Some Petrahns were brought to their knees at the sight of the Dragon of Veilthorn. In that split second, the ascension process ended.

  Balor didn’t stay visible in his Dragon form for long, only the two seconds of transition it took for time to flow at the normal rate again. The vision of the Dragon was a religious miracle for nearly every faith except one that preached the end times.

  Balor took to the skies of Veilthorn after making himself invisible, hopping to the edge of the small continent that Petrah was established in. From the upper atmosphere, it looked like a patch of soil with a glimmering blue glow due to the Sky Stone crystal that created it a long time ago.

  As he idled there, Balor started wondering about his course of action. He wanted to get rid of the areas affected by the Seedmaker, but he couldn’t do that without a plan. Becoming a Dragon had given him enough power to atomize the planet and a sense of responsibility for his actions.

  I fully expected to be attacked when I became a Dragon. Somehow, that is not one of the thresholds.

  It made him uncomfortable not knowing what the Seedmaker had in mind for him. It certainly wasn’t good, but leaving it open-ended made it hard to strategize.

  The act of cleansing the entire affected region was too narrow. He had to find the source of the bloodstone to cut it off there. But there was no way to do that without coming into contact with Bloodstone himself, which could still trigger the world-ending cataclysm that would render all his work so far useless.

  He’d wanted to become the Dragon through taming Veilthorn. That part was already complete. That didn’t mean he was detached from his creation. There was no use of a Dragon who lost their world the first chance they got.

  In a way, his rush to become a Dragon in itself was detrimental to him long-term. Dragons were supposed to deal with the world at global and interstellar levels. It was no longer convenient for him to descend to the ground with this vast amount of Soul Matter.

  A Dragon was meant to reign over a world with mechanisms that could fix itself and keep itself running even in their absence. Balor had essentially created conditions for the first global civilization accelerate to interstellar travel with magics.

  This left a lot of holes in other aspects and made for an unbalanced and unpredictable world. Even then, this was the right decision for his own preservation. If Veilthorn failed again, he’d at least be a Dragon for the next round.

  I still want to keep this one.

  Balor flew close to the ground as he neared the worst bloodstone-affected zone in the largest continent. His Dragon eyes could see souls through all the occlusions. He saw them as hovering sparks of yellow. The ones warped by bloodstone were tinted orange.

  As he flew, his soul matter fashioned new sensory organs fit for the task of picking up vast amounts of information about every soul below him. The processed river of information flooded his mind as if he experienced it firsthand.

  There were many shades of bloodstone corruption, mainly divided into two categories: the living and the dead. Bloodstone wielders spiraled into the depths of psychosis without ever realizing it, and unwittingly spread bloodstone to others through violent means.

  It completely overrode Sky Stone as a resource and offered a much more durable crystalline lattice, which was reusable. Source energy could be drained from Sky Stone, and if it was absorbed by someone exposed to the Anti-Source of the Bloodstone, it caused a chain reaction within them that slowly transformed their specialized organ to corrupt the gathered energy to Anti-Source.

  Bloodstone also did not destroy easily. It held its shape almost like quartz, and it could be endlessly drained and refilled through existing cultivation techniques.

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  Balor compared the differences to figure out what made Bloodstone so competitive with Sky Stone. The latter could be absorbed at once through consuming the malleable crystal. It was convenient to use in dire situations. The crystal’s durability was a weakness for bloodstone, because that meant it couldn’t infuse Anti-Source as fast. It was countering that with the conversion through corruption.

  It is hijacking the Sky Stone’s best feature. It has an endless pool to claim for itself.

  Hovering above the largest continent, Balor expanded his soul matter in the exact shape to fit the affected region. He couldn’t go down to cleanse them, but his plan no longer needed him to.

  An area that could fit a thousand Petrah-sized cities started scorching under the searing heat generated by the soul matter curtain above. His soul matter adapted to produce raw heat through internal processes involving a lot of friction.

  Using it this way, he made sure not to touch Bloodstone or Anti-Source. The heat gradually grew, eventually setting off forest fires everywhere. Ground cracked as all moisture evaporated, and the accelerated drought killed a few thousand former Veilthornians. Balor kept the heat going to make their bodies shrivel up and burn to ashes in order to prevent them from becoming undead.

  That was the second method that Bloostone spread in. It didn’t let the dead go without being useful. Bloodstone users became husks for the Seedmaker’s will, bloodstone growing out of their bones. The undead horde had been the most difficult problem to deal with before the partitioning of the world.

  An undead bloostone user exploded the moment Source energy touched them, spreading their growing crystal shards flying in every direction. Anyone contaminated by those shards slowly corrupted.

  Balor made sure to incinerate the entire section of the continent, making it utterly blackened and barren.

  It would take ages for the vegetation to return, but things could grow faster on well-fertilized soil after this particular forest fire.

  There was one advantage in partitioning the world. He could do anything behind the veil of separation. No one would know what happened because no one was left to tell the tale.

  He repeated this scorching technique for the strata below the surface. The first stratum was almost as contaminated as the surface, with nothing left to save. He manipulated the heat to burn in a way that managed the ventilation of the smoke clouds without it spreading everywhere underground.

  The second stratum was a war. He encountered a delicate situation there with three castles still fighting against corruption after the great split had cut them off from the rest of the land.

  Balor made the heat more gradual towards the area fully occupied by Bloodstone contaminated, while keeping the three castles relatively safe. He surely scorched a few good souls fighting deep in the territories, but it was still better than turning everything to ashes. He hoped to visit the sector again to check how they would deal with the residue of the corruption.

  If they survive long enough, they might be worth preserving.

  With the absence of his own race, he could use resilient fighters like them for the time being.

  The third stratum was the worst case of bloodstone contamination. It wasn’t as populated there as the rest, just a few islands in the dark ocean.

  The affected there had long turned undead with the lack of survival support from the upper strata. Their forms had evolved, and each one that he saw could spread Bloodstone to a hundred others if they ever found a way to climb into higher strata.

  Balor scorched them to ashes, boiling the dark ocean around the islands into white clouds. Some of the undead exploded as if triggered by the sudden change of temperature itself.

  Bloodstone shards burst in all directions whenever they did, including upwards. Balor squeezed himself back to the smallest size when one shard almost hit his soul matter.

  That was close!

  Repeating the same type of attack in lower strata was incredibly risky. The gap between strata was limited, and even if he flew higher, he would hit the ceiling.

  He needed a different way to deal with lower strata.

  All lessons learned, Balor traveled back through strata holes to the surface, returning to the upper atmosphere within three seconds.

  The sector that he scorched remained smoldering black smoke, the partition sector covered in a gray fog within. The partition height ended somewhere below the mid-point of the atmosphere, and the smoke leaked over, altering weather patterns.

  It would be the only way for Petrahn scholars to figure out something was happening in those bloodstone sectors.

  Balor dashed towards the next continent and spread his soul matter again. The trees shriveled, and everything dry caught fire immediately. He repeated the same surface burn like before, rendering the ground barren and charred.

  Once it was done, he slid into the first stratum. To his surprise, it was about halfway defended successfully. An elven king was directing his forces defiantly, keeping the bloodstone at bay. There was a clear defensive trench line where all sorts of fortifications had been made with magics, with a layered defense system.

  It made things easier for Balor. He spread his soul matter with one edge corresponding to the shape of the trench.

  He started scorching them as fast as he could.

  He had potentially found another civilization that he wanted to foster.