator didn't expect it. He had just secured what he came for—the dragon corpse—and intended to leave quietly. His hands had barely shifted when the slash came. He conjured a barrier of ice through reflex alone, which shattered instantly under the pressure of Luminal Edge.
The force launched him backward. He slammed against the jagged crystal wall, ribs fractured, breath leaking through his aura in broken streaks. The shock spread across the chamber, slicing silence into discord.
He staggered to his feet.
The cultivator hadn't come to fight. He had no reason to engage. The prize was already in his grasp. This domain was never meant to be conquered. He simply needed an exit. But Jalen stood at the perimeter, unmoving, blade raised. That exit was now sealed.
The cultivator knew there was only one path forward.
He conjured ice.
Not rudimentary. Not ancient. But efficient—spiraling spikes formed from condensed frost threads, guided by deep technique. They curled inward and launched toward Jalen's chest in rotating formation.
Jalen countered without hesitation.
Energy spiraled upward from his feet—light qi woven into reactive threads. His movements didn't ripple—they slipped, gliding through frost strikes like breath weaving through snowfall. Each collision folded backward into absence, leaving remnants of distortion.
Ten exchanges followed.
Each strike magnified intensity. The cavern moaned under pressure, crystals near the center breaking down into particulate fragments. Jalen's blade moved like a reflection—never full arcs, but precise fractures of motion.
The cultivator lunged with a layered sweep—three-pronged ice crescents bound to spirit talismans.
The attack could tear through reinforced earth and soul armor.
Jalen responded with silence.
A vertical cut.
Luminal Edge pierced through mid-form, carving through frost, talisman, and core. The cultivator dropped. No fanfare. No resistance. Just failure.
The light around Jalen dimmed as the fight ended. Then he moved—not to observe, but to extract.
He pressed his fingers into the cultivator's pocket domain entrance located within his left palm.
The seal ruptured immediately. Pressure folded and split. Thousands of treasures spilled like broken truths—spirit stones, rare metals, and frost-treated silks, etc. And beneath them, the dragon's corpse tumbled forward, still radiating the muted pulse of ancestral qi.
Jalen stared at it.
No emotion. Just stillness.
Then he turned and removed the cultivator's head. Clean. Final.
The head bounced once, rolled, and stopped. Jalen didn't glance at it.
Then it started.
The Origin Shard pulsed silver‑blue.
Not again.
It was taking control of his body.
His limbs locked mid-motion. He didn't cry out; breath was stolen before sound could form.
The dragon spirit core, floating free from the corpse, shifted toward him. It paused for half a heartbeat—then accelerated.
Impact.
The moment it collided, fusion began—not with the Origin Shard and his primary core, but with his second spirit core.
Ice Qi surged into the shadow core, not as an invader, but as a mirror. Cold met concealment. Pressure met silence.
To Jalen's surprise, the Origin Shard didn't protest when the second core stole the beast core from its grasp. It allowed it.
Maybe, this is a part of its grand scheme. But Jalen was in too much pain to think further.
He collapsed.
Muscles frayed beneath skin. Spirit lines blurred. Ice Qi thrashed within him, unwilling to coexist with the three Qi already present.
Veins iced over. Joints sealed.
His body froze so completely that blood stopped moving.
He remained motionless for two days, knees folded, back straight, locked in eternal chill. All life drained outward and then reversed—reshaped by a force deeper than understanding.
Eventually hid second spirit core not only suppressed the beast core spirit but also incorporated it with it self making it a dual elemental spirit core the same as his first spirit core.
Then the origin shard absorbed the dragon's soul thread to restructured him.
And when the light within dimmed...
Jalen was able to moved again.
His bones no longer felt like bone. Flesh had the tensile density of tempered iron. Ice Qi surged through his channels with effortless rhythm now. He hadn't gained power—he had been repurposed.
He turned his gaze toward the perimeter of the Ice Ridge, where silence had returned but the scars remained.
The corpse of the second dragon child lay collapsed near the wall—dead. Its flame had extinguished without ceremony. Its body, still whole, offered no final cry.
Jalen paused.
Then continued walking.
The Ice Qi inside him responded to something below—an aura, fragile but focused. He followed it downward, past frozen obelisks, through terrain warped by ancient elemental forces.
This depth was fatal.
Without the fusion of the beast core with his second spirit core thus creating ice qi, Jalen's body would have snapped from frost pressure within moments. Not even a Spirit Fusion cultivator who doesn't practice ice qi could cross these layers unaided.
But Jalen advanced.
The cold welcomed him now.
At the lowest cavern, nested in untouched frost, surrounded by ancient ore and still shadows...
A single dragon egg.
It pulsed.
He approached cautiously. Its structure was refined—soul threads embedded deep, energy reservoirs layered across scales. He considered absorbing its Qi. A boost. An evolution.
The egg cracked.
Steam curled upward like breath from frostbound silk.
A hatchling pushed free—its body pearlescent blue, tiny claws clicking against the stone. It blinked once. Then twice.
Then it saw him.
The dragon chirped softly. Took one tentative step. Then another. It moved closer—not with fear, but recognition.
It pressed its scaled head gently against Jalen's boot.
Then it shimmered.
No fanfare. No burst of light. Just quiet unfolding. The body restructured—scales condensing into skin, wings retracting into bone. A transformation not of illusion but blood-bound truth. A tether was forming, deeper than genetics—etched through essence.
In mere heartbeats, a child stood in the frostlight.
A boy. One year old at most.
And somehow, unmistakably... him.
He had the same cedar-toned skin, smooth but kissed by a frost aura—paler near the shoulders, where lingering Ice Qi traced faint markings.
His hair was coarse and raven-black, soft strands tumbling across his forehead and curling naturally near the nape. Not identical—but textured like riverstone, echoing the stillness Jalen wore even in motion.
His eyes, large and blue, mirrored Jalen's exactly—though rounder, gentler, without the silent gravity that came from bearing pain. They held only curiosity, wonder, and unquestioned loyalty. The kind of gaze that didn't seek explanation... only belonging.
No one else on the continent could've mistaken that resemblance. It was replication through resonance. A living echo sculpted by shard convergence.
The child didn't speak.
But he took three steps forward, barefoot on ancient stone.
And hugged Jalen.
Tiny arms wrapped around him with fierce conviction, face buried near his waist.
Jalen froze.
The warmth was foreign. The gesture is alien. Yet it settled into his cloak like it had always belonged there.
He didn't know whether to laugh or recoil.
But the child—the dragon reborn in human form—looked up and smiled.
Not just a mirror.
A consequence.
Then, slowly and without ceremony, Jalen lifted him.
And walked toward the edge of the frost basin—body stronger, future stranger, the world colder, but the silence not as lonely as before.