A portion of the Heart of a Catastrophe, even a fragment, was priceless.
Crimson Sky Wyrm had been an Overlord-rank monster.
That alone placed its remains in a category most people only read about in sealed reports or heard mentioned in whispers by veterans who had survived too much.
When an Overlord’s heart was processed and refined into a potion, it could be injected directly into the body.
The success rates were low, but the potential was terrifying.
A minor chance to learn one of the Wyrm’s skills.
A chance to gain a physical trait. In extremely rare cases, a full physique or bloodline purification.
And those chances weren’t fixed.
They changed depending on compatibility.
Isaac’s gaze drifted to Alice, who was standing a short distance away, listening quietly.
She looked calm, but he knew her well enough by now to catch the faint tension in her shoulders.
’If Alice drinks it...’ he thought.
She was a dragon.
If anyone had compatibility with a Wyrm’s Mana Organ, it would be her.
’There’s a real chance she could gain a skill,’ Isaac thought. ’And blood purification...’
That was the most valuable part.
Blood purification strengthened the bloodline itself, reinforcing its foundation.
Normally, this mattered most to those with impure or diluted blood.
It was how sub-species climbed closer to their progenitors, how monsters evolved, how some human could break through ceilings they had been stuck under for generations.
Alice was already an Apex-rank species.
Would it still work on her?
Isaac didn’t know.
But the fact that it might was enough to make his heart beat faster.
This was possible because, for dragons and their sub-species like Wyrms, the heart wasn’t just an organ.
It was a Mana Organ.
An organ completely soaked in their mana, shaped by it, refined over centuries of existence.
Potions made from Mana Organs of Overlord-rank monsters had endless applications.
Stat enhancement. Skill inheritance. Rare physique awakenings. Bloodline refinement.
And yet, despite all that, they were almost never used.
Because killing an Overlord was difficult.
Even a powerful Lord, commanding an entire city and mobilizing all their forces, could at best bring down one, maybe two Overlord-rank monsters.
But the losses would be catastrophic.
Powerful awakeners dead. Infrastructure destroyed. Mana reserves drained to the brink.
In most cases, the Mana Organ gained wouldn’t be worth the cost.
Worse, there was always the risk of retaliation.
Monster Tribes didn’t take kindly to their Overlords being slaughtered. Killing one could provoke a raid that wiped a city off the map.
That was why Mana Organs were rare.
And why they were so expensive.
Now add one more layer.
This wasn’t just a Wyrm.
It was a Catastrophe.
A Crimson Sky Wyrm that had descended with Red Rain.
A Mana Organ from something like that?
There wasn’t a price high enough to measure it.
Isaac frowned slightly, a thought surfacing that had bothered him since Mango’s report.
"Something doesn’t add up," he said slowly. "Catastrophes soak in Red Rain for days, and weeks. That stuff corrupts everything it touches. How is a portion of its heart... uncorrupted?"
Mango hesitated, similarly confused.
He looked toward Althea, hoping someone of her statue would have answers.
Althea, who had been observing the extraction from a short distance away, turned at his question.
She studied his expression for a moment, then gave a small, knowing nod.
"That’s because Red Rain doesn’t corrupt Catastrophes completely. If it did, they would become mindless monsters. Unable to think. Unable to follow orders."
She gestured faintly toward the remains of the Wyrm.
"Instead, Red Rain lets them preserves a portion of their sanity, enough for them to understand commands. Enough for them to act with intent. That’s why their entire bodies aren’t corrupted in the same way as lesser monsters that soak in it."
Isaac blinked.
He processed her words slowly, then spoke carefully.
"You’re talking about Red Rain like it’s... alive. You knew it’s a monster?"
Althea paused.
Then she looked at him, genuine surprise flickering across her eyes.
"You figured that Red Rain is a monster on your own? Ah. Or did Sword Empress tell you?" she asked.
He didn’t answer.
Althea sighed softly. "I do wonder why she told you such cursed knowledge. It tends to make people spiral into madness. Once they realize how fragile their lives really are, most can’t handle it."
