After absorbing the nine lightning tribulations, creating a true peak-turn technique, and refining his old techniques to the true peak-turn level, he felt confident enough to face the harvester alone. He knew the harvester must have gained something equivalent to the nine lightning tribulation's thunder, and her strength had likely increased again — there was even a chance she had touched upon the concept of true peak-turns.
Black God Solanky waved his hand, and the hammer from before flew toward him. This hammer had been newly refined by Solanky, and its grade had been elevated. Once a second-grade mid-level weapon suitable for second-turn peak-turn beings, it had now been raised to the peak-level of the fourth grade, its power surging drastically — to the point that it was almost unusable for Solanky, since his current strength wasn't enough to wield it properly. He could feel the weight of the hammer exceed its previous requirements; it now weighed the equivalent of 4 trillion Infinite Source Worlds, a number that even true peak-turn beings below the third-turn would struggle to lift with everything they had. A mere half-step being like himself had no business hefting it at all.
Solanky simply lowered his hand before the hammer could even draw close to him. It crashed into the floor of the cauldron with a heavy THUD. He flew out of the cauldron and reappeared on the inheritance floor, immediately sensing the shift in temperature — the harvester's fire cauldron was still scorching hot, and the ground beneath it had begun to slowly melt.
A beam of fire shot out from the cauldron, its silhouette taking the shape of a fiery red phoenix — the harvester, who had subdued the cauldron's flames and reforged her wings from them. She spread her burning wings and drew a long spear, a second-grade peak-turns weapon she had just finished refining. All the while, the ancestors and the three guardians remained unaware of what was unfolding within the pyramid.
Black God Solanky was stunned. Never in his wildest thoughts had he imagined the harvester capable of refining a true peak-turns artifact at her current level — which could only mean her spiritual body was truly above the first-turn, perhaps even comparable to the early stage of a second-turn spiritual body.
The harvester flapped her wings, and a fiery tornado surged toward Solanky, incinerating everything in its path. Even materials below the true peak-turns level were reduced to ash, and most of the half-step peak-turn grade materials were swallowed by flame. Solanky frowned, knowing that brute strength and the superiority of his lifeform alone wouldn't be enough to weather the oncoming storm. He raised a hand toward the sky of the floor, dark clouds gathering above him, then dropped it — a bolt of lightning struck the fiery tornado and dissolved it instantly.
The harvester startled; she hadn't even sensed the lightning descend. She lunged at Solanky, thrusting her long spear forward. Without hesitation, he drew his giant axe and charged to meet her. The harvester smiled, certain she'd already won this round — she believed Solanky had failed to forge a weapon of his own, which meant victory, and with it, the second pyramid along with all its weapons, resources, and tokens, would be hers the moment she killed or critically wounded this clone of his.
She went all out, activating her domain. Two-thirds of the second floor's world-space was swallowed into darkness. Solanky felt his movements grow sluggish the instant the domain enveloped him. Wasting no time, he activated the harmonious strings technique to track her position. He located her amid the shadows, advancing on him slowly. He could have countered with the spiritual killing array drawn from the golden statue — but he held back. He wanted to gauge the true power of her dark domain and uncover the hidden laws behind it.
That hesitation cost him. The harvester's spear pierced his shoulder, her domain cloaking her approach and amplifying her speed. Where the spear struck, the wound began to erode, devouring the energy in that part of his body.
Black God Solanky staggered, stunned — he hadn't imagined the harvester possessed a technique capable of consuming his energy so viciously. Sensing his shock, she smiled with satisfaction and struck again, driving the spear into his other shoulder.
Realizing she meant to cripple him — to keep him from countering with his axe, which posed the greatest threat to her — Solanky shook his head and spat out a glossy, velvet, cube-shaped object. The moment it appeared, the harvester frowned; as the one who controlled the domain, she could sense another domain forming within her own, one that surpassed hers by a fraction.
"Rotate and expand," Solanky murmured. The glossy cube unfolded across its surfaces, rotating slowly as it grew. Within a few breaths, the entire world-space of the second floor was swallowed by the cube's domain, and the harvester's dark domain shrank to a tenth of its former size.
A flicker of danger stirred in her soul, and she decided to flee toward the third floor. But Solanky wasn't about to let that happen — he knew he had to kill this clone of hers, no matter the cost, even if it meant unleashing every trump card he had. He pointed toward her retreating form, and countless spiked chains shot forward, hunting her down. But she was too fast, her fiery wings carrying her in evasive arcs that outmaneuvered every chain converging on her from all directions.
Solanky sighed and activated the devouring heart technique, suppressing the residual effects of her spear strikes — the strange, eroding energy halted and was drawn into him instead. The harvester, still tethered to that energy, felt a jolt of shock as the essence of her domain and techniques — knowledge she had poured herself into creating — vanished into an abyss she could no longer sense.
Desperate, she reached into the remnants of her half-step peak-turn halo, a fragment inherited from a saint-transcendent entity that had not yet transformed into a true crown of laws, and shattered it. Her power surged, climbing to a level comparable to the first-turn of true peak-turns. She turned to the walls of the glossy velvet cube and hurled her spear. With overwhelming force, the cube's domain shattered, and she broke free, flying clear of its confines.
Solanky was floored. Never had he imagined she would go so far — wounding and stalling the growth of her own clone, sacrificing its chance at reaching the true peak-turns level, just to escape his trap.
"A wounded tiger is far more dangerous than a healthy one," Solanky murmured to himself, cautiously shrinking the domain until it covered only a few meters around him.
Having broken through to the third floor, the harvester cursed under her breath. "Damn it. I'll have to kill this old fool, or I'll lose my reputation after today — and this clone of mine might fall along with this pyramid. He forced me to sacrifice the last of my halo's power before it could fully transform into my own laws. Now this clone will never reach the true peak-turns level... sigh. I've given up everything for this clone. And I'll owe our ancestor an even greater debt for helping me create it." Her expression hardened. "I have no choice. I must kill him and seize the lightning cauldron — it may hold an inheritance of law to rival my own calamity flames. I have less than an hour before the unstable time dilation catches up with us, now that we've claimed a cauldron. Killing him will settle my debt to the ancestor, once and for all."
She halted, turning back toward Solanky's black god clone, then surged forward with her falsely elevated true peak-turns body, intent on ending him in a single strike. Solanky saw the intent in her eyes immediately. He formed seals with his hands, weaving layer upon layer of protective and restraining techniques. The spiritual killing array and the harmonious strings spread silently outward, taking shape across a ten-kilometer radius around him — and he waited, patient and still, for the harvester to step into the range of his trap.