The mysterious energy did not stop spreading.
From the depths of the earth, and from that unknown source whose true nature no will had been able to perceive, that energy continued to rise without interruption, like an immense current that knew no meaning of an end, piercing through Ibiron’s deepest layers before flowing throughout the entirety of the planet.
It crossed the Upper Continent.
It reached its farthest borders.
It seeped into every land, every mountain, every valley, and every remote corner that the feet of cultivators had not reached for countless ages.
And it did not stop there.
It continued descending toward the depths of the Great Ocean, permeating its deepest layers and passing beyond the dark waters that sunlight had not reached for distant ages, until even those creatures dwelling in the deepest parts of the ocean could sense it.
The mysterious energy spread in every direction.
Boundless.
Endless in its course.
With not even the slightest sign that it would stop.
And strangest of all...
Its density did not stabilize.
Instead, it continued to increase.
Without end.
As though the source feeding it knew neither depletion nor exhaustion, and as though the energy flowing from the depths of Ibiron was not merely a force leaking into the world, but something far deeper—something that had remained hidden within the heart of this planet for a span of time no one could possibly estimate.
And as that energy spread throughout the world...
the Ascendant Immortals sensed it.
High above the Upper Continent stood countless Ascendant Immortals of different races.
Humans.
Dragons.
Giants.
And other races that were watching the changes sweeping across Ibiron.
Their gazes followed the mysterious energy that had now filled the world. Yet despite having reached the Ascendant Immortal Realm, and despite their vast knowledge and profound understanding of the world’s powers, they were unable to determine what this energy was.
They did not know its name.
They did not know its source.
And they did not know why it had appeared at this particular time.
But...
There was something else.
Something that did not exist within their minds, but deep within their hearts.
A strange feeling.
Mysterious.
Yet unmistakably clear despite its mystery.
There was a sensation telling them that this energy...
was beneficial to them.
Extremely beneficial.
Nearly every Ascendant Immortal felt that sensation, whether they were human, dragon, giant, or of another race.
And that feeling was not merely a passing intuition.
It was a profound sensation that was difficult to ignore, as though some unknown part of their existence was capable of recognizing the value of this energy before their minds could comprehend its true nature.
But that did not bring them joy.
Instead, it brought even greater confusion.
One Ascendant Immortal from the Giants looked at the energy spreading around him, then slowly clenched his fist.
"Why do I feel this way?"
No one answered him.
He turned toward another Ascendant Immortal from the Humans.
"Do you feel it too?"
The man slowly nodded.
"Yes."
"And you don't know what it is?"
"No."
A brief silence descended.
The Ascendant Immortals stared at the energy around them as though they were standing before something beyond their understanding—something their bodies and souls could sense the value of, while their minds were incapable of giving it a name.
One of the Dragons spoke in a low voice:
"This feeling is extremely strange..."
Then he added:
"It's as though our bodies know this energy... while we do not."
Those words only deepened their confusion.
How could a being feel that an energy was beneficial to it—extremely beneficial—without even knowing what it was?
The Ascendant Immortals hesitated.
None of them was willing to take the risk.
The energy that had appeared before had already proven dangerous to anyone who attempted to absorb it without knowing its nature.
But after a period of hesitation...
one of the human Ascendant Immortals made a decision.
He was a man who stood at the peak of the Ascendant Immortal Realm.
He remained silent for several moments, staring at the mysterious energy surrounding his body.
Then he took a deep breath.
He extended his hand.
His gaze wavered for one final moment.
And then...
he attempted to absorb the energy.
Nothing happened at first.
The Ascendant Immortal remained suspended in the air as the strands of mysterious energy surrounding him began to move slowly.
Then...
a tiny strand of energy entered his body.
At the first moment, he felt no pain.
Nor did any violent backlash occur.
On the contrary...
his body was actually able to absorb it.
Although extremely slowly.
And in an exceedingly weak manner.
But it was enough.
The instant that strand entered his dantian...
the Ascendant Immortal trembled slightly.
His eyes widened.
He had felt a change.
An extremely slight change...
but a real one.
His cultivation, which had already reached the peak of the Ascendant Immortal Realm, began to rise slowly.
The increase was not great.
Nor was it enough to directly break through the bottleneck.
But it was unmistakable.
His cultivation, which had remained stuck at the peak of the Ascendant Immortal Realm for many years...
was moving slightly closer to the next level.
The man stared inwardly in astonishment.
"This..."
