After the harvester's clone was annihilated, her true body—hidden within a world ring among her sect members—burst free, shattering the ring to dust in an instant. The elites of the surrounding sects recoiled as a bone-chilling aura rolled outward from the Skyracer Sect, the sect the harvester called home. Her true body was exceptionally beautiful, eloquent enough to make even the goddesses of earth's pantheons stare in awe—but that beauty was now buried beneath a suffocating pressure so absolute that even her own sect members lowered their eyes without meaning to. Elites from rival sects frowned as one, for the harvester's true body was infamous throughout the beyond realm as the most ruthless and unforgiving talent of the younger generation, second only to the ancestors themselves.
Her true body was the mirror image of her clone. The elites froze again as the truth settled over them: what they had witnessed before had only ever been the clone. And if the true body now stood revealed, it could only mean the clone had met some unforeseen danger—or perished outright—somewhere within the pyramid. None of them could trace the truth back to black god Solanky; all they could do was speculate. Wings folded behind her, the harvester closed her striking eyes and drew her aura back into herself as she took her place before her sect. Elisa watched, smiling faintly. "He must have really provoked her reverse scale, to make her show her true body," she murmured to herself. "Hmm. I really should cultivate a clone of my own."
Deep within the pyramid, black god Solanky stood alone on the second floor, surrounded by countless treasures. He raised a hand, and the fiery cauldron holding the slowly dissipating seed of the calamitous flame drifted toward him. He caught it and stilled its decay without a trace of hesitation—he already knew how insignificant this calamitous flame was beside his own source-defying flame. The instant it entered his body, the calamitous flame was drawn into a separate space, the one where the seeds of his source-defying flames resided, and every trace of it was consumed whole.
Inside black god Solanky, the source-defying flame seed began to change—no longer a modest sprout only a few meters tall, but a towering tree, oak like in shape yet rising 5000ft into being. Within the body of a half-step peak-turn cultivator, fragments of blood and internal organs could be reshaped into world space spanning up to 1.5 lightyears, not counting their internal worlds or consciousness spaces. But for a true peak-turn being, every cell, every fragment of the body, had already become world space—vast enough to sustain life for anyone beneath the true peak-turns level.
Solanky deliberately guided the cell containing the newly sprouted source-defying flame tree into his internal world space, where the spiritual essence of every being below the true peak-turns threshold resided. His spiritual essence, reformed by the nine tribulation lightning, gathered into clouds and enveloped the cell. Guided by his will, the cell was drawn to where the tree would take root—then it burst open, and the source-defying flame tree planted itself at the very center of his internal world. It was nothing like his true body, where the flames were fused into every thread of his spirituality, its internal world wrapped whole within a blazing sphere of source-defying fire.
Having absorbed the calamitous flame, black god Solanky came to understand the technique the harvester's clone had wielded against him—and the realization sent a chill through him. He turned toward the space leading to the third floor, but before he had taken ten steps, Bragon's avatar condensed into being ahead of him, smiling. Solanky moved to bow, but Bragon halted him partway through the gesture.
Bragon laughed, rich and full. "Well done… well done. To kill a falsely elevated peak-turn being while still beneath that level yourself—that's insane. Remarkable. That technique you used at the end, that was the devouring heart technique, wasn't it?"
Solanky nodded.
"Hahaha, good… good. It's rare to witness a candidate worthy of Supremo's tutelage. No wonder you managed to forge a clone with talent and aptitude equal to your main body—especially when you're main body is already a saint emperor transcendent entity with a second-turn peak-turn spiritual body. That can only be called legendary, across the whole of your beyond realm."
At the words "your beyond realm," Solanky opened his mouth to ask what Bragon meant, but Bragon spoke first. "You aren't strong enough to know this yet. Even ancestor-level beings beneath the third turn aren't given access to that kind of information."
"Congratulations—this pyramid is yours now, along with every treasure and artifact within it. But the true prize of this pyramid is my techniques of refining and crafting. Once you leave, every other pyramid will vanish without a trace and reappear inside this one—every pyramid except the third, which I've set aside to train the elites of the beyond realm. Once you reach the ancestor level, third turn, this bead will carry you to the core region of this world treasure. But for now, stepping there would mean annihilation—even for second-turn true peak-turn beings."
A golden, glossy bead appeared before black god Solanky and sank between his brows. The instant it vanished into him, it reappeared before the true source-defying Solanky in the forsaken realm, settling into his consciousness space. Bragon smiled, satisfied, and advised Solanky to leave the second pyramid behind within the world treasure, taking only the handful of treasures he truly needed—claiming more would draw unwanted attention from the ancestor-level beings. Solanky agreed, leaving behind his refined fourth-grade peak-turn hammer. He knew there was no use for it yet.
As he turned to leave, Bragon's avatar stopped him once more—there was something meant for Govot that needed to be passed along. Since Bragon could not deliver it himself, an orb of light drifted toward Solanky, hovered before him, and then reshaped itself into a golden bracelet that clasped itself around his left wrist.
"This bracelet holds information only the guarding ancestors can comprehend," Bragon said. "When you leave here, the three best-performing elites will each earn a chance to meet the guarding ancestors. You've already claimed one spot. The second will go to your female teammate—she has the ability, and her lifeform is strange, caught somewhere between calamitous and source-defying, terrifying even though her power hasn't yet reached its limit. She would make the perfect direct disciple for Jenny. When you meet the guarding ancestors, tell them you carry something Bragon wishes to give them. They will seal off the space and hear you out. Now go—hone your skills in the third pyramid, and consume the malevolent spirits there to deepen the density and purity of your spiritual power.
"With the devouring heart technique already in your grasp, this will serve you far better than it would most elites. I'll be waiting for your return, so you can help me recover what I've lost. Before I go—do not reveal the secrets of the nine tribulation lightning to anyone but your sect leader, who I believe was once introduced to me as the forsaken god; and the three guarding ancestors present."
Solanky nodded, vowing never to speak of the lightning. Bragon's avatar nodded back, satisfied. "By the time you leave this pyramid, my comatose body will have already sunk into the world's core. Its best you not activate the formation linked to the world again until you're strong enough. And you must eliminate the threat from the Skyracer elites completely—she is the only one who knows the secrets of the cauldrons."
With those words, Bragon's avatar dispersed. Black god Solanky found himself anticipating the moment he would face the harvester's true body, eager to measure how far he had grown—and to test the techniques he had learned, along with the new mini world treasure now in his possession.
Solanky stepped out of the second pyramid and made his way toward Elisa and Goldie, sending a voice transmission urging them to rush toward the third and final pyramid together. As they hurried on, Solanky felt a bone-chilling gaze settle on him—the beautiful female elite standing before the Skyracer elites. He knew instantly this was the true body of the harvester. But the safe zone forbade fights between elites, so black god Solanky only smiled and quickened his pace past them, heading straight for the pyramid.
The other elites, seeing this, hurried after him too, each hoping to seize the chance to hone their skills—Bragon's first condensed avatar had told them all that this was the real test meant to elevate their abilities. Bragon had warned every one of them to be wary of the bound first-turn disembodied spirits lurking in the higher spaces of the pyramid.
The moment Solanky and his team stepped inside, they were struck with astonishment—several suspended continents floated before them, each wrapped in its own protective barrier forming a dome overhead. The instant they took a step forward, they were each teleported separately to a suspended continent, scattered to undergo their trials alone.