Elena was still reeling from the shock of it. The man spoke again. "You may be wondering why I sleep here, buried in the core of this planet. It is because I must ensure the first sliver of spiritual energy Solanky ever absorbs comes from me."
Elena asked, telepathically, "Why do you want him to absorb spiritual energy from you specifically?"
The man beneath the ice answered, "Because he created me from his own essence of spiritual energy, and I owe him this in return. He cannot take his first spiritual energy from any other source — if he does, the world as we know it would corrupt, and the pure spiritual energy of the higher dimensions would grow scarce and tainted. He is the only perfect-limit source god, the one being who can never run dry of spiritual energy, who can share it endlessly with other source gods."
Elena stood dumbfounded. Her long-held wish — to meet the most powerful source god in existence — had just been handed to her without warning. The man in the ice sent a seal drifting toward her, and it merged into her right hand. "This seal will let you feel the moment he nears his breakthrough," he said, "so you can bring him here at once." Elena nodded, shifted back into her humanoid form, and teleported away to the main hall of Makeke.
There, the grand elder had gathered the clan's upper echelons, and he revealed at last that he had been suppressing his true power all along. The room went still with shock. The third elder was the first to find his voice, asking what his real power level was now. The grand elder answered without hesitation — a god of gods, slightly stronger even than their founding ancestors. Elation swept through the hall. Since the founding ancestors' disappearance, the clan's standing had crumbled; clans with god emperors no longer showed them the respect they once had, and some bolder rivals had even tried to seize the treasures the ancestors left behind.
The grand elder announced he would ascend to the god realm within two months — but not before settling accounts with the clans that had tried to press their advantage. His gaze fell on the fifth elder. "You should thank the stars I stepped in that day. If I hadn't, Elena would have torn you apart, and not even the founding ancestors could have saved you." The fifth elder went rigid — he'd already heard, from Barusi, just how unfathomable Elena's power truly was, from the day they'd won the competition and stood before the city hall leader.
Elena reappeared, and just as she moved to take her seat on the throne, the seal on her hand flared to life. She vanished and reappeared in the skies above the capital, calling out to Solanky. He answered at once and rushed to her side. The instant he arrived, Elena wove a series of seals and summoned every mythical creature that traveled with her, commanding them to shed their restraints and guard the planet. They obeyed without hesitation, releasing bloodlines long kept in check — the weakest among them a high-level god, the strongest true dimensional god mythical beings. The Bayoka clan looked on in disbelief.
The grand elder's brow furrowed, and he shot into the sky at terrifying speed. A voice transmission from Elena reached him. "He's about to break through to the elementary god realm. I need to take him somewhere on this planet. I've sent the mythical beings to guard it, and I've sealed the space for ten light-years around Sabiru — anything that tries to cross that boundary, in or out, dies on the spot."
The grand elder nodded and sent a telepathic warning to every living being on Sabiru. Elena vanished with Solanky and reappeared in the frozen region where the ancient man lay sealed. Together they descended through the ice, arriving beneath the great frozen ball where he slept. She told Solanky to sit in the lotus position and focus his mind on everything around him.
The man's eyes opened. "Elena. You've proven yourself worthy, and brought him here in time — before he could even sense spiritual energy on his own. This is the best possible outcome." Solanky settled cross-legged in silence, and the man released the sliver of spiritual energy essence. Solanky drew it in with startling hunger, and his dormant bloodline stirred fully awake, beginning to generate spiritual energy of its own.
Elena stared at him, stunned. "No wonder he's this strong. Even I, a god of creation, depend on the source spiritual energy drawn from various realms and dimensions — but he can produce his own, without ever relying on an outside source." The ice man nodded. "My purpose here is fulfilled. I can leave this planet in peace. But before I go, I'll leave the two of you supreme source artifacts — though his is only half of what already lives within him."
The ice split open, and The Voice stepped free, standing fifty feet tall. He opened his palm, and a bracelet materialized, drifting toward Elena. "This bracelet was prepared by him," The Voice said. "It holds one billion source crystals he refined himself, meant for you — a gift given before he sealed away his memories and his boundless spiritual energy." Elena froze, startled, and asked how he could possibly know of her.
The Voice smiled. "He knows every being beneath him. Nearly all beings — even source beings — have, at some point, absorbed his spiritual energy, or the bloodline power of a creature he once created." He turned to Solanky and pressed into his hands the other half of the treasure — the half gifted long ago to the founding ancestors of the Bayoka clan, meant to pass down to the strangest child ever born into their line. The instant the two halves met, Solanky's power surged violently, and his grasp of the laws of nature sharpened to something close to perfection — a comprehension rivaling that of a high-level god. The Voice gave a faint nod of satisfaction and vanished from planet Sabiru.
Elena stared at Solanky in amazement. His power, once three hundred times a high-level mortal's strength, had leapt to eight hundred — and he hadn't even trained the defying source body technique to reach it. She worked out the pattern quickly: each time Solanky advanced a stage, his prior strength carried forward and stacked atop the new baseline — five hundred times the strength of the half god level, plus the three hundred times amplification his defying source body already granted him.
Solanky opened his eyes and found he could shift objects with his mind alone, untouched — and his senses had sharpened beyond anything he'd known before. He settled back down, closed his eyes, and began the second phase of the defying source body, pushing toward the elementary god level. His strength surged again, climbing to 3,300 times the strength of an elementary god — power comparable to a being half a step into the high god realm.
He opened his eyes, energy humming through his veins, and leapt into the air, calling on the bloodline of the silver-winged water bird. His speed rocketed to 8,000 meters per second. This time, every droplet of water and trace of vapor suspended in the air curled around his body, forming a living shield. Watching from below, Elena went pale with shock — what she was seeing was the water bird's true innate talent, unleashed in full.
Mid-flight, Solanky spread his hand, and the water around it twisted into blades of ice feather. He swung, and the blades tore free at incredible speed, punching through the thick ice far below. He dropped from the sky, and the water still clinging to his body froze solid and fell away.
Elena remained stunned — what Solanky had just done was unheard of. No being had ever perfectly replicated another's innate talent before. "Why are you staring at me like that?" Solanky asked. Elena flushed and quickly composed herself. "Let's race back to the Makeke jungle. It's only a thousand kilometers from here." Solanky laughed. "How could I possibly beat you? You're far faster than I am." Elena shook her head. "Consider it a test — push past your current limits. Activate the bloodline escape method of the Primordial Ancient Dragon Emperor. The first escape method: the Rushing Winds Escape Method."
The two of them rose into the air and hovered there, suspended. Elena conjured a bubble, set to burst in thirty seconds, and they took their positions. Solanky activated the technique as she'd instructed. The bubble popped, and they shot forward at a blistering pace — their speed hit 15,000 meters per second in an instant, white trails streaming behind them as they tore past the sound barrier, their forms blurred beneath a wrapping gust of wind.
Elena could hardly believe it — Solanky had matched the technique of a being carrying a third-grade bloodline. Eleven minutes later, they arrived at the outskirts of the Makeke jungle.