He could not finish his words.
He had felt it clearly.
That tiny strand of mysterious energy was actually capable of affecting his cultivation.
But before he could comprehend what had happened...
suddenly.
Something appeared in his mind.
It was not a voice.
Nor was it an image.
It was a name.
A name that appeared strangely within his consciousness, as though his mind had not created it, as though something had placed it there directly.
The Ascendant Immortal froze.
His eyes widened even further.
He remained suspended in the air without moving.
The human Ascendant Immortals watched their companion.
The man stood before them in absolute silence.
He did not move.
He did not speak.
Nor did he appear to hear anything around him.
The scene was so strange that one of the Ascendant Immortals closest to him immediately approached.
"What is wrong with you?"
He did not answer.
The man reached out and shook his shoulder slightly.
"Wake up."
No response.
The Ascendant Immortal grew even more confused.
He shook him again.
But the man, who stood at the peak of the Ascendant Immortal Realm, remained lost in his astonishment, as though his mind had completely frozen before something beyond his ability to comprehend.
"Did something happen to him?"
"Perhaps there was a problem caused by the energy!"
Several Ascendant Immortals began approaching.
But the man closest to him did not wait any longer.
He raised his hand...
and slapped him hard across the face.
SMACK!
The sound echoed through the air.
In the next instant, the stunned cultivator’s body trembled.
He blinked.
His consciousness returned to the present.
He looked around for several moments, as though he did not understand where he was.
Then the gazes of the Ascendant Immortals fell upon him.
Everyone was waiting for an explanation.
But instead of becoming angry that someone had slapped him across the face...
his entire expression changed.
A strange expression of ecstasy appeared on his features.
An ecstasy in which astonishment and excitement intertwined, as though an immense discovery had erupted deep within his heart.
Suddenly...
he shouted in an excited and astonished voice:
"I know what this mysterious energy is!"
The Ascendant Immortals around him froze.
Then they rushed toward him.
"What is it?"
"Tell us!"
"What is its name?"
Their voices overlapped around him, but the man could no longer conceal his excitement.
He smiled broadly, a smile stretching from ear to ear.
Then he said in a voice filled with excitement:
"It is Immortal Energy!"
The human Ascendant Immortals around him froze.
For several moments...
no one moved.
It was as though the three words that had emerged from their companion’s mouth had stopped time itself.
Immortal Energy.
That name...
was known to them.
Indeed, it was among the terms that had aroused the greatest interest in the information they had discovered in the mysterious stone murals.
The Ascendant Immortals exchanged glances.
Then they began approaching the Ascendant Immortal at the peak, anticipation clearly visible on their faces.
They wanted confirmation.
Proof.
Anything that could establish that what their companion had said was not merely a guess.
One of them quickly asked:
"Are you certain?"
The man answered without hesitation:
"Yes."
"How did you know its name?"
He pointed toward his head.
"The name appeared in my mind after I managed to absorb a strand of it."
Then he added:
"And I felt my cultivation rise."
A heavy silence descended.
What he had said was not merely a claim.
They had living evidence before them.
Their companion had indeed managed to absorb a strand of the mysterious energy.
And the name Immortal Energy had appeared in his mind immediately afterward.
He had also felt his cultivation rise, albeit slightly.
The eyes of the Ascendant Immortals began to change.
If what their companion had said was true...
then this energy was not merely some unknown energy.
It was something that the generations born after the War of the Great Ones had awaited without even knowing that they were waiting for it.
It was Immortal Energy.
The information that humanity had hidden for thirty years flooded into their minds.
For the murals that humanity had recovered from the remnants of the ancient world contained far more than what Aldous had recounted during his lecture.
The murals held much more information.
Dangerous information.
Important information.
Information that had not been revealed to the public, but had instead been carefully concealed, known only to the rulers of the Human Council—that is, these human Ascendant Immortals themselves.
The reason was clear.
They did not want that information to leak to the other races.
And within those murals...
Immortal Energy was mentioned several times.
There was also a clear confirmation of something of tremendous importance:
For an Ascendant Immortal to break through into the Human Immortal Realm, they had to reshape their physical body with Immortal Energy, allowing their existence to transcend and transform into a higher life form beyond mortal humans.
That was the path to immortality.
The path that had been severed long ago.
The path that had disappeared from Ibiron after the War of the Great Ones.
But now...
Immortal Energy was here.
Filling the world.
And increasing without end.
