Ordinarily, these so-called prodigies could punch above their weight—true.

But before a legion of peak master rank warriors, individual valor was pale to the point of farce.

Especially Lister!He was only at Hero Rank.

Staring at the tidal wave of peak master ranks surging toward him, an unprecedented sense of helplessness and insignificance shattered his last nerve.

He would rather face a single enraged grandmaster than be swallowed by this endless army of master ranks!

Well… either way, the result might be the same.

"Go!" The scruffy old man could no longer maintain his calm.

He seized the terrified, frozen Lister, tore open a ragged seam in space with his palm, and tried to dive in to escape.

At the same time, the void behind the gathered prodigies twisted violently.

One after another, figures at peak master rank level 9 and above stepped out in an instant.

They were the hidden guardians shadowing these young elites.

"Aurek!"

"You're declaring war on every power at once! Do you want the Crossbridge Empire consigned to eternal ruin?!"

Sorund's guardian—an elderly man in a robe embroidered with crimson floral sigils—shouted furiously.

A flowing scarlet river, woven from countless pink blossoms, roared forth to bar the Doomsday Warriors' advance.

But—Several Doomsday Warriors swung their pitch-black Greatswords of Annihilation in unison, unleashing a joint Judgment of Destruction.

Space ahead of them crazed like glass with spiderweb cracks; the floral river shattