Two days had passed since the elemental storm that nearly tore him apart, and Jalen still lay motionless in a corner of the platform, his aura faint but stable, his body whole but not yet awakened. The air around him pulsed with residual energy, a quiet testament to the chaos he had endured.
And while Jalen was unconscious, Zakai and Light had spent the last two days learning about the history of the sealed state and this flame domain within the hidden sub-realm.
So moments after Jalen had subdued the final treasure, the platform stirred.
A low hum vibrated through the stone. The runes flared to life, glowing with synchronized brilliance. From the center of the platform, a beam of light erupted, casting a holographic image into the air. It was the figure of a youth—no older than fifteen—with flaming red hair that danced like fire and eyes that glowed with violet lightning. His presence was overwhelming, ancient, and terrifying. Zakai, despite his peak Sky Limit cultivation, felt a chill crawl down his spine. This was no ordinary projection. This was a monster wearing the shell of a child.
The hologram introduced itself as Tamas.
And with that name came revelation.
Tamas explained that the sealed state, Arian—this forgotten region of the Rale continent—was not merely a lost land. It was a prison.
Ten thousand years ago, five cultivators descended from the Upper Realm into the lower world. Each one wielded power so potent it threatened to destabilize the lower realm. These were not ordinary masters. They had cultivated their powers to levels beyond the cultivators of the lower realm's comprehension. Their mere presence warped the laws of nature. Their clashes tore the fabric of space. Mountains crumbled. Oceans boiled. The sky fractured.
Their goal was conquest: dominion over the lower realm.
But the laws of the Upper Realm forbade such interference. And so, Tamas and four of his comrades were dispatched to stop them. They were enforcers of the Shamira Clan—guardians of balance—tasked with executing the five elemental tyrants before they could destroy the world below.
What followed was a war unlike any other.
The ten cultivators clashed in a battle that spanned continents. Billions died. Cities vanished. The very essence of the lower realm trembled. And though Tamas and his allies were powerful, they were not invincible. The battle left them broken—cores cracked, dantians ruptured, and meridians shredded.
With no other choice, they enacted a desperate plan.
To prevent total annihilation, Tamas and his comrades cast a forbidden sealing formation of unprecedented scale. They forcefully extracted the elemental powers of the five invaders using forbidden spells—spells that tore at the soul and shattered cultivation foundations. The process was brutal. The five were weakened, their qi fragmented. Only then could they be sealed, followed by their power.
As a result, Arian was isolated from the rest of the world. It's a collateral prison designed to contain the cultivators, who to this day are still alive, and prevent further destruction.
As for the Flame Domain, the sub-realm where the Mountain of Fortitude was located, it was created and forged in spell and formation for another reason.
The five cultivators of the Shamira Clan sacrificed everything.
Their bodies, once radiant with peak cultivation, had begun to decay—spiritual erosion accelerated by the war and the sealing process. Their qi was unraveling. Their cores were collapsing. But cultivators at their level could always begin again. So they made a choice: to separate the elemental spirit lifeforms from themselves.
These entities—akin to spirit herbs but far more potent—were born from concentrated qi harvested from sacred zones in the Upper Realm. Each carried the essence of an element, intensified beyond mortal limits. They were not sentient, but they were alive in the way fire lives, in the way wind moves, and in the way lightning strikes.
Four cultivators extracted ice, light, shadow, and wind. Tamas, their leader, held flame—and his greatest power, lightning.
To prevent these volatile forces from destroying Arian and its people, or for them to get into others' hands, they sealed the five elemental treasures within the Flame Domain, a sub-realm forged by Tamas himself. But lightning was different. It was too wild, too primal. So Tamas used the seals of the other five elements as a second layer—to bind the lightning beneath the platform, hidden from all eyes.
Once the six treasures were sealed, Tamas and his comrades locked the Flame Domain within a deeper subrealm to ensure they were undetected to all, using the last of their life force. Their bodies reverted to infant form and were scattered across the cycle of rebirth.
They would live again—but their memories would be sealed, their cultivation erased. Only through effort, resonance, and fate could those memories return—and with them, the power to reclaim what was lost.
The trials Jalen and Zakai endured were not accidents. They were traps—designed to keep unworthy cultivators from reaching the platform. Even now, no one who enters the Flame Domain can approach the pedestals. The formations were built without regard for eternal-grade spirit tools. Tamas and his comrades had not anticipated such artifacts would even exist in a place like this, and even so, they didn't think these types of treasures would pick the weaklings of this realm as their wielder, since these treasures sought power over everything.
This story fascinated Zakai. It also answered all the questions he hadn't voiced aloud. It explained the violent formation and the impossibility of approach. The five treasures. It even explained the lightning treasure's emergence.
But it didn't answer the most important question: how to leave the sealed state.
Breaking the seal was not an option. Doing so clearly would release those who had been locked away—enemy cultivators, ancient threats, and perhaps even corrupted remnants of the war.
Light had told him Jalen was the key. But the boy was unconscious. And Zakai doubted such a feat was even possible now the truth had been revealed about how the state came to be the way it is today.
Still, Light wouldn't lie about something like this.
So Zakai sat beside Jalen, cultivating in silence, waiting for the phenomenon to awaken.