Kyle watched the clash for a long while, amusement tugging at his lips—until the space around him began to tremble. The countless golden sand particles stopped struggling against the ice. Instead, they turned their focus to his Celestial Lake.
It seemed they had finally realized that battling the cold essence without making any progress was steadily eating away at their power. At this rate, they would never overpower the relentless cold essence.
So it was better to change targets.
Kyle’s eyes narrowed dangerously, their green glow tracking the sand particles as they surged upward, then spread outward before cascading down like a shimmering tide of golden grains, trying to engulf the entire space holding the Celestial Lake.
Whenever those particles touched, the space stilled, and time itself paused. The cold essence attempted to stop them, but the ice could not extend far before being rendered immobile by the stilled time.
The cold essence shrieked, writhing violently as it struggled to break free.
Just as the cascading sand particles rushed forward to devour it, Kyle finally shattered the cage of ice around him.
It all happened in a moment.
He reached his hand toward the ice. The cold essence ceased struggling, rushing back with a twisting, bending motion as it surged toward him, engulfing his form in a tempest of biting frost shimmering in cold hues. Then Kyle punched forward, and the stilled time shattered like glass. The sand across the vast expanse erupted violently, spiraling backward, leaving the space in front of him trembling and charged.
He exhaled a wisp of cold smoke, silver strands of his hair drifting like moonlight, as he sneered at the sand particles that gathered into an hourglass, ready to flee.
"I don’t favor the cold essence. But it has been with me for so long—it’s mine, a part of me. So, of course, even if I don’t favor it, in the end, we are both on the same side."
His voice was chilling—colder than the jagged crystalline ice encasing his form, which shimmered with an ethereal glow.
Before the hourglass could escape, he disappeared and forcefully seized it, his gaze filled with detached amusement.
"If you hadn’t tried to consume my power—in my own territory—I’d have let you both fight longer. But tsk... you were greedy."
He smirked, letting the ice encasing him surge forward and devour the struggling hourglass in his grasp, piece by piece.
The process lasted barely a minute.
When the power of hourglass was fully absorbed by the cold essence, it rushed into Kyle, making him hiss as the piercing cold it exuded intensified to the extreme.
His vision blurred, and in the next second, he plunged into the Celestial Lake with a soft splash. Then, the quiet space around him underwent an earthshaking change.
From a small place holding the Celestial Lake, it quickly turned into a vast, roaring sea, surging outward to tear through the white boundaries that contained it—only halting when nature itself, startled by the sudden rise of overwhelming pure power, intervened to restrain it, fearing that the Celestial balance would be shattered.
Even then, it could do nothing but watch helplessly as the young Celestial, who had become the first in ages to own such a vast and powerful Celestial Lake, grew stronger and stronger with every passing moment.
There was even a bitter sort of indulgence in its actions, as it helped him absorb more natural energy—only to be left speechless when it realized that Kyle was an insatiable abyss. No matter how much natural energy it gave him, it was never enough to fill him.
It watched as the edges of Kyle’s golden soul turned a brilliant icy silver, crystalline frost patterns weaving along those edges to form a cold protective barrier. With that, his soul effortlessly shattered the towering boundary of the 7th stage of Celestial Rank and ascended straight to its peak. When a new body formed around Kyle’s soul, it was crafted from pure, untainted natural energy, embodying and instantly ascending to the pinnacle of the 7th stage Celestial Rank.
Nature sighed, but also felt pleased. After all, Kyle was the first Celestial to ascend to such heights with an essence so pure—and untouched by darkness. Everyone who had reached the peak of the 7th stage before him had succumbed to it... but he did not.
Everything was fine until that point.
Nature even turned to leave.
It had taken a long time, but after Kyle’s new body was complete, he should have woken up. The ice cocoon surrounding his body even began to crack. However, just as it seemed he would wake up—just as the first sliver of light slipped through the shell—something utterly shocking happened.
Something that made Nature regret ever helping him even a bit!! The roaring sea it had restrained once again began to expand—this time, even it couldn’t stop it, and the balance was broken, leaving it bewildered.
Why?
Because the dormant power within Kyle’s soul awakened the instant he reached the peak of Celestial rank. From the beginning, his soul had been golden—it was just that the power within had lain wholly dormant, undetected by anyone: not by him, not by anyone else, and not even by nature itself.
His bloodline, having reached the peak of Celestial Rank, thrummed with joy as the part of it that had remained dormant for so long surged forth from the golden soul and fused with it. Then, Kyle’s soul turned silver, radiating an ethereal, icy Celestial aura, and the cold essence’s powerful will to survive went dormant, feeling satisfied—knowing its owner no longer needed its protection.
By the time Nature snapped out of its stunned stupor, it was already too late.
A cold Celestial void opened within Kyle’s soul—it completely absorbed the power of all the natural laws present in his Celestial Lake, causing the growing sea to fade into nothingness, ceasing to exist. Now, no one would ever know how many natural laws he possessed—not even Nature—because he no longer had a Celestial Lake. Everything he had learned, and would learn, would merge with him, becoming entirely his.
In that very instant, Kyle finally earned the ’Crown of a Ruler’ as a majestic ice crown formed over his soul—the crown bestowed upon those who had reached the peak and received the Celestial symbol from Nature.
He should have earned it long ago, but he hadn’t. Perhaps that’s why his crown was different from the others. It was the most exquisite ever seen, surpassing all others as if it had been formed for the supreme.
If Nature had a physical form, it would’ve coughed up a mouthful of blood right now, screaming that it had been cheated! So all this time, Kyle’s bloodline had never fully awakened?? What the actual hell???
And to think... Kyle was born with this terrifying power. All this time, Nature had aided him, never realizing that the one it favored had never truly needed its help!
He only wanted to exploit it!
Should it feel grateful that Kyle hadn’t turned to darkness like so many others?
Ha-ha. When this man woke up... chaos was the last thing awaiting this realm...
Because he had found the End.
Although Nature had favored him greatly his whole life, it still hadn’t chosen him!
Yet... against all odds...
He had found the End himself!
The End that no one had remembered or ever found after the first three Celestials fell.