After returning to Source-Devouring Time-Space, the Spirit-Seizing Bone Emperor needed a long time to steady the power within him, which kept surging and trembling.
It was not because Saine had left him under another Seal.
After so long under restraint, he could no longer draw freely on the immense power of the Mother Time-Space as he once had.
Several wounds that had yet to heal even widened again when he first tried to replenish his strength.
The World-Realm Emperor Monarch casually held back a particularly dense wave of bright yellow energy nearby, then divided the remaining power into several strands before letting him absorb it.
The Spirit-Seizing Bone Emperor did not push himself.
He lowered his head and slowly drew back the Rules Body he had intended to unfurl in full.
Only when the familiar Source-Devouring aura had passed through several vital points within him did something else begin to show in his eyes.
The anger was there, of course.
How could he not resent the Mechanical Civilization after being held under its Seal for so many years?
But that anger was not enough to make him forget how he had fallen into their hands, or what he had endured at Saine's hands. Then the Source-Devouring Progenitor's will descended.
The World-Realm Emperor Monarch did not continue answering for the Spirit-Seizing Bone Emperor.
Before the Progenitor, the Level-12 Ancient Emperor could only recount everything he knew as best he could.
He spoke of the multiple Seals imposed on him at first, of his later transfer to a separate mechanical laboratory, and of the sampling and interference with his power that became increasingly difficult to evade.
His account was disjointed.
There were parts of the process he did not understand himself.
The Mechanical God Emperor might spend an extraordinarily long time working