Solanky shook off the thought of being unable to face a true peak-turn being without relying on the source-defying flames or the Nine Lightning Tribulations.
He knew the outside world, especially the regions beyond the Beyond Realm and its borders, was a perilous place. Even actual true peak-turn beings could fall there, and guarding ancestors were no exception.
True body Solanky and Black God Solanky sat cross-legged, facing each other.
Behan and the other guarding ancestors' clones watched this scene and smiled before teleporting away from the continent. They knew Solanky was attempting to comprehend and deduce the secrets of the world formation, so they had no intention of disturbing him.
True body Solanky's body was still stuck at the Saint Emperor Transcendent level. He remained unable to break through to the ancestor, or true peak-turn, level and could only rely on comprehending techniques and experimenting to create his own.
Although the techniques he had created were powerful enough to seriously injure half-step peak-turn beings and even damage the bodies of weaker true peak-turn beings, they were still far from being capable of completely killing an ancestor-level being.
The essence of such beings was simply too powerful. Regardless of how extraordinary Solanky's lifeform was, his essence still could not match theirs.
Sometimes, quantity could overcome quality.
Racking his brains for a way to elevate his strength, Solanky eventually decided to integrate the Nine Lightning Tribulations into his true body.
He dared to attempt such a dangerous experiment because this body was, after all, the source-defying lifeform, the legendary existence of the Beyond Realm.
Black God Solanky raised a finger and pointed toward the eyebrows of his main body.
A bolt of Nine Tribulation Lightning shot directly into his consciousness space.
The moment the lightning appeared, a torrent of source-defying flames erupted from within Solanky's consciousness and crashed toward it.
Boom!
The terrifying flames completely enveloped the lightning.
In an instant, the Nine Tribulation Lightning was dissipated.
The attempted fusion had failed.
True body Solanky coughed out a mouthful of golden blood. His expression became solemn as he quickly formed a series of seals with his hands, calming the violent source-defying flames raging within his body.
He immediately abandoned the thought of merging the lightning with his main body.
His cultivation was simply insufficient to withstand the fusion at this stage.
The previous time he had accomplished something similar, he had barely survived. The reason the lightning had successfully merged with his clone was because the source-defying flames within that clone were not abundant.
Ironically, that weakness had become the reason for his success.
The insufficient amount of source-defying flames had allowed the lightning to remain long enough for the two forces to gradually neutralize one another and fuse.
His true body, however, possessed an overwhelming amount of source-defying flames.
The moment the Nine Tribulation Lightning entered his consciousness, the flames instinctively surged forward and annihilated it.
Solanky had narrowly avoided seriously injuring himself.
He cleared his mind and stopped dwelling on the matter. His attention soon shifted toward the inheritance Bragon had given him.
Black God Solanky waved his hand.
A crystal ball appeared before him.
It had a hole in its center and was a miniature world treasure, a prototype of Bragon's original world treasure.
True body Solanky transformed into a beam of light and entered the crystal ball through the central hole.
Black God Solanky remained seated outside, with the crystal ball suspended before him.
Inside, the structure of the world looked like a scaled-down version of the original world treasure. Everything was intact, orderly, and perfectly structured.
Solanky flew toward the core area.
The core looked almost exactly like the core of the original world treasure. However, instead of seven pyramids, there were seven enormous statues erected in their place.
Solanky sat down in the center of the seven statues and spread his spiritual sense toward the first statue to his west.
The statue had its hands stretched outward, with countless strings attached to its fingers. The strings descended toward what appeared to be a doll or puppet beneath it.
The moment Solanky's spiritual sense touched the statue, a vast stream of information poured into his mind.
His expression changed drastically.
He had never imagined that a deceased ancestor-level being could actually be used as a puppet.
Bragon's voice resounded within his consciousness as Solanky carefully pondered the technique.
"Before anyone can master this technique, they must completely understand the structure of the world core belonging to a living true peak-turn being and the world core of a deceased true peak-turn being.
"The deceased being's world core can belong to a destroyed world, but the more intact the world core is, the better.
"And if the world core belongs to a guarding ancestor, it will greatly accelerate the process.
