The flight back to the Nautilus was a tense, silent affair. Ren, with his Phantom Wings beating a steady, powerful rhythm, carried the injured Kai with an effortless strength that belied his own near-exhaustion. Kai, for his part, remained stoic, his amber eyes taking in the dizzying, impossible reality of flight, his face a mask of pain and profound culture shock.
They descended towards the hidden lagoon where the submarine lay submerged. The sight of the massive, sleek, black vessel surfacing silently from the murky depths of his ancestral home was another jarring blow to Kai's worldview. It was a creature of metal and science, an intrusion of a world he had only ever known through the stories of his lost tribe. He was brought aboard, his suspicion and awe warring for dominance as the airlock sealed behind them, shutting out the familiar, humid air of the Maze.
The med-bay was a place of pristine, white surfaces and the low hum of advanced technology, another world away from the mud and blood of the jungle. Anya, in her element, was the epitome of professional efficiency. She did not speak of the battle or the beast. She simply worked. Using a sonic welder, she precisely set the shattered bones in Kai's leg, her movements deft and certain. She followed this by injecting him with a nutrient-rich, fast-acting Volkov bio-serum that immediately began to dull the pain and accelerate his healing. Kai watched this all with a quiet, wary intensity, a man of natural remedies and primal spirits being healed by a magic he could not comprehend.
Later, the three of them convened on the bridge. It had been transformed from a cockpit into a sterile war room. In the center of the main console, resting on a clean, metallic surface, was the Thunder-Tyrant's Core. It pulsed with a deep, internal light, a condensed sphere of golden lightning and earthy brown stone, humming with an almost unbearable level of contained power. The mood was not triumphant. It was somber, tense, the heavy silence of soldiers planning their most dangerous campaign yet.
"What you are about to attempt," Anya began, her voice crisp, breaking the silence, "is what my family's private archives refer to as the 'Sovereign Ingress.' It is the formal term for the Aetheric Tribulation required to break through from the Disciple realm to the Master realm."
She brought up a complex holographic display of the Aether Weave. "From a scientific perspective, a Disciple's Aetheric core is a 'guest' in the world's natural Aetheric field. It draws power, yes, but it exists in harmony with the established flow. A Master's core," she continued, the hologram shifting to show a new, brilliant star of energy that actively warped the Weave around it, "becomes a 'sovereign' entity. It is a miniature sun with its own spiritual gravity, and it no longer just borrows from the Weave; it actively imposes its own will upon it. The Tribulation is the violent, allergic reaction of the world's natural Aether to this new sovereign being born in its midst. It will attempt to reject you, to snuff you out, before your reign can begin."
Zephyrion materialized beside Ren, his spectral form adding an ancient, spiritual weight to Anya's scientific explanation. "The girl's science is sound. She speaks of the symptoms. I will speak of the disease. The Tribulation has three stages, and you must conquer them all."
His voice was a low, serious rumble. "First, The Rejection. The moment you begin to absorb the Core, the world's Aether will turn hostile. The very air will feel like poison to your spirit. The beasts of this jungle will be driven into a frenzy, and the elements themselves—the water, the earth, the wind—will conspire to break your concentration."
"Second," he continued, "The Harmony. You must use the raw, immense power of the Tyrant's Core to battle this rejection. But you cannot win by overpowering the world. You must find a perfect, harmonious balance between your own inner Aether and the world's outer Aether. You must use the song of the Tyrant's soul to prove that your own song belongs in the great chorus. You must prove you are a worthy king."
"And finally," Zephyrion concluded, his gaze intense, "The Ascension. If you succeed, your soul, your Aether, and your new, Third Soul Skill will be 'born' into this new state of harmony, and you will emerge as a true Aether Master. If you fail… your core will shatter. You will either die, or you will become an Aetheric cripple for the rest of your days."
Anya nodded grimly. "We must create a controlled environment. I will use the Nautilus's power core to create a specialized 'Resonance Chamber' in the ship's largest cargo bay. It will be a sterile environment where I can attempt to stabilize the ambient Aether and monitor your vital signs. It is the best I can do to shield you from the worst of The Rejection."
"There is one final step," Zephyrion added, his voice stopping Ren before he could agree. "A step that must come before all others. You hold the Core of a Quasi-Master, the heart of a king who ruled this domain for centuries. Its will, its pride, its primal fury, is still imprinted upon its essence. Before you can even think about absorbing its power, you must first conquer its spirit."
The scene shifted. Ren now sat in the center of the ship's vast, empty cargo bay, the walls now humming with a faint blue light from Anya's newly created Resonance Chamber. The massive, pulsating Core of the Thunder-Tyrant floated before him at eye level.
He took a deep, steadying breath and placed his hands upon it. He plunged his consciousness inside.
The sterile, metal walls of the Nautilus vanished. He was standing on a muddy bank in the heart of a primal, mental landscape. A violent thunderstorm raged overhead, and the ground beneath his feet was a churning, violent swamp. And rising from the murky water before him was the ghost of his fallen foe: the immense, unbroken, and furious spirit of the Thunder-Tyrant Crocodilian.
The first part of his trial was not against the world. It was a one-on-one duel of wills against the soul of the beast whose body he had already killed.
The spirit of the Tyrant opened its maw, and its roar was not a sound, but a wave of pure, psychic pressure that echoed directly in Ren's soul, a challenge of absolute, primal dominion.
Ren met its furious, spectral gaze, and his own spirit flared to life, a defiant, azure storm against the backdrop of the beast's muddy, violent afterlife. The internal battle, the subjugation of the Tyrant's will, had begun.