Sovereign of the Ashes

“You nearly killed me this time,” Kram murmured weakly to Sein as she regained consciousness on the experimental table.

Sein, meanwhile, had slumped in a heap beside the table.

He had not expected things to go awry.

The experiment he had just performed involved extracting the Klytherite from Kram’s body.

For Klytherans, Klytherite was their source of power and functioned inside them almost like a heart.

According to Sein’s research, removing the Klytherite and reinforcing it outside the body might directly boost a Klytheran fighter’s combat strength.

But because Klytherite was so deeply tied to a Klytheran’s very existence, even Sein could not help but wonder what would happen to them if it were actually taken out.

This time, curiosity really had almost killed someone.

His research ambitions had inadvertently pushed Kram right to the edge of death.

Thankfully, no lasting harm was done. Otherwise, he had no idea how he would face Karazo and the other Klytherans.

What would become of the Magus Civilization’s image as a mighty world that valued freedom, equality, and friendship?

If he damaged his relationship with the Klytherans, the difficulty of recruiting the Shadowbat Civilization and other foreign worlds would skyrocket.

“This was my mistake. I should have run more live tests before attempting it,” Sein said, wiping the sweat from his brow.

“I honestly thought I died just now. That feeling was...” Kram lay flat on the table, staring blankly at the bright light overhead.

There was conflict in her eyes, along with confusion, and even a faint, almost dazed kind of intoxication.

The boundary between life and death was a realm Sein had never explored.

He had never died, so he had no way of knowing what death felt like. And turning a living creature into an undead one did not count as death.

But moments ago, when he extracted Kram’s Klytherite, her life force plummeted so sharply that even Sein could barely sense her vitality.

Perhaps, in that instant, Kram truly felt what real death was like.

Sein listened without much reaction. Most of Kram’s words were little more than incoherent murmurs, and his brows drew together slightly as he tried to make sense of them.

Some sort of liquid had dripped down the side of the experimental table.

When Sein noticed it and caught a faint scent, he froze. Kram, who had been murmuring just moments before, suddenly went quiet as well.

A faint blush crept across her face.

“This is a perfectly normal reaction, Kram. There’s no need to worry about it,” Sein said, then quickly shifted the topic.

“Ahem... anyway, the bracers I promised you—I have finished them. And since I had some leftover materials, I made you a necklace as well.”

Kram snapped back to her senses. Whether it was Sein’s words guiding her attention elsewhere or something she genuinely felt, she suddenly said, “I think my body has changed when the Klytherite was removed just now.”

“Oh? Really? We’ll run tests later,” Sein replied.

***

After Kram’s near-death experience, Sein temporarily suspended all experiments involving her.

Even so, the research he had accumulated over the past decades was considerable.

His understanding of Klytherite and Gray Quartz had deepened drastically.

This unique energy source was truly extraordinary—no wonder it served as the core of Klytheran power.

Kram soon received the accessories he crafted for her.

Anything made by a master alchemist like Sein was at least a mid-tier divine artifact.

He had not yet attempted a world-class secret treasure, but with his current level and rate of progress, it was only a matter of time.

As for the change Kram said she felt after her Klytherite was removed, testing confirmed it to be real.

Her body had gone through a series of rapid metamorphoses and evolution.

Before the experiment, Kram had only been at the early stage of Rank Four. After that near-death incident, her aura surged to mid-stage Rank Four.

If she unleashed the full power of her Klytherite in battle, she could even experience a brief spike in strength.

Sein concluded that when the experimental mishap pushed her into a true life-or-death moment, the evolutionary instincts in her cells and genes were triggered in that instant.

That was the source of the subtle changes she had felt.

But neither of them planned on repeating experiments of that nature anytime soon.

The experience had left a deep mark on Kram, and Sein refused to attempt it again without precise, comprehensive data.

After all, Kram was his friend, not just a specimen for his pursuit of truth.

It was against this backdrop that Sein and his companions arrived at the Houllier Star Domain.

The Houllier Star Domain was one of the two star domains Sein and his companions had to cross before reaching the territory controlled by the Magus Civilization.

This small star domain was home to only five complete planes. Its strongest native powerhouse was merely a mid-stage Rank Five being, supported by four Rank Fours.

Sein and the others did not bother entering Houllier Plane itself.

With their combined strength, they could have taken over the entire Houllier Star Domain without much effort.

But Darian of the Shadowbat Civilization, Orric of Aquaria, and the others had no reason to fight for Sein and the others.

Likewise, Karazo and the Klytheran fighters wanted to avoid trouble they did not need.

So while crossing the Houllier Star Domain, Sein and his group made a point to steer clear of the plane’s natives and their local powerhouses.

Likewise, the native Houllier powerhouses chose the wiser path and avoided provoking Sein’s group.

For them, the options were painfully limited.

Now that the Magus Civilization had extended its reach here, only two outcomes awaited them: submission or destruction.

Only more adaptable civilizations—like the Klytherans, the Blue Star natives, and the Shadowbat Civilization—had begun preparing for the shifting political landscape.

“How come your skin looks better lately? And your body proportions...” Misori looked at her best friend with a baffled expression.

“Are you planning to grow your hair out too?” she asked.

Friends of the same gender who saw each other often were far more likely to notice subtle changes than any opposite-sex friend ever would.

Misori had spent the past few years mostly alone due to personal troubles, but she still met up with Kram from time to time.

The changes in Kram, especially the sudden rise in her power aura, left Misori unsettled.

Most women of their kind loved to compare. Even if they did not say it out loud, they were always measuring themselves against one another in silence.

Among the female Klytheran fighters, Misori had always been the beauty of the group, while Kram played a very distant second.

In both strength and appearance, Kram had always lagged behind her.

When it came to looks, that might have been because Kram never bothered with grooming in the first place.

Kram let out an awkward laugh at Misori’s question. She ran a hand through her short hair that now brushed her earlobes and asked, “Really?”