The heavy blast door of the Nautilus sealed shut, plunging the bridge into a quiet, humming twilight. The scent of the Cinderwood—of ash and ozone and spilled blood—was left behind, a memory of the brutal lesson just learned. Ren stood before the main console, his Raijin armor radiating a faint, residual power.
Anya did not comment on the three lives he had just extinguished. Her eyes were fixed on the tactical display, where the sensor logs of the battle played back in a silent, complex dance of energy signatures. She saw the failure of Joric's Void-Stalker's Cloak against the swirling chaos of the Aegis of the Storm. She saw the perfect, instantaneous application of the Thunder's Echo that had silenced a Master's technique. She saw the colossal, overwhelming might of the Sky-Lord's Grasp.
She was not looking at a warrior; she was looking at a living library of lost, terrifying arts. Her silence was not one of judgment. It was one of profound, calculating reverence.
"His equipment was standard for a Pagoda Hunter-Killer squad," she said finally, her voice all business. "Their technology is formidable. But it is predictable. It follows a logical, ordered system. You… do not." She turned from the screen to look at him. "Your victory was not just one of power. It was a victory of philosophy. Your chaos defeated their order."
"His order was a cage," Ren replied, his voice low. "I simply broke the bars."
"He was a Rank 24 Disciple, a veteran of a dozen campaigns," Anya countered, her gaze intense. "And you dismantled him and his squad in under ten minutes. But the next one they send will not be a Disciple. It will be a Master. And he will not be alone. We need to disappear. And you," she paused, her eyes sweeping over him, "need to get stronger."
"The girl speaks the truth," Zephyrion's voice was a low rumble in Ren's mind. "You are a fledgling dragon who has just roared for the first time. The true, ancient dragons have heard you, and they will now come to see if you are worthy of the sky you claim."
Ren nodded, his mind already aligned with theirs. "The Cinderwood is compromised. Where do we go?"
Anya pulled up a new, highly encrypted star chart from the Volkov family's private server. It was a map of the world's most hidden and inaccessible places. "My family has always believed that the best place to hide a secret is in a place no one believes can exist."
Her finger traced a path to a remote sector of the globe, an area marked on all official GAMA charts as an empty expanse of ocean plagued by anomalous atmospheric conditions.
"The Aethelian Sky-Islands," she announced. "A chain of dozens of floating islands, suspended tens of thousands of feet in the air, hidden within a permanent, high-altitude thunderstorm. They are a myth, a sailor's tale. And they are the perfect forge."
The Nautilus submerged, its course set for the other side of the world. The journey was long, a week of silent travel through the deep dark. Ren used the time to consolidate his new rank. He sat in deep meditation, not pushing for a breakthrough, but mastering the intricate flow of his Rank 25 Aether, making the immense power feel as natural and as comfortable as his own skin.
When they arrived, the ascent was a breathtaking spectacle. The submarine rose from the ocean depths, climbing higher and higher into the sky, until it breached the cloud layer. They emerged into a new world.
A sea of brilliant white clouds stretched out to the horizon below them. And floating serenely in the clear, sunlit sky above were dozens of islands. Each one was a vibrant, lush paradise of green vegetation, strange, crystalline rock formations, and waterfalls that cascaded from their edges into the endless sea of clouds below. The air was clean, pure, and humming with a concentration of Aether so potent it was almost visible.
"The storms below feed the islands with pure, distilled Aether," Anya explained, her voice filled with a rare sense of wonder. "It is a self-contained, perfect ecosystem. A cultivator's paradise."
They chose the most isolated of the islands, a large landmass with a central, flat plateau and a network of deep, crystal-lined caves. The Nautilus settled in a hidden cavern behind a massive waterfall, completely obscured from view.
Ren stood on the edge of the floating island, looking out at the sea of clouds. He was thousands of feet above the world, in a place no one knew existed, with a singular, clear purpose. He was at the peak of the Disciple realm, but the final five ranks were the most difficult, a chasm that separated the talented from the true masters.
He needed to reach Rank 30. He needed to be ready to hunt for his Third Soul Core. He needed to be ready for the Aetheric Tribulation that would allow him to step into the realm of the Masters.
This was his new sanctuary. This was his forge. The final, arduous tempering of the Disciple was about to begin.