The red rain did not stop all at once.

It thinned unevenly, droplets growing farther apart as the sky gradually lightened, leaving behind streaks of dull crimson on stone, armour, and broken earth. The metallic tang lingered in the air even after the last drops fell, clinging to the battlefield like an aftertaste that refused to fade.

Kain could feel it clearly. The flow of Source energy into his body slowed, then tapered off entirely, leaving his reserves fuller than they had been minutes ago but still far from overflowing. Around him, other cultivators reacted in far less controlled ways.

On the eastern front, several 8-star tamers instinctively pulled their auras inward, cutting themselves off from further absorption the moment they realized what was happening. Their expressions were tight, focused, sweat beading on their brows as they stabilized foundations that had been abruptly stirred.

Others weren't so quick.

One 7-star tamer—his armour already half-corroded by the liquefying abyssal's domain—let out a startled, happy gasp as his contract's aura surged violently. The contract resembling a giant tiger's presence flared brighter for a moment, power spiking as fragments of unfamiliar law-energy threaded themselves into its own domain.

For a few precious seconds, it was stronger.

The tiger contract roared, claws and fangs striking deeper than before into the torso of an opposing high-grade abyssal shaped like a hippo coated in a black oil-like substance.

Then its aura wavered.

The tiger's energy circulation faltered abruptly, different strands of power colliding inside it instead of flowing as one as the foreign law-fragments contained within the blood rain conflicted with its own cultivation direction. Its technique misfired, the follow-up strike tearing sideways instead of forward, and it was forced to retreat with a choked roar as blood ran freely from its nose and ears.

All the while its tamer could only watch with worry and trepidation as the feedback of power from his contract was suddenly snuffed out and even began to weaken to a point before the blood rain occurred.

Kain watched it happen, jaw tightening.

This was the price.

The rain carried fragments of the dead violet-grade contract's destroyed domain—laws once refined and stabilized by another will. For those whose own paths aligned closely enough, whose understanding was sharp and foundations deep, it was a rare chance to polish what they already possessed. A step closer to coherence. A nudge toward breakthrough.

For the less talented—or the less compatible—it was poison disguised as opportunity.

Absorbing the wrong law fragments didn't just hurt. It misled. It tugged cultivators away from their proper trajectories, introducing distortions that might not manifest until much later, when a domain refused to stabilize, or a breakthrough stubbornly failed for reasons they would never fully understand.

Kain exhaled slowly.

This was why this blood rain was spoken of with equal parts awe and dread in the old texts.

To the north, the clash of demigods continued unabated. The dragon demigod, aka Aurem's new underling, fought with renewed ferocity, its earlier humiliation burned clean by violence and momentum. The Wrath abyssal howled as draconic flames tore through its manifested rage, while the horned gravity abyssal twisted space desperately to avoid being pinned.

Aurem himself drifted nearby, watching. But his mere presence on that battlefield acted as a shackle to the abyssals who were now being pressured by the dragon demigod alone.

Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, as Kain observed, the red rain did nothing to Aurem. Beneficial or unbeneficial, there was no effect.

Droplets struck his golden scales and slid off without reaction, absorbed neither by his body nor his presence. To Aurem, the fragments of law carried by the rain were too crude, too small, to warrant attention. As a being who was not a native to this world, he existed outside the laws the rain fed into, a sovereign observer rather than a participant.

The contrast was not lost on Kain.

To the east, the liquefying abyssal sensed the shift as the defensive line weakened in some places due to some defenders that didn't measure themselves properly, absorbing more energy from the rain than they should have.

The rain had ended, but the scent of released law-energy lingered, and the abyssal reacted like a predator catching blood on the wind. Its domain surged forward again, black sludge rolling in heavier waves as it pressed the weakened line.

Two more defenders fell in quick succession.

One was dragged screaming beneath the surface of the now liquified ground.

The other vanished without a sound.

Kain's fingers curled unconsciously, about to snap at Aurem for taking his sweet time in the North, and to quickly finish things up over there and head to the East to prevent more casualties. But before he could try and order this lazy, disobedient child again...

Rumble

Then the ground shook.

It was not the same rumble that had heralded Heaven Weeps.

This was sharper. More violent. A sudden, localized convulsion that ripped upward from beneath the battlefield, throwing soldiers and abyssals alike off balance. Cracks spiderwebbed across the ground near the fortress's outer perimeter, glowing faintly with residual light.

Kain's head turned in the direction of the relic he'd just come from earlier that day— although it felt like a lifetime ago.

Raaaaaaaaaaar

From all around came a booming roar that caused many to collapse while foaming at the mouth, or have blood seeping from every orifice.

A dragon's roar.

The earth split.

Stone and debris exploded upward as a massive shape forced its way into the open air, shattering the last remnants of the relic that had once contained it. A translucent black dragon emerged from the depths, its form partially insubstantial, edges flickering and fading as it was in a significantly weakened state.

Its scales were cracked and uneven, abyssal energy leaking from fractures along its body. One wing hung lower than the other, membrane torn and refusing to fully manifest.

It was wounded.

But it was free.

A figure followed close behind, hurled clear of the collapsing relic by the force of the explosion released as it collapsed. He twisted midair, stabilizing himself with practiced ease before landing heavily atop a fractured tower.

The fort's missing 9-star tamer had returned.

His aura flared instinctively in rage as he took in the battlefield, eyes sweeping over the dead, the ruined walls, the lingering red stains of rain that signified that one of the most talented within his fort must have died.

His expression tightened when he saw the black dragon he'd been fighting within the relic for the past couple hours.

"So it escaped too," he muttered, his voice grave.

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