Chapter 429 The Day the Clouds Died

Umbraen Practitioners did not capture every Spark they found. Instead, they left many in their natural zones and returned at intervals to farm energy crystals, keeping a stable income for their kingdom.

As long as a Spark posed little danger and did not threaten nearby villages, they allowed it to remain where it was. They waited for it to reshape its surroundings with its particular energies, then came back to harvest the crystals, left the Spark alone again, and waited for the next cycle. In this way, they kept a continuous, reliable harvest running across the land.

"How much income are we talking about?" Henry asked, curiosity sharpening his tone.

They had also found a few ways to farm energy crystals so far, but none of them were stable.

Adyr shrugged. "I don't know. You need to find out for yourselves."

The information he had came from other Titled Practitioners, so they had only given him vague numbers. They were not sure what the Umbraens' yearly income actually was.

"Looks like we will need more manpower for all the work to be done," Henry said thoughtfully. His eyes drifted to the ash-streaked flats and the fractured ridges beyond, already mapping supply points and work crews in his head. The main problem was transferring that manpower from Earth to Beyond, and for that, they would need a large number of energy crystals.

Luckily, Adyr was ready for that as well. "You can use the crystals you will mine from the Colossith's hideout in Velari territory."

Adyr had planned to use those crystals for himself, but now he decided staking them on this investment was the better choice.

He then added almost casually, "Also, to help you clean the place, I think I can try something to speed up your work."

"What do you plan?" Henry looked at him with a puzzled expression.

Adyr only chuckled in answer as he unfurled his white and black wings and stepped out of the hoverjet's cabin.

Before rising, he turned and smiled. "I will kill the clouds."

"Kill the clouds?" Henry's puzzlement deepened. He did not understand what Adyr meant, not until he showed it.

Adyr beat his wings and climbed into the sky until he was directly beneath the thick, sickly cloud layer that filtered the sunlight and kept it from reaching the ground.

Then he summoned Sszhar's massive body. The dark, void-like scales hung under him with a heavy, ominous presence, dulling the already dim light as if they drank it in.

"That's..." Henry, seeing the creature for the first time, felt his head spin for a heartbeat.

The being floating under Adyr's feet was not only enormous but also so grand that merely looking at it made a person's legs weaken and cold sweat gather at the brow.

Henry pulled himself together quickly, forced down the shock he felt, and addressed the STF soldiers waiting at attention behind him. "Start recording him. I want everything captured from a good angle."

He did not know what Adyr intended, but whatever it was would be large, and he wanted every step documented cleanly.

The STF soldiers were stunned as well, but the order snapped them out of it. They saluted sharply and moved to carry it out.

After summoning Sszhar, Adyr first checked his energy reserves. "I have a little more than 10,000. That will be more than enough."

He had received those crystals from Throgar to subdue the Blood Dragon, but with plans changed, he decided to use them for something else and gave Sszhar the order.

"Go clean the sky. I want to see the sun without any disturbance."

The massive serpent answered with a low hiss, then its body slid through the air and rose above the cloud deck.

A moment later, it used its Rift Maw skill, opening a pocket dimension in the sky and pulling a huge mass of cloud into it.

Adyr studied the clear opening and the light breaking through, a quiet satisfaction settling on his features.

The skill burned a little more than 400 crystals to use, and to clear everything, it would need to be used a few more times.

The work looked very costly for the task, but Adyr did not care about spending a few thousand for his personal pleasure. To him, it was like a rich man paying thousands of dollars for a painting he would only look at and appreciate at home.

The only difference was that Adyr's painting was grander. His painting was the sky itself.

Henry and the others watched from the hoverjets, struck silent by the display of power reshaping nature before their eyes.

Though the three Titled Practitioners had already returned to their kingdoms to handle their own affairs, Selina and the other humans remained aboard their hoverjets, coordinating strategies and plans. So from their vantage points in the sky, they too witnessed the scene unfolding before them.

Sure, they could have cleared the sky with their tech as well, especially since this wasn't a planet-wide blanket like Earth's atmosphere, which is much harder to clean.

But still, what Adyr had done in seconds would have taken their machines hours, maybe days.

Even if left alone, the atmosphere would have restored itself in time, yet seeing the clouds vanish instantly and watching sunlight pour freely through the

breach left everyone of them awed.

Their amazement, however, was far from over.

After clearing the sky-burning a little less than two thousand energy in the process-Adyr didn't stop.

He dismissed Sszhar back into his Sanctuary, then turned his gaze toward the scarred earth below, where columns of heat still shimmered over cracked and blackened ground.

His right, white wing began to shine as if drawing light directly from the restored sun.

Radiance gathered and spilled downward in great shafts, each beam touching the ruined land like falling rivers of gold. Grace's warmth flowed into the soil, its healing nature spreading in visible waves.

Although it was a bloodline talent meant for healing, its effects were not only physical but spiritual. Adyr had long realized that the very ground of this world differed from Earth's-it breathed, aged, and could suffer.

Now, before his eyes, that suffering began to fade.

The scorched terrain slowly regained color. Charred earth softened and healed like wounded flesh closing over time. Beneath the surface, stubborn seeds that had survived the devastation began to stir, sensing the flow of new life. Tiny green sprouts broke through the soil one after another, reaching upward like travelers dying of thirst in a desert, stretching toward the divine light to drink its energy.

Seconds turned to minutes, and the transformation continued. The once-dead land shed its ashen shell, new life weaving itself across the surface. Green returned in patches, spreading through the cracks and hollows until the battlefield below them looked less like a grave and more like the first breath of a reborn world.

"Did you record all of it?" Henry's voice was tight as he addressed the soldiers near him.

He wasn't sure whether they should release the earlier footage to the public on Earth; it showed too much destruction, and he had no clear sense of how people would react to scenes like that.

But with this new footage, he felt certain that even the environmental hardliners and purists would fall silent and accept what this new generation of power was bringing to their world.