She stopped herself, lips pressing together.
"...Sorry. I’m thinking out loud again."
The relief from surviving the Catastrophe had turned her lips loose.
Isaac waited.
"Yes," Althea continued after a moment. "Red Rain is a monster. Among those who have wandered the wilderness long enough, and among the truly strong, this is common knowledge."
Mango stiffened slightly, clearly hearing this for the first time.
"Many believe that defeating it would end the apocalypse," Althea said.
Then she gave a bitter smile. "However, its size is too vast. Red Rain covers every known location."
Silence settled between them.
Isaac nodded slowly.
He understood now why knowledge of Red Rain’s true nature was considered cursed.
If the Red Rain was a monster, then the sky itself was its body.
That meant it could see.
At all times.
Through the clouds. Through the storms. Watching every city, every battlefield, every struggling survivor below.
The idea sent a faint tingle across Isaac’s scalp.
For most people, that knowledge would have shattered something inside them.
But Isaac didn’t panic.
He didn’t feel dread clawing at his chest.
Part of it was perspective.
After all, he was sharing a bed with someone who had the Blood Lord—a powerful Catastrophe—sealed inside her.
And even knowing that seal could break one day, he had chosen to stay.
Someone might call him reckless, or fearless.
Or just too deep in already to turn back.
There was another reason, too.
’City Hall has a Clairvoyance Ward. It stops prying eyes into looking into the City. Red Rain shouldn’t be able to see into my city thanks to it.’
That thought steadied him.
It also raised another question.
’Then who built the Fortified Cities?’
The System provided blueprints. Granted upgrades. Enforced functions.
But the System didn’t invent things out of nothing.
Someone, at some point, must have designed Fortified Cities, and built them, knowing System’s arrival would allow them to gain transcendental functions.
That thought lingered at the edge of his mind.
Isaac pushed it aside for now.
There would be time to worry about that later.
Right now, there was work to be done.
He turned his attention back to the extraction process.
The remains of the Crimson Sky Wyrm were laid out within multiple containment fields.
Technicians moved carefully, every action deliberate.
Mana readings flickered across Mango’s screens as the heart fragment was slowly separated, sealed within layered preservation arrays.
Even from a distance, Isaac could feel the pressure coming off it.
They shivered, wondering how strong it must’ve been in life, if just the corpse made their knees weak,
"We have extracted the heart. Now we will extract he Core," Mango said.
The Core of a Catastrophe was no less valuable.
Cores could be refined into Genetic Catalysts, used in high-risk evolution processes. Or they could be turned into multiple Awakening Crystals.
Awakening Crystals allowed people to awaken their Talents and establish a connection with the System.
Most awakened naturally under extreme stress in the past, but artificial awakening had always been a holy grail of research.
Isaac remembered Sword Empress mentioning something about this before.
’She said she was looking into Talent Awakening, and Awakening Crystals.’
In the past, Isaac had believed Alice remained "unawakened" for a simple reason.
Her soul was too strong.
The Awakening Crystals used by the academy worked by applying pressure—pressure from the lingering will of a monster contained inside the crystal.
For most people, that pressure was overwhelming.
Their souls either resisted instinctively, and in that clash, a Talent would manifest.
But Alice’s soul never reacted.
It simply... ignored the monster’s will.
Because it thought of it has beneath itself.
The crystal couldn’t provide enough force to make her soul "fight back."
It was like pressing a feather against a mountain and expecting it to crack.
This understanding lined up with ancient records.
In the eras before Awakening Crystals existed, people awakened their Talents almost exclusively in moments of extreme stress. Like in life-and-death situations. Moments where they were pushed beyond what they could endure.
Back then, awakening wasn’t guided or controlled.
It was violent, messy, and often fatal.
Leora—Sword Empress—had expanded on this during one of their quieter conversations.
She had explained that a soul only resisted a standard Awakening Catalyst under specific circumstances.
One of them was possessing an Apex-level bloodline.
She explained a secondary theory: many fail to awaken because their souls cower before the monster’s will contained with Awakening Crystal.