"This technique is called the Puppet Control and Possession Technique. As the name suggests, its function is self-explanatory.
"Once mastered perfectly, one can use a spiritual-powered avatar to control the puppet by possessing it."
Solanky's eyes gleamed.
He immediately waved his hand.
The world he had received from the serpentine woman appeared before him.
Without wasting any time, his spiritual sense pierced through the membrane of the world core and began analyzing its intricate laws and internal structure.
Outside the miniature world treasure, Black God Solanky controlled its temporal laws.
He increased the time velocity within the treasure until a hundred thousand years inside became equivalent to one year in the outside world.
Solanky began studying and experimenting.
He attempted to reconstruct the structure of the world core from his understanding.
As his research deepened, he gradually discovered astonishing secrets.
Although the world core was not the main world of an ancestor-level being, it could still provide the being with enough spiritual energy to allow a million Saint Transcendent entities to break through to the half-step true peak-turn level.
And during battle, the world core could become a terrifying weapon.
If detonated, its destructive force could completely wipe out groups of half-step cultivators wearing ancestor-level treasures.
The world core was also essential for cultivating and nurturing weapons that contained the laws and will of the being.
The more Solanky learned, the more amazed he became.
He was particularly intrigued by the world cores of guarding ancestors.
From his studies, Solanky discovered that the world core of an ordinary first-turn being could only be nurtured once every samsara. It needed to continuously absorb the energies of the outside world and the realm belonging to the ancestor before it could gradually reach perfection.
First-turn beings could nurture ten world cores every ten samsaras.
However, the destruction of one world core meant the destruction of all ten.
Afterward, the being would have to wait another ten samsaras, equivalent to a hundred quadrillion years, before nurturing them again.
Guarding ancestors, however, were completely different.
They could nurture a hundred world cores simultaneously.
Destroying one would not affect the others, and the time required to nurture them was only half that of ordinary first-turn beings.
Solanky's eyes flickered with excitement as he used the source-defying flames to engulf the world core, intending to refine it.
But he suddenly stopped.
After a moment of thought, he waved his hand again.
A corpse appeared before him.
It was the corpse of a third-turn ancestor.
Solanky's expression became solemn.
He immediately began studying the corpse from every possible angle, carefully examining its physical structure and spiritual composition. Whenever he encountered something he could not understand, he recorded it and continued pondering.
Within the corpse were ten world cores.
All ten were perfectly intact.
However, none contained the will of the third-turn ancestor.
Solanky's eyes narrowed.
This demonstrated just how terrifying Behan's killing techniques were.
He had actually managed to kill a third-turn ancestor without destroying its physical body or the essential spiritual components required to uncover the mysteries of its existence.
Solanky's spiritual body emerged.
He formed seals with his hands, and several spiritual strings shot outward, penetrating the ten world cores.
The cores suddenly rotated.
The strings connecting them to Solanky's spiritual body snapped one after another.
An acute pain immediately surged through his spiritual body.
Solanky frowned but quickly recovered.
He immediately stopped attempting to forcibly control the world cores.
He understood the problem.
His method of controlling the corpse was too crude and rigid.
If he wanted to master the Puppet Control and Possession Technique, he needed a much deeper understanding of the world cores.
Outside the miniature world treasure, Black God Solanky's eyes flickered.
He immediately contacted Behan through the world formation and requested a world core belonging to a guarding ancestor.
When Behan heard the request, he was shocked.
He knew very well that to even have a chance of glimpsing the obvious mysteries hidden within world cores, one first needed to comprehend the secrets of the world cores belonging to beings beneath the fifth-turn level.
Yet Solanky was already attempting to study a guarding ancestor's world core.
After a brief silence, Behan acted.
A seven-colored glowing orb suddenly appeared above the continent where Black God Solanky sat.
Its brilliance illuminated the entire world, bathing everything in magnificent seven-colored light.
This seven-colored orb was a world core belonging to Behan himself.
However, Behan had erased his own will from it.
If he had not done so, the world core would reject being studied by another being and would automatically self-destruct.
And if that happened, the terrifying explosion would instantly kill Solanky on the spot.