Jalen swiftly appeared before the ice Jael was sealed in, gaze steady, heart unyielding. His hand rose, flame gathering, ready to break the prison.
Then the attack came.
It was not frost, not arrows, not collapsing walls. It was a direct assault—a surge of spirit sense that stabbed into Jalen's spirit sea like a spear of ice. His mind rang, his vision blurred, and for a heartbeat the chamber vanished.
The source of the attack was the crystal itself. The pulsing shard beside Jael flared, its resonance sharp, its hunger undeniable. It was not a passive relic. It was alive.
Jalen's spirit sea roared in answer. He pushed back, threads of flame and light weaving into his consciousness, forcing the intruder out. The struggle was brutal—the shard's will was ancient, heavy, and cunning. It pressed against his thoughts, tried to unravel his memories, and tried to fracture his mind.
But Jalen did not yield. His spirit sense surged, sovereign and absolute, and he drove the shard's attack back into itself.
The crystal cried out, its voice echoing directly in his mind.
"If you kill me, the boy will die. You are here for him, aren't you? Seeing he looks exactly like you, he must be your brother… or a son… or perhaps your pet."
The words were mocking but desperate.
Jalen's hand froze. He did not strike. Not yet.
The shard's voice pressed on. "So I am right. The boy was on the verge of death, so I rescued him. You should be thankful to me."
Jalen's gaze hardened. His voice was steady and cold. "You expect me to believe you rescued him out of the goodness of your heart?"
"Of course. That is why he is still alive."
Jalen's flame flickered, his spirit sense pressing harder. "You recognize we are related, yet you attack me. Clearly you should know I would not harm the boy. The fact that you try to prevent me from reaching him means you have bad intentions. Let's see what those are."
His spirit sense surged again, bombarding the shard's spirit sea. The crystal howled in pain, its resonance cracking.
Jalen pressed deeper, breaching the shard's inner membrane. What he found was not a relic, not a treasure, but a core—the essence of a spirit beast.
Memories flooded him. The beast was not born here. It was from the upper realm, a transcendent predator that had once devoured worlds. But it had been defeated, sealed, and cast into this frozen wasteland. The Land of No Return was not merely a graveyard of ice. It was a prison that kept several transcendent realm experts and beasts at bay.
He also learned that the beast had extracted its own core, embedding its consciousness into the maze. Jael's imprisonment was its escape route. For a century and a half it had been slowly rewriting Jael's consciousness with its own, coveting his powerful vessel and true dragon king bloodline.
And the reason it took so long was because Jael was weaker, yet his bloodline was more powerful than the beast's. If forced, the process might have killed Jael or crushed the beast's will beneath Jael's bloodline. So it adjusted slowly. But Jael wasn't just playing sleeping beauty—he was fighting back.
Knowing this further angered Jalen and increased his desire to crush the beast even more.
The beast fought back, its will surging, its core blazing with frost and hunger. The chamber shook, glyphs flaring, ice rising to defend the shard.
But Jalen's second spirit core stirred. Energy surged outward, devouring frost, suppressing glyphs, and unraveling the shard's defenses.
The shard's voice panicked. "You… you are an eternal great spirit. No… please, don't. I beg you. Spare me. I can serve you. I can strengthen you. I can—"
Its words dissolved into screams as Jalen's second core pressed harder—and in that instant, the Ape Sovereign's will was annihilated, leaving behind only a crystal of violent qi that fused seamlessly into Jalen's spirit core. Yet in its dying breath, the beast struck with final cruelty. A devastating surge lashed into Jael's spirit sea, threatening to erase him entirely. Jalen's spirit sense blazed, sovereign and unyielding, crushing the attack in a single stroke. The predator's last gambit shattered like dust beneath his will.
Still, Jael's peril had not passed.
Without pause and with great urgency, Jalen turned to the ice block. Flame surged from his palm, melting frost without harming flesh. The prison cracked, shattered, and fell away. Jael collapsed into his arms, pale and battered, his breath shallow, his meridians strained, his life‑thread flickering toward silence.
Jalen pressed his hand to Jael's chest. Flare of Recursion unfolded—not brute force regeneration, but graceful realignment of spirit threads. Qi fragmentation rewound and meridians stitched back into harmony. Breath returned, warmth spread, and Jael's flickering essence steadied. He remained unconscious but alive—saved from the beast's final cruelty.
Jalen then wrapped him in a robe from his pocket world, shielding him from the cold. He held him close, gaze steady, heart unyielding. Memories surged—the day Jael hatched, how he clung to him as if they were one, how he admired him as though Jalen was his entire world. Even now, grown into a man, that devotion had never faded. The laughter, the trials, and the moments they had endured together all returned in a rush. To see him now, motionless and pale, carved sorrow deep into Jalen's chest. If only he had been stronger back then.
He tightened his embrace, patting Jael's head with steady warmth. His voice was low, resolute, and unyielding. "My boy, you're safe now. Daddy's got you."