The winds had long since scattered the ash of Solara into the distant skies. The flames were gone, the screams silenced, yet the man who had birthed that devastation drifted forward—cloak fluttering behind him, eyes calm, unreadable.
Beside him floated Gaia, her presence ancient and serene, woven from the memory of mountains and the patience of rivers.
Below them stretched a new land—verdant hills, towering marble spires, and living architecture shaped by generations of magical artisans. Vines bloomed from buildings, mana-lit canals glowed with soft blue light, and elemental runes were etched into bridges like a script written in the very bones of the kingdom.
They began to descend.
The air here was clean, perfumed by cultivated gardens and the scent of ambient mana. It thrummed with peace, knowledge, and quiet power.
"The Kingdom of Ithmar," Solace murmured.
It was the homeland of Princess Elara, the one who had once offered him a communication token—perhaps out of curiosity, perhaps fate. Whatever her reasons, this place now felt like the perfect place to vanish in plain sight.
Solace walked with purpose through the capital's sprawling market district. His striking presence and unfamiliar face turned heads, but none dared approach. Behind him, Gaia glided like mist over a quiet pond—beautiful, calm, and impossibly powerful.
A stall stacked high with books and ancient scrolls caught Solace's eye.
He stopped.
"Everything on blacksmithing, runic engineering, and formation theory," he said with cool finality.
The merchant blinked. "All of it?"
Solace dropped a pouch of high-grade mana crystals onto the table. The man bowed so fast his forehead hit the counter.
From there, the spree began. He swept through auctions, private dealers, and high-end arcane shops, purchasing drakefire-forged metals, formation chalks blessed by storm sages, leyline crystal shards, core conduits, and tools only grandmasters of creation dared touch.
Gaia never asked why.
She followed silently, sometimes walking beside him, sometimes examining curious stones or drifting through alleys like wind wearing a human form.
Hours later, Solace stood before a quiet, ivy-covered manor on the city's edge. It had been long abandoned, but deep beneath it pulsed unclaimed leyline threads—strong and stable.
He bought the entire property in under ten minutes.
"Well," he said simply, "this is it for now."
He stepped through the gate, his boots quiet on the stone path. Gaia followed, humming faintly to herself, though the tone was more of resonance than music.
Inside, Solace wasted no time. He set the books in stacks, arranged tools by type, and cross-referenced blueprints while seated cross-legged on the floor.
"I'll begin studying immediately. You can do your thing," he said absently to Gaia. "I'll make this place more hospitable in the coming days."
Without another word, his Abyssal Eyes flared to life—gleaming with silent comprehension as the first scroll unfolded in his hands.
This was the beginning.
Minutes turned to hours.
Hours bled into days.
By the sixth day, he had already begun remodeling the manor.
He reforged the forge, embedding spatial runes that regulated heat and condensed pressure. The courtyard became a rune-testing arena. The cellar transformed into a cultivation chamber, wrapped in silence-sealing sigils.
Enchanted lights floated gently from the ceiling.
Defensive glyphs crackled softly across the walls.
Mana-binding chains spiraled like veins across the support beams.
This was no longer just a house.
It was a sanctum.
And still—he studied. He burned through scrolls and books, learning blacksmithing theory, formation structuring, mana-node synchronization, and the delicate art of infusing law resonance into forged objects.
With the Cradle of the Dreaming Core nestled within him, he absorbed knowledge at an unnatural pace. His bloodline remembered every diagram. His core adapted to each new theory.
In two weeks, he had the understanding of a master.
Execution? That would come next.
His cultivation, meanwhile, was not idle.
The Dreaming Core fed on ambient mana, slowly nourishing his growth. His Laws of Space, Time, Shadows, and Fire ticked forward, ever so slightly—now resting at 0.02%.
It was small.
But it was constant.
And while he trained, Gaia remained close—sometimes sprawled on the roof, other times floating in the grass, picking apart glowing flowers with an absent smile. She said little.
But she missed nothing.
Weeks passed.
And the world finally noticed.
The Fire Dragon King broke the silence first, publicly mourning his eldest son and declaring war against the one who had slain him. His voice carried across mountains, amplified by flame and fury.
Then came the whispers.
"Solara has fallen."
"Their royal sons are dead."
"The city was wiped out in a single night."
Some said it was divine punishment.
But beneath every rumor, a single name echoed.
"A man in black."
"Barefoot."
"A mask of shadows."
"Eyes like voidfire."
"Faceless."
He was spoken of in fear—by kings, dragons, elves, and demihuman warlords alike. No one knew where he came from. No one knew where he'd strike next.
But they all knew what followed him.
Silence. Flame. Erasure.
Far from the chaos, in a realm untouched by time, a different silence reigned.
An eternal garden stretched beneath a sky of starlit waterfalls and drifting mana-isles. This was the Secret Realm—a place beyond reach.
Within its heart stood a crystalline altar, glowing with time-runes older than history.
There, kneeling, were the King and Queen of Solara—bloodied, humbled, and shamed.
Before them stood Princess Seraphina.
She was no longer the soft-spoken royal consort. Her golden hair now shimmered like flame. Her eyes burned with quiet power. Her aura pressed on the air like a rising star.
She was Core Realm now.
But she had spent centuries training in this place—while only seven years passed outside.
Seated beside her, high upon a throne of timeflame crystal, was a figure whose presence warped the mana around him.
Eyes like molten suns.
Skin engraved with glowing runes.
The Ancestor.
An Ascendant Core Realm cultivator.
His gaze was heavy as mountains.
"You come to me with your kingdom in ashes. Your sons dead. Your legacy scattered."
He studied their faces.
"Who did this? The Dragons?"
Queen Alina inhaled slowly.
"No. It was one man. The same man we gave to the Fire Dragons… to save Seraphina."
The Ancestor's brow furrowed.
Seraphina's eyes sharpened.
"You mean… Solace?"
"Yes," the King confirmed. "He returned. He's reached the Core Realm. And he destroyed everything."
A moment of silence.
Then Seraphina turned toward the altar's projection—an illusion of Solara's smoldering ruin.
"Solace did all of this…"
She was quiet. Not in sorrow. Not even in regret.
Just… calculating.
Interesting, she thought.
He had always been clever. Unpredictable. There had been a part of her that liked him—for what he could be.
But now?
"He's an enemy," she said coldly.
The Ancestor leaned forward.
"And what do you intend to do?"
Seraphina's expression hardened.
"I'll handle him myself. "
She turned, golden hair sweeping behind her.