’She’s been researching this since back then.’
Sword Empress’s main focus had always been on strengthening souls directly.
Finding ways to temper them, reinforce them, or help them endure greater pressure without breaking.
Thus, allowing them to awaken.
And now...
Now they had a portion of a Catastrophe’s Core.
A Core that could be refined into an Awakening Crystal unlike anything the academy had ever used.
’An Awakening Crystal made from a Catastrophe’s Core can’t be found easily,’ Isaac thought.
It wasn’t the method of strengthening the soul like she wanted, but it would let her take her research much further.
Althea and Charlotta didn’t stay long after the extraction was complete.
Both of them looked exhausted.
"We’re going to rest for a bit. Then we’ll help deal with the monster hordes that should be arriving soon," Charlotta said.
"We’ll be fine. The city can handle it," Isaac replied.
Althea raised an eyebrow. "You’re sure?"
"Yes. You’ve already done enough," he said firmly.
She hesitated.
It took more persuasion than Isaac expected.
Althea clearly wasn’t used to stepping back when there was still work to be done. Eventually, though, she relented with a quiet sigh.
"Fine. But if things get worse, don’t hesitate to call," she said.
After they left, the recovery teams continued working.
It took nearly an hour for all usable parts to be extracted from the Crimson Sky Wyrm’s corpse.
The process was slow and meticulous.
Anything rushed at this level could lead to contamination, mana collapse, or worse.
When it was finally done, Isaac stood alone for a moment, looking down at the small object resting in his palm.
The White Parasitic Tree seed.
"I can use this now. If I plant it in the corpse, it’ll grow."
He glanced around, then thought.
"Should I use it here, in the city, or inside the Soulbind Pendant?"
The seed remained silent.
That meant it didn’t object to either option.
Which didn’t help him much.
Isaac knew that depending on the tree’s eventual abilities, one location would be far more suitable than the other.
If it was something that benefited infrastructure, defense, or long-term growth, planting it in the city made sense.
If it was something more... personal, more controllable, then the Soulbind Pendant would be safer.
"I shouldn’t decide this alone," he said quietly.
Sword Empress had lived longer, seen more, and understood things like this far better than he did.
If anyone could recognize what kind of tree this seed would become, it was her.
"I’ll ask her," Isaac decided.
With that settled, he handed off the Soulbind Pendant to one of his clones.
The world shifted.
Isaac appeared inside the Cradle.
The transition was smooth, but the moment he arrived, the sky above him crackled violently.
A massive bolt of red lightning tore through the air.
That lightning was the fused form of Stoneward and Ragnarok, held together by Emily’s Spirit Weave skill.
The skill’s duration was ending.
Isaac looked up and released the binding.
The fusion unraveled.
Stoneward emerged first, its massive form reconstituting in midair before dropping heavily into the forest below, shaking the ground on impact.
Ragnarok, on the other hand, dissipated almost immediately, fading back into nothingness as it always did.
Isaac sighed.
"This is going to be hard to explain. Two Stonewards can’t exactly be hidden."
Unlike Tirra, Stoneward was far too large and physical to conceal easily.
The reason Isaac hadn’t allowed the fusion to break outside was simple.
Althea would have seen it.
He could trust his people with his secrets.
Those who he allowed to enter Soulbind Pendant could be allowed to know he could create copies of living beings.
Letting an outsider see him copy living beings?
That was a risk he wasn’t willing to take.
At that moment, a familiar presence manifested beside him.
Catherine appeared inside the mansion hall. Her eyes looking at him with amusement. She had clearly been observing things through her clone outside.
She looked toward the forest, then back at Isaac.
"That was Stoneward. So you fused it with that red lightning using Emily’s skill and attacked the Catastrophe from the inside."
She paused, her smile deepening.
"That means the red lightning is a monster too."
Isaac didn’t deny it.
Catherine continued, her tone sharpening with curiosity.
"But my clone is watching the original Stoneward near the Wall, outside the city. So how is there another Stoneward here?"
She looked directly at him now.
"How come there are two?"