Most importantly...
their companion had actually managed to absorb a strand of it.
One of the Ascendant Immortals looked at his companion.
Then at the energy surrounding them.
Then back at him.
"Then..."
He could not finish the sentence.
Everyone understood what this truth meant.
If this energy truly was Immortal Energy...
then what was happening now was not merely a strange change within Ibiron.
It was an immense opportunity.
An opportunity for all Ascendant Immortals of every race.
An opportunity to reach the Human Immortal Realm.
An opportunity to reach a higher level of existence.
For a moment...
the Ascendant Immortals remained standing in silence.
Then one of them suddenly burst into laughter.
"Hahahahaha!"
Another followed.
"Hahahahaha!"
Then a third laughed.
Within moments, the laughter of the human Ascendant Immortals erupted into the sky—genuine, resounding laughter carrying a joy these cultivators had not known for a very long time.
They laughed loudly.
They laughed without restraint.
The echoes of their laughter reverberated for hundreds of meters around them.
Some shouted in overwhelming happiness.
Others raised their voices, expressing their joy.
Their laughter continued for several minutes.
Its echoes even reached the Central City below them, allowing the humans within the city to hear the laughter descending from the sky.
But after several minutes...
the laughter gradually faded.
Then silence returned.
One of the Ascendant Immortals was looking at his companions, a different expression upon his face.
An expression carrying a dangerous thought that had suddenly occurred to him.
He said:
"Friends..."
Everyone stopped.
Then he continued:
"Don't you remember that the mysterious murals stated that after the end of the War of the Great Ones millions of years ago, and after the World Origin suffered immense damage, the Supreme World Consciousness entered..."
The moment he spoke those words...
his expression changed.
That name alone was enough to transform his features from joy into reverence and veneration.
The Supreme World Consciousness.
There was other information.
Information that Aldous had not recounted during his lecture.
Information far more dangerous than what ordinary humans knew.
The mysterious stone murals that humanity had obtained thirty years ago had revealed additional truths about Ibiron.
Truths that the rulers of the Human Council had not allowed to leak to the other races.
And the reason was not merely the desire to keep the knowledge for themselves...
but because that information was so dangerous and important that revealing it to everyone could lead to consequences no one could predict.
But now...
with the appearance of Immortal Energy...
that ancient information had begun to regain its meaning.
The Ascendant Immortals continued looking at one another.
Then one of them said in a lower voice:
"The Supreme Will..."
The moment the name was spoken, the atmosphere around them became more serious.
The Supreme Will...
was the Supreme World Consciousness of Ibiron.
The murals had stated that it had entered a slumber after the War of the Great Ones.
It was not an ordinary slumber.
It was for the purpose of healing itself from the immense damage it had suffered as a result of the battle of the Great Beings.
The World Origin had suffered tremendous damage.
And that damage had affected all of Ibiron.
After the Supreme Will entered its slumber...
the proportion of spiritual energy in Ibiron fell to its minimum.
Immortal Energy disappeared completely.
And Divine Energy disappeared as well.
And with the disappearance of Immortal Energy...
the path to immortality was severed for the cultivators who had been born after the War of the Great Ones.
The path leading to the Human Immortal Realm had become a dead path.
Not because the cultivators lacked sufficient talent.
Nor because they lacked determination.
But because the energy they required...
no longer existed.
One of the Ascendant Immortals slowly raised his head.
His eyes were fixed upon the mysterious energy filling the sky.
The energy whose name they had not known at first.
The energy that had confused them.
The energy they had felt was beneficial to them without knowing why.
The energy that had nearly become nothing more than another mystery to them...
until one of them managed to absorb a strand of it.
Immortal Energy.
The name echoed through their minds.
And at that moment, none of them could continue viewing what was happening as merely a strange phenomenon.
Because the return of Immortal Energy meant something greater.
Something directly connected to the deepest secrets concealed within the murals.
Something connected to the Supreme Will.
Something connected to the damage that had struck the World Origin.
And something that might mean...
that the path which had been severed since the end of the War of the Great Ones was no longer closed as it once had been.
The Ascendant Immortals remained silent.
And the Immortal Energy continued flowing around them.
Filling the Upper Continent.
Sinking into the Great Ocean.
And spreading throughout Ibiron without end.
And within that world that had lived for millions of years deprived of immortality...
the path had appeared once again.
But the question that remained suspended within their hearts was more terrifying than any answer:
If Immortal Energy has returned...
what does that mean for Ibiron?