Read Novel Full Chapter 1185 - Taming the Old World - Amplifying Power - 3
Chapter 1185 - Taming the Old World - Amplifying Power - 3
The pillar was a masterpiece of ancient engineering. And embedded directly within the impenetrable white stone of the structure, glowing with a soft, pulsing light, were 7 cores.
But not any normal cores. Dragon hearts.
Ren reached into his shadow space and withdrew the big, hyper-dense core of the 100 years Fire Dragon he had slaughtered just a few hours ago. He held it up, bathing the dark room in a warm, crimson glow, and compared it to the ancient hearts embedded in the pillar.
The structural similarity was undeniable.
These were not the crude energy batteries found inside standard beasts from Platinum 3 downward. Common cores depleted rapidly after death and pushed their energy into the ambient ether once their host died. But a true dragon's heart had fundamentally transcended the purely physical realm. It was a crystalline structure capable of actively interacting with the world's primordial ether and permanently storing vast amounts of raw data within its system lines.
Ren walked toward the royal vault section of the chamber. He carefully placed the glowing Fire Dragon core onto the pedestal alongside the four others currently resting there.
These were the ultimate spoils of humanity's history. The ancient cores harvested from the dragons King Dragarion had slain years ago during his legendary crusade, resting alongside the one Ren himself had felled months prior with the combined might of the Vanguard backing him.
Five ancient, unfathomable cores, gathered together in the dark.
And absolutely no one in the world knew how to use them.
Every single classified experiment conducted by Arturo's brightest scholars and Wei had ended in failure. And even Ren, armed with the forbidden knowledge of the Brain and his own unprecedented mastery over elemental engineering, did not feel remotely close to comprehending the technology required to build something like the central pillar.
That massive structure functioned as the undisputed heart of the underground second chamber. It actively controlled the flow of ambient mana across the entire city. It compressed the ether to generate the crystals they had harvested, and it ruthlessly siphoned any surplus energy, purifying it, unifying the chaotic elements, and forcefully pumping it downward into the very core of the world.
It was a level of bio-mana-mechanical engineering that vastly exceeded anything Ren could currently hope to replicate.
But it didn't matter. They hadn't come here today to study it, reverse-engineer it, or replicate it.
They had come to use it.
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"There is no time left," Ren ordered, his voice echoing off the cavern walls, sharp and devoid of fear. "Brace yourselves."
He stepped forward, approaching the central control console of the monolithic pillar.
He slowly extended his right hand, hovering just inches above the indestructible surface. Even without making physical contact, he could feel the terrifying, ancient current thrumming inside the stone.
It was incredibly dense... It was a roaring, primordial river of raw ether that fueled the entire chamber system.
Before he dared to absorb a single drop, he engaged his fusion.
Pushing his power output completely past its natural limits to achieve the Diamond rank was the absolute, non-negotiable foundation of this suicidal plan. Without the localized system immunity granted by his triple-fusion, absorbing even a fraction of this energy could mean some level of irreversible crystallization.
The moment the fusion settled over his frame, exponentially expanding his ethereal perception, Ren noticed an anomaly. It was a detail he had been completely incapable of sensing last time before reaching this specific tier of power.
There were other, hidden energies woven deep into the center of the pillar.
He instantly identified the sharp, rigid resonance of Metal mana anchoring the heart of the structure. It made sense; he possessed the affinity for it now.
But there were two more…
Two completely distinct, overwhelming currents of energy that he absolutely did not recognize. They possessed a nature entirely alien to anything Ren had ever encountered. They did not belong to the seven base elements. They bore absolutely no resemblance to Selthia's rotting corruption.
Were these two unknown energies the true foundation of the ruins?
Was this the reason why the ancient structures were impossible to destroy? Were two alien affinities woven into the very molecular heart of every single pillar, every defensive wall, and every indestructible gate in the entire complex?
Ren didn't have the luxury of time to unravel the mystery.
There was a Diamond-rank artifact actively devouring the ancient barrier miles away. Every single second he wasted pondering the secrets of the universe was a second Selthia used to close her grip around the throat of the world. He shoved the discovery to the back of his mind, locking it away alongside the mountain of other unanswered questions the ruins had burdened him with.
He pressed his palm against the stone.
And he began.
Slowly... Agonizingly slowly.
Ren forcefully extracted the ancient energy from the pillar, drawing it out in a microscopic, perfectly controlled thread. He absorbed the absolute minimum flow required, just enough for his fused biological system to rapidly convert the ether without allowing it to pool and stagnate in his core.
The moment the energy breached his skin, he felt the terrifying, seductive invitation. It was the exact same sensation he had felt when he first transferred the power to save the city. It whispered promises of absolute freedom, limitless power, and godhood, while quietly demanding his body and soul as payment.
He ruthlessly crushed the whisper. He maintained an iron grip on the flow, absorbing only what he could actively burn, violently suppressing the primal urge to open the floodgates and take more.
Once his core stabilized, he turned and extended his free hand toward the veterans standing behind him.
He began the transfer…
He fed them a fraction of the current, just a little.
It was the microscopic, relatively stable sliver he had explicitly promised them.
The elite dual-contract Tamers received the thread of forbidden energy with the suffocating care of soldiers handling a live explosive. Every single one of them accepted only their designated fraction, their muscles tensed, their minds laser-focused, fully prepared to violently sever the connection the exact millisecond they felt the cold, crystalline pressure begin to pool in their chests.
The catastrophic power that had permanently frozen King Dragarion years ago began to course through several human systems simultaneously.
And miles away, deep beneath the central academy of Yino, entirely unaware that humanity's greatest defenders had just weaponized what could be called a curse of power, the mechanical dragon finally shattered the mana barrier.