A week had passed.
Jalen finally managed to restore himself using Light Bell. Scalded skin regenerated into smooth flesh. The burn marks faded, and even his hair grew back, soft and dark as ever. His qi pathways, once fractured and knotted, pulsed with clarity again. The Origin Shard's earlier havoc had been cleansed—at least physically.
But Jael hadn't stirred.
That silence gnawed at him.
He'd tried everything: Flare of Recursion, meridian stimulation, and even minor healing arrays. Nothing worked. The boy remained in the same still state—breathing, yes, but distant.
"You need to wake up," Jalen muttered once, his voice more fragile than he'd meant.
____
Then—two days later—space twisted and dragged Jalen and baby Jael into an unfamiliar realm, a mountainous area filled with trees, rare spirit herbs, and thick with spirit beasts. Vicious ones. Old ones. They snarled and stalked from the shadows—but none dared come near him. Even wounded, even burdened, Jalen's presence repelled them like a lion surrounded by pups.
There he found a quiet alcove in the cliffs and settled there. Jael was kept tucked close, protected and hidden. For now, peace.
Each morning, shirtless beneath molten skies, he trained alone—rehearsing the twelve techniques of the Spirit Flame Technique he created and taught to Rana back in Ember Fall City. And every time the motions clicked, memories returned with them.
He missed her again.
And after two months, he not only mastered all his flaming techniques, but the Origin Shard had completely refined the twenty percent of the Flaming Dragon Core it absorbed—boosting Jalen's realm to Peak Spirit Fusion, reaching the barrier of breaking through to the Immortal Realm.
The next morning, mid-training, Jalen felt it—faint breathing behind him.
He spun and blurred across space.
A shimmer of qi pulsed from Jael's tiny form—gentle but unmistakable. His dormant energy stirred, like embers reigniting after the longest silence.
Jael was stirring.
Before the boy could sit up, Jalen swept him into an embrace, his arms trembling ever so slightly.
"Thank goodness you're okay," he whispered.
The shock in Jael's eyes was clear. Jalen had never held him like this. With emotion. But the boy beamed—and seconds later, started tugging Jalen's hair, poking his cheeks, and tracing the lines of his nose.
Jalen didn't mind.
Not today. He allowed him to do anything he wished until the child tired and fell asleep in his arms.
That evening, the world warped again.
Another dimension shift hurled them into a wide realm—another wild expanse filled with spirit beasts and violent terrain stretching over two miles. Jalen felt it immediately.
And he wasn't alone.
Many of those who had gathered at the blue flaming pond—people out to capture him and take his treasures—were already there.
Including Jaya, who is now an early Star Realm cultivator, and Walford.
What Jalen didn't know was that they had been captured by Jaya's siblings on the day he fled with Jael. Walford had been tortured even more than Jaya. But a month ago, they managed to escape.
You see, during the first realm shift after their separation from Jalen, Jaya's sibling group had been violently split apart after a sudden attack by a Spirit Fusion realm beast. The ambush was brutal—some of their royal guards didn't survive.
In the chaos, Jaya and Walford were stranded with one of her older brothers and three of his remaining guards. While trying to outrun the beasts, they stumbled into a sub-realm—one bound together by powerful formation arrays that launched relentless assaults for days. No exit, no rest. The realm tested them not just physically, but mentally.
Only after solving its mystery and unlocking its buried treasures were they ejected into the open again, forever changed.
Jaya was then separated from Walford during another realm shift. Tossed into a different dimension, they'd journeyed alone before finally reuniting here—with the rest of the scattered group.
The two spotted Jalen and Jael across the chaos, but there was no time for reunion. They were currently under attack by spirit beasts.
Not just them—but all cultivators. Even those who coveted Jalen's treasures and wanted to skin him alive.
There was no space for scores to be settled. No time for reckoning.
Only survival.
Some high-tier beasts sniffed out Jael's powerful bloodline and his powerful spirit beast cores and lunged toward him.
They never made it.
Jalen stood like a flame-sculpted sentinel.
One swing of Luminal Edge—and a Spirit Fusion realm beast was split in half. Qi dissipated in the wind, and its core shattered. Cultivators who witnessed the ease of the strike ground their teeth. Whispers turned to curses. His power had shifted again—and they hated it.
Jalen cut down a few more beasts—this time ones that were weaker—before feeling a shift in the air. Not another dimensional shift, but something powerful coming.
The sky cracked.
Five spatial tears formed across the northern edge of the realm. These weren't like the random ruptures that brought in spirit beasts—they were precise. Designed.
From each one, a cultivator stepped through.
Three bore cloaks of imperial weave, their movements synchronized with clinical perfection. Their qi was cold, condensed, and coiled around their bodies like blades beneath silk.
Jaya, her siblings, and those under them noticed these three.
They were the infamous squad of the Wang Chester Royal Family.
Three Peak Spirit Fusion Realm experts—each selected by the Emperor himself for missions requiring quiet destruction. Their names were rarely spoken aloud, only passed in whispers between those who understood what disappearance truly meant.
Beside them, five other cultivators emerged. Mercenaries hired by Floyd from across the Bellini State—flame-touched exiles and secret survivors of long-dead sects. Each Spirit Fusion level. Some powerful. All dangerous.
They weren't here for glory but to capture their target and collect their payments.
Their gazes locked onto Jalen—and especially Jael, whose aura was that of a rare beast. A dragon.
But no one moved.
Because the realm was erupting again.
Spirit beasts lunged from every direction. The ground split. Poison-type spirit beasts hissed from molten fissures. Even at Peak Spirit Fusion Realm, many cultivators had no time to posture.
They drew weapons not for dominance but for survival.