"The calamity claid the lives of most of our knights. All six Fourth-Degree Ascension Knights perished. As for the Third-Degree Knights, only twenty-five managed to survive."
As he listened to the report, Souta rubbed his chin in thought. In the entire kingdom, there were only twenty-five experts at the Sixth Shackle Realm left. Every Seventh Shackle Realm expert had fallen during the battle, leaving only the King, the sole Eight Shackle Realm, as a survivor.
It was still a good start.
Although the kingdom had lost all of its Seventh Shackle Realm warriors, the King’s survival alone was enough to stabilize the situation for now.
As Souta looked at Angus, Luella, and Tasman, a troubling thought crossed his mind. What would have happened if Saya had not retreated?
They would likely be dead. Tasman would have been forced to activate the final contingency left behind by the ancient people.
But would that last resort even have worked?
Too much ti had passed. Whatever power it once held had surely degraded. Even their first line of defense had weakened over the years and that was precisely why Tasman had been so severely injured before. He had been unable to stem the tide of dark apparitions pouring through the small crack in the Door.
If the final contingency failed as well, the calamity would spread beyond the Land of Fire Light and into the surrounding regions. This land was far too isolated; by the ti the major factions noticed sothing was wrong, the calamity would have already grown into a massive threat, one that could not be easily contained.
In that sense, Saya had bought ti not just for him, but for the entire world.
’The bigger picture...’ Souta muttered inwardly.
In truth, the information he had obtained from Saya’s mories was valuable. He had learned countless details about the calamity, knowledge he would never have encountered under normal circumstances. Saya herself had been unable to tell him any of it, bound by a curse that prevented her from divulging such secrets.
Yet through her mories, and with the involvent of the God-rank being from the Vajra Clan, that forbidden knowledge had finally beco accessible to him.
Souta closed his eyes and carefully revisited what he had experienced within Saya’s mories, searching for any details he might have overlooked. At that ti, most of his attention had been fixed on Saya herself.
The demons had been the first to encounter the calamity. By then, the Tainted Ones or rather, higher entities among the enemy had already passed through the Door. That was why the demons had been unable to stop the spread of the disaster.
There was also the matter of the Tainted Ones’ weakness.
The dark apparitions ca in many forms, their appearances varying wildly from one another. Yet Souta had noticed a crucial pattern: whatever elent an apparition embodied, it was vulnerable to that sa elent. Dark-type enemies were weakened by darkness; fire-type enemies were vulnerable to fire. Their greatest strength was also their greatest flaw.
This realization was invaluable.
There was nothing more terrifying than an unknown enemy. But now that he possessed concrete information, he could prepare accordingly.
Souta continued to retrace the mories.
After so ti, he opened his eyes.
He had realized sothing.
Ever since reaching the fifth stage, his mind had sharpened dramatically. His mories were clearer, more vivid, allowing him to recall even the smallest details from the past.
The land.
The structures.
The mountains.
He had seen them before.
’So that’s how it is...’ Souta muttered inwardly.
He knew the location of the fallen city of the Vajra Race. Though ti had altered the landscape, there was no mistaking it, he was certain of where it lay.
He had seen it before, back in the ga. One of the bases belonging to a top-three guild had been built there. He had never expected that such a powerful guild would unknowingly establish their stronghold atop the ruins of the Vajra Race.
Now, he knew exactly what he needed to do.
Saya’s hidden mories had beco an imnse boon.
’Saya... she was influenced by the miasma of the calamity. It manifested in different ways,’ Souta thought.
He shifted his gaze and realized that the three of them were watching him.
They had been waiting patiently, aware that he was deep in thought.
"How should we expand?" Tasman, the King of the Everlasting Kingdom, finally asked.
Tasman was the only one who could speak directly with Souta. Angus and Luella did not know any language Souta understood. The King, however, had learned a fragnted version of one, barely enough to communicate, after studying an old textbook uncovered by the previous King.
As for Angus and Luella, they were present mainly to observe. From ti to ti, they would offer their own insights, which Tasman would then translate for Souta.
"The Land of Fire Light is vast," Souta said calmly. "We should make full use of its resources first. There’s more than enough space here, so this will be our foundation."
He paused briefly before continuing.
"Later, I’ll allow you to enter the Dream Realm so you can personally experience the power within it. If you’re lucky, you may even awaken dream power."
If the resources of this land proved insufficient, then they would obtain more from the Dream Realm itself.
"Dream Realm?!"
Tasman, Angus, and Luella all widened their eyes in shock.
They knew of the legendary Dream Realm, yet none of them had ever heard of soone who could freely enter it. At most, people could only touch the dreamscape while asleep—a shallow, outer layer of the Dream Realm itself.
As an Eight Shackle Realm expert, Tasman’s perception far surpassed that of Angus and Luella. When he slept, he could feel his consciousness drifting into the dreamscape. But no matter how hard he tried, he had never been able to break free of it and enter the true Dream Realm.
And now, Souta was saying there was even a chance to obtain dream power.
That alone was enough to shake them to their core. Countless experts had yearned for dream power, yet almost none had succeeded.
"Yes. The Dream Realm," Souta confird. "I have my thods but whether it works depends on your luck."
There were only a limited number of Sovereign Seats within the Land of Vanko. Anyone who wished to claim one would have to fight for it. Moreover, Souta could not use the other lands of the Nightmare Realm to link with the Nightmare Mask.
Still, his douion had already reached Stage III.
That alone changed everything.
He was now capable of doing many things that had once been impossible. Expanding his influence into the Dream Realm, sothing he had planned long ago, was finally within reach. Back then, he lacked the power to act.
Now, it was different.
He had the strength. And in the future, he would only grow stronger.
Before moving into the Dream Realm, however, the kingdom would first secure the surrounding waters of the Land of Fire Light. Monsters, humans, demis—it did not matter. Souta had no intention of discriminating.
He intended to build a force capable of standing against the calamity itself.
The eting continued for another hour, its discussion centered almost entirely on the Everlasting Kingdom and the urgency of expanding it as quickly as possible.
Eventually, the eting ca to an end.
...
Souta floated high above the land, gazing down at the newly constructed Nature Zone City. It’s the new royal capital of the Everlasting Kingdom.
"I need specialists," he muttered to himself. "Blacksmiths, Formation Masters, Potioners, Rune Masters... all of them are essential."
Shaking his head, he retrieved the shard of the Origin Seed. His thoughts drifted back to the mont he had obtained one before, after completing the quest to eliminate Paente Botano in the Selnes Country.
He had never seen anything like it before nor had he even heard of such an item. Even the system had provided no explanation, offering not a single detail. That mystery alone made the seed all the more intriguing.
Paente Botano had used sothing left behind by the Isolated Formation God, transforming himself into a strange tree-like entity. There was clearly a connection between that power and the Origin Seed but for now, Souta had no way to confirm it.
So what exactly was the seed ant to be used for?
In the past, he had achieved douion by combining dream power with elental power, aided by the energy of a mythical fruit.
"I’ll try channeling my energy into it and connect it to my inner consciousness," he murmured.
The mont he acted, sothing stirred.
Suddenly, Souta sensed an anomaly and turned his head to the side.
A faint smile ford on his lips.
"Found it."
...
Several tens of kiloters off the coast of the Land of Fire Light, deep beneath the ocean’s surface, a small figure drifted in the dark waters.
It was one of Souta’s clones.
He had dispatched it a week earlier to scout the regions beyond the Land of Fire Light. Only now had the clone discovered what appeared to be a settlent belonging to sea monsters and sea tribes.
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