Higher. Higher still.
Ren Zian flew like a comet rising through an endless sky, stars and pressure roaring around him. His breath was fire in his lungs, his vision a blur of starlight and spiritual haze. The Third Celestial Layer stretched far below now, its radiant veins glowing like echoes of a dream.
And above him, the Fourth Layer loomed.
He saw it first as a wall of light, not translucent like before, but dense. Luminous. Like a river of divine flame frozen in place.
He reached for it.
The pressure crushed him.
It was worse than before. Far worse. His bones screamed, his soul trembled, and for a terrifying moment, the Echo Core within his chest flickered.
Zian's body spasmed in mid-air. The light dimmed.
No, he growled in his mind. Not yet.
The Echo Core pulsed again. Fierce. Desperate. It surged with a final wave of power, coating his body in translucent waves of spiritual reinforcement.
Zian roared, a broken, primal sound, and pushed.
The wall of light cracked.
Then shattered.
He exploded into the Fourth Celestial Layer with a blast of radiant energy, his form spinning wildly before stabilizing in the heavy silence beyond.
And then came the laughter.
It tore out of him, raw and unbelieving. A strangled, breathless mix of joy and madness.
"The Fourth... I made it to the Fourth Layer…!"
No human had ever done this. Not on their first awakening. It was impossible. It was myth.
And yet, here he was.
He floated in stillness, body shaking, as the stars around him slowly revealed themselves.
They weren't stars.
They were monuments.
Each vein here was vast, almost sentient in its presence. They didn't pulse, they resonated. Swords hung suspended in crystalline orbs, their edges humming with timeworn battle cries. Elemental storms swirled in clusters of color and force, earth, wind, metal, lightning. Majestic beasts shimmered behind translucent barriers, tigers with silver fur, wolves wreathed in wind, a lion crowned in fire.
He passed one orb where a scaled colossus stood on two legs, wings folded, its body draped in armor-like scales the color of molten iron. Its eyes were shut, yet its aura was overpowering.
He couldn't name them. He couldn't understand them.
But they were majestic. Beyond anything he had seen before.
And still, he rose.
His body trembled. The Echo Core flickered. The pressure up here wasn't just intense, it was absolute. Each beat of his heart felt like it might be his last.
Each vein he passed was stronger, stranger, more distant from human understanding. He began to feel small again. As if these veins weren't just tools—they were witnesses. Testaments to a forgotten war between heaven and earth.
He drifted onward through the majestic void, the constellations of veins thinning, growing more isolated, their radiance intensifying. He felt like he was swimming through time itself, like every breath was dragging his soul through history. One vein shimmered like a white sun, another pulsed like a beating heart made of obsidian and lightning.
Zian's hands trembled. His teeth clenched. Every inch of his body cried out. The Echo Core buzzed again, sharper now, strained, warning him.
He had minutes. Maybe less.
I have to choose, he told himself again. But his heart refused to settle. Nothing called to him. Nothing felt right, until…
There.
Far above, at the edge of his fading vision, a presence.
Not the brightest. Not the largest. But the deepest.
Its gravity pulled at his soul.
He forced his body upward, soaring toward it. Each movement was agony. Each breath a battle. His consciousness began to fray, the world around him starting to blur into streaks of color and crashing silence.
The star came into view.
A coiled presence swirled inside. Massive, layered in gold and darkness, like the bloodline of kings forged into flesh. It didn't call. It didn't ask.
It simply was.
His vision fractured.
His mind slipped.
He reached for it, hand outstretched, and the Echo Core burned bright one last time.
Then everything went dark.
Ren Zian awoke on stone.
Cold. Hard. Real.
He blinked, the sky overhead dim and distant, the sounds of wind whistling through broken metal echoing around him.
He was back.
The battlefield. The crater. Ashfield Scar.
His breathing was ragged, his limbs numb. He sat up slowly, pressing a hand to his chest, and felt it. The Echo Core. Silent now. But still present. Still warm.
Suddenly, he writhed in pain. He could feel his body transforming.
It felt as if his muscles and bones were being torn away and reshaped.
Writhing on the ground, the pain suddenly stopped.
Then the knowledge flooded in.
Not words. Not a voice.
Just understanding.
A name. A power. A legacy.
The Regal Dragon Vein.
A vein tied to the bloodline of Regal Dragons. Beasts of sovereignty, strength, and dominion. Born to rule. Born to endure.
It granted him a vastly accelerated astral energy absorption rate. It granted him a passive dominance and suppression over those with lesser veins. It shifted his body subtly already, sharpening features, strengthening muscle, giving him a sharper, prouder presence, which he hadn't realized yet.
And it granted two main abilities:
Regal Dragon Transformation — a partial draconic form, cloaked in scales and muscle, lending him terrifying strength and defense.
Regal Domain — a field of pressure and suppression that would bend the wills of those around him, slowing them, weakening them, making them lesser beneath his gaze.
Zian sat there in silence, the echoes of the Astral God Space still lingering in his mind.
Ren Zian stared at the cracked sky overhead, breathless.
Then he threw his head back and howled, "Holy shit!"
He rolled onto his back, limbs sprawled across the scorched dirt like he'd just fought a war, and maybe he had. His hands were shaking, but not from fear. From power. Raw, ridiculous, arrogant-ass power.
"Fourth layer," he gasped, laughing now. "Fourth. Fucking. Layer."
He sat up with a groan and glanced at his hands. They looked the same… almost. But not quite. His fingers seemed longer. His nails sharper. His skin cleaner, like some celestial spa treatment had been injected into his soul and buffed out the loser from before.
Then the memories hit again.
Regal Dragon Vein.
He slammed his fist into the ground and laughed louder, like a madman finally getting his win.
"A dragon," he muttered, eyes wide with disbelief. "I bonded with a fucking dragon vein. And not just any dragon, Regal. As in 'kneel before me, peasants' dragon."
He pushed himself to his feet, still grinning, chest rising and falling like a man reborn.
"Suppression effect? Check. Celestial glow-up? Fuck yeah. Body mod that turns me into a golden-armored death lizard?" He clenched his fists. "Hell. Yes."
He looked down at himself, then back at the scarred battlefield.
"Try me now, you academy test-boosted pricks. Try me now!"
He exhaled hard, chest still thrumming with warmth from the Echo Core.
This wasn't just a win.
This was a declaration.
Ren Zian wasn't the same nobody from New Moon City anymore.
He was Regal now.