Chapter 1235 - Taming the Old World - Second Chance

Chapter 1235: Chapter 1235 - Taming the Old World - Second Chance

Regardless of his frustration, the apocalyptic countdown was no longer suffocating them with the same terrifying urgency as before.

His system would be completely purged very soon. And while the hyper-compressed walls of the star-prison were undeniably losing their lateral thickness due to the constant tectonic stretching, the core structural integrity remained incredibly dense. Ren meticulously ran the arithmetic and concluded he possessed a sufficient window to hunt down the sovereign dragon cores and the elemental rings they guarded before the semi-adamantium cage finally buckled.

His organic vessel still bore scattered patches of jagged crystal here and there, and his left forearm remained a solid, transparent block from the elbow down to his fingertips, possessing several layers left to transmute.

But repairing those superficial damages could wait.

Reclaiming flawless skin, regrowing muscle tissue, and fully restoring his left arm simply did not carry the same weight as completing the critical missions that would actively decide the fate of the world. Ren was perfectly capable of slaughtering a sovereign guardian with a crystallized arm. Yet he could not fight if Selthia successfully assimilated the final two dragons while he was busy prioritizing his cosmetic appearance.

Ruthless prioritization was the only path to win.

♢♢♢♢

Ren returned to the monolithic dome.

Operating in flawless tandem with his usual Vanguard assets, consisting of Julius, Taro, the elite earth manipulators, and all the girls deploying their primary and secondary affinities, they successfully regenerated the subterranean dome damage turning into the monster’s escape tunnel.

The monstrous corruption trapped inside continued to scratch. It was relentless, incredibly stubborn, agonizingly expanding the gouge millimeter by millimeter with the chilling patience of an entity that never required sleep. Every single day, it carved a fraction more. Every single day, the strike force aggressively packed the stone back in. It was a grueling, agonizingly slow tectonic tug-of-war between a nightmare digging toward the vault door and the elite Tamers desperately keeping it out.

For the moment, humanity was winning that war of attrition and slowly yet steadily expanding their margin of error.

It was a marginal victory, but a victory nonetheless.

And with the newly synthesized second crystal safely secured in his shadow space, his biological system operating at sixty-seven percent, and two ancient sanctuaries officially claimed, Ren finally possessed the tactical assets required to initiate the next phase of the campaign.

The sovereign dragons of Light and Darkness.

Starting, very soon, with the Darkness Dragon from Yano’s side.

♢♢♢♢

Ren was utterly drained now, that bone-deep exhaustion that gripped him every single day after reinforcing the dome.

Yet his brutal schedule was far from over. Selphira formally summoned him to the royal quarters.

The constant stream of messenger birds, and specifically the jarring mention of a petrified statue bearing a terrifying resemblance to Liora, had pushed the ancient Ashenway into a state of profound anxiety. She had waited with admirable, agonizing patience for Ren to conclude his critical architectural duties, refusing to pressure him or artificially accelerate the impending crisis.

But now she needed to see it... She desperately needed visual confirmation.

Ren dragged himself into the royal castle.

Selphira was already waiting in the grand hall, flanked closely by Julius and Arturo.

Ren immediately reached into his shadow space to extract the time frozen figure right there on the marble floor, but Julius swiftly halted him with a subtle, sharp gesture.

"Wait, not here," the prince murmured.

Julius guided the small group away from the grand corridors, leading them into a highly secluded, private chamber completely isolated from any prying ears that had absolutely no business witnessing a royal tragedy. Ren walked near the front alongside Liora, and he instantly registered a glaring psychological inconsistency. Liora was behaving incredibly strangely. It wasn’t about what she was doing; it was entirely about what she was failing to do.

They were walking into a room to confront the very likely petrified corpse of her supposedly deceased mother, yet Liora walked with a chilling, serene calm, completely devoid of the suffocating tension that such a devastating moment normally demanded.

Ren meticulously archived the observation. This was definitively not the right moment to initiate an interrogation.

♢♢♢♢

Once the heavy oak doors clicked shut, Ren finally reached into the void and withdrew the statue.

The crystalline figure materialized in the absolute center of the private room, completely ignored by the ravages of time, bearing the exact same tragic face Ren had instantly recognized in the sanctuary without truly comprehending its origin.

Selphira sharply inhaled, the sound tearing through the quiet room.

She took a step forward. Her movements were entirely unsteady, her ancient frame trembling uncontrollably, taking the fragile, hesitant steps of a woman marching toward a nightmare she desperately prayed was an illusion. She came to a dead halt directly in front of the frozen amber, and a broken, agonizing whisper slipped through her lips.

"Laura..."

Hot tears instantly flooded her eyes, freely spilling down her cheeks without her making a single attempt to wipe them away.

Ren required absolutely zero further confirmation. This was Liora’s mother.

The beloved daughter Selphira had mourned, the reckless explorer who had ventured into the wilderness one fateful day and simply vanished. The woman who, it turned out, had not suffered a conventional death as the entire kingdom believed, but had instead been permanently entombed in platinum-rank crystal deep within the abyss of an ancient ruin.

And hearing that shattered name, watching the seemingly invincible grandmother completely collapse under the weight of the grief, Ren saw Liora also finally break. The chilling serenity cracked, and the profound tragedy of the moment finally struck her.

Selphira fell heavily to her knees, wrapping her trembling arms around the cold, unmoving statue.

She had lived for over four hundred years, and yet here she was, desperately clinging to a block of crystal shaped exactly like her lost child, sobbing with a raw, unadulterated agony she had not permitted herself to express in centuries. The suffocating weight she had carried entirely alone, the crushing guilt of failing to raise her differently, of never delivering a single harsh reprimand, of constantly wondering if one strict word at the absolute perfect moment would have kept her daughter safely at home; all of that accumulated torment spilled out in a devastating flood.

Ren slowly turned his head to look at Liora.