Dex approached with extreme caution, his mind processing every conceivable possibility. His movements through the dense magma had become fluid and supple to a frightening degree-reminiscent of the legendary aquatic creatures of myth, sea dragons and water spirits, using the magma's currents to his advantage rather than fighting them.
The closer he drew to the source of the pulse and the golden radiance, the clearer the vision became through the viscous volcanic liquid. The mysterious object resting at the sunken floor, surrounded by solidified igneous rock formed by the energy differential, was an enormous sarcophagus-or more precisely, a geometric cocoon: pentagonal, perfectly proportioned, with a precision of craftsmanship that categorically ruled out any work of nature.
The cocoon was constructed entirely from a transparent material that gleamed with an internal luminosity resembling ancient amber. But the instant his eyes-saturated with the Reader's knowledge-registered the composition and optical properties of that material, he understood immediately that it was neither fossilised tree resin nor ordinary amber.
This was Stellar Amber.
Dex's pulse accelerated as he recovered the minute, marginalised details from the very late chapters of the original novel. Stellar Amber was not merely a material-it was a legend within the legend. Ancient manuscripts from the primordial ages described it as the most powerful insulating substance in the physical and magical cosmos: a material unaffected by heat, impervious to pressure, and indestructible by any known offensive incantation. But the most terrifying and miraculous property of Stellar Amber was its capacity to imprison spacetime itself. Anything sealed within it experienced the literal cessation of time. Biological processes, material decay, the flow of Mana-all froze in the precise instant the sarcophagus was closed.
"A Stellar Amber sarcophagus... here? At the floor of a forgotten volcano beneath the Crystal Sanctuary?" Dex thought in astonishment, trying to arrange the pieces of the puzzle.
He recalled that the novel had mentioned what were called temporal prisons-punishments or last-resort sanctuaries employed in the ancient ages to isolate entities that could not be killed, or to preserve individuals of cosmic significance until the moment of their appointed awakening. The presence of this sarcophagus here meant that whoever had placed it in this inferno had wielded a power approaching the divine.
Dex swam closer, until he was an arm's length from the sarcophagus. He extended his left hand, ringed by its Phoenix aura, and placed his palm slowly against the smooth transparent surface of the cocoon. The moment he made contact, a sudden sensory shock passed through him. The surface was not hot-it had not absorbed even a fraction of the surrounding magma's heat. Its touch was profoundly cold. An absolute cold-but not a physical cold that froze flesh. It was a spiritual cold, as though touching the vacuum of deep space itself, or touching the very concept of nothingness.
Dex wiped a thin layer of volcanic ash from the amber's surface and brought his face close to examine the contents of this temporal prison. When his blue gaze penetrated the transparent amber shell and looked inside, his new heart stopped beating for a full, suspended moment.
There were no legendary treasures of gold or diamond. No shattered magical weapons or ancient swords awaiting a champion. No lost manuscripts bearing forbidden incantations.
Inside the warm, luminous heart of the Stellar Amber, a girl was floating.
She floated in a peaceful foetal posture, as though she were the universe's own daughter, placed in her cradle to rest. She appeared to have drifted into this deep sleep a single second ago, oblivious to the thousands-or perhaps millions-of years that had passed outside. Her body approached the threshold of divine perfection: a beauty so severe and pure it ached the heart. Her skin was white as milk, tinted with a faint silver sheen, unmarked by blemish or a single fold.
But what stole the breath from Dex's lungs-what stirred genuine terror in the Reader's mind within him-was her hair. It was of an impossible length, coiling around her body like a protective shroud. Its colour was a blazing silver: pure and lustrous, as though woven from threads of concentrated moonlight. This silver hair floated around her with fluid grace inside the amber substance, forming a sacred halo that illuminated the dark floor. Her facial features were perfectly serene, free of any expression of pain, sorrow, or fear. Submerged in a temporal slumber beyond fathoming.
And yet, despite this apparent stillness and fragility, she radiated-even through the layers of insulating amber-an overwhelming aura of natural authority. An authority requiring no violence to impose itself: primal and deep, compelling the cells of any weaker living creature to tremble and bow without conscious choice.
The pulse Dex had heard from above was not the beat of her biological heart. It was the pulse of her Mana itself-Mana of such magnitude that it penetrated the temporal prison to make the entire volcano resonate with it.
Dex pulled back slightly, studying the sarcophagus, then the magma around him. The internal conflict returned for a single second-then he resolved it with one irrevocable decision:
"Whoever left a treasure like this at the floor of hell was either a fool, or incapable of carrying it. I am neither."
Dex seized the heavy edges of the amber sarcophagus with both hands. Drawing on the terrifying physical strength of his new body-equivalent to the peak of Rank D, saturated with Phoenix energy-he began to pull the enormous cocoon free from its rocky bed.
The resistance was colossal. The sarcophagus did not merely weigh tons-it appeared to possess its own gravity, a stubbornness that refused to yield from its resting place. But in that moment, Dex felt the Phoenix Core settled in his chest ignite with an unprecedented enthusiasm-pulsing powerfully and pumping several times the normal Mana into his muscles. This was not merely a magical reaction to augment strength. It appeared as though the Phoenix Core, embodying the supreme power of fire, was recognising the energy of this silver entity and welcoming the collision of their two elements.
Dex released a silent roar through the magma, activating the full extent of his accumulated power. The sarcophagus shifted and tore free from the floor, producing a cyclone of volcanic sediment. Hoisting the massive cocoon onto his unbreakable shoulder, Dex began to swim toward the surface. He drove through layer after layer of dense magma with a savage, ascending force, like a pirate of legend stealing a sacred and forbidden secret from the very heart of the gods deep in the earth-returning it by force to the light of day and to the stage of events that awaited him in the world above.