With a gentle smile on her lips, Iram Rai pulled out delicate bundles of silk from her spatial storage. The cool shimmer of the fabric caught the light as she laid it across her lap and carefully cut it into small shapes suited for an infant. Needle and thread moved deftly through the material, each stitch made with quiet joy and anticipation. Only seven days remained before her child would be born, and she intended to spend every moment creating something with her hands—an act of love, of preparation, and perhaps a way to still her restless heart.
The days passed quickly, each filled with quiet focus and the rhythmic pull of thread through silk. But on the seventh day, as she lay resting on her bed of frostglass, something strange began to happen.
A surge of spiritual energy, subtle at first, began to gather around her. It moved like mist at dawn, flowing steadily into her womb. She gasped softly, her hand instinctively pressing over her belly. A rush of warmth bloomed within her—unusual and unexpected, especially for someone like her.
Is it time? she wondered, heart quickening. But how is my unborn child absorbing external spiritual energy?
The warmth turned into heat. Her enhanced body, strengthened a hundredfold beyond that of ordinary cultivators and tempered by her rare Ice Soul Bones, should have been immune to discomfort. And yet, she could feel it—an intense, rising heat that even her formidable constitution struggled to contain.
If another cultivator were in my place, she thought, they would already be writhing in agony.
Still, she endured. But the spiritual energy did not abate. On the contrary, it condensed faster, growing denser and hotter within her womb. Alarmed, she tried to halt the flow using her spiritual power, but it was as if the heavens themselves had willed this absorption—an unstoppable force beyond mortal intervention.
Soon, she realized the truth: all the spiritual energy in the Hidden Ice Realm was converging inside her.
She sat up, wide-eyed, her breath shallow. The very realm around her trembled as if some divine force sought to peer through its veil. A soft green glow began to envelop her womb, soothing the burning heat like a warm spring washing over aching limbs.
Through her spiritual senses, she could tell—the Hidden Ice Realm had been drained dry. The realm's protective barrier cracked, splitting just enough for a flood of energy from the outside world to rush in. The vast skies of the Main Ice Rule Realm heaved in turmoil, and through the breach, spiritual energy surged once more, refilling what had been lost—only to be drawn again into her body, into the child within her.
Her womb, she realized, had become an infinite sea, bottomless and unquenchable in its thirst for power. And there was nothing more she could do.
With a soft sigh, she lay back down, cradled her belly, and closed her eyes, slipping into a deep, strangely peaceful sleep.
Unbeknownst to her, the heavens roared.
Above the Main Ice Rule Realm, clouds churned. A celestial disturbance raged in the sky as a slumbering divine force awakened. Inside her womb, her child—Adarsh—had activated a dormant artifact: the Divine Blood Lotus.
This sacred relic, bound to Adarsha's divine soul, demanded a colossal influx of spiritual energy to awaken fully. And so, the vortex formed, pulling more and more energy from the Main Ice Rule Realm to feed the Lotus's awakening.
Within the divine architecture of Adarsh tiny forming body, the Power System began to extract divine energy from the Lotus. That pure essence, refined and potent, was transferred into his fragile divine soul, slowly restoring its dormant consciousness. But the more energy the Lotus provided, the more it required in return. The cycle intensified, and the Realm itself buckled beneath the weight of it.
The balance of the world trembled.
In two of the four god-level kingdoms—Blizzheart Empire and Nivaria Kingdom—the sky dimmed unnaturally. Godhood-level cultivators, beings of immense power and perception, sensed the imbalance. Initially, they believed it was a cultivator attempting to ascend from Soul Transformation to Godhood. But the magnitude of the spiritual force made that theory impossible.
Something else—something beyond comprehension—was awakening in the Forbidden Ice Ruins.
In response, the emperor of Blizzheart Empire summoned his godhood-level warriors. The ruins lay closest to their borders, and if a divine object had emerged, they needed to seize it before the other kingdoms acted. But travel to the Forbidden Ice Ruins was not simple—teleportation arrays could not function within its chaotic boundaries. They would teleport to a nearby sect and fly the rest of the way. Even then, it would take three full days.
Back in the Hidden Ice Realm, Iram Rai remained unaware of these unfolding events. The green glow persisted, bathing her in warmth. The Divine Blood Lotus, now fully active, infused Adarsha's soul with divine strength. Slowly, his consciousness bloomed within that divine sanctuary.
It is time, he thought. But I will not be born like an ordinary human.
With a calm clarity far beyond his age, Adarsh placed his tiny hands over his face and summoned a thread of divine power. A golden light shimmered around him as he formed a ten-inch tear in the inner wall of his mother's womb and slipped through it—emerging into the world not through pain, but through choice.
The moment he entered the world, an invisible force descended. It wrapped around his body, pressing with terrifying weight. Adarsh struggled to breathe, his divine instincts bracing against a power that sought to crush him.
The skies above the Hidden Ice Realm turned black, and seven-colored lightning flickered in the heavens. The Realm Rule itself—Heaven and Earth—had turned against him. Its will tried to cast him out, to eject him from the sanctuary of the Hidden Ice Realm into the broader Ice Rule Realm.
But within his core, the Divine Blood Lotus pulsed again. Its power flared, forming a shield of golden light around him—and around his mother. The Realm Rule's fury was deflected, its assault blunted.
Even as Heaven and Earth intensified its efforts, the divine energy within Adarsh held firm. The sky shrieked with unnatural thunder, but he did not falter.
Why is the world trying to annihilate me? he wondered, gazing upward with eyes newly opened to divinity. If I had not protected myself and my mother, we would both have perished beneath this wrath.
As the clouds roared above, Adarsh remained still—bathed in light, shrouded in divine mystery, and heralded by the rebirth of ancient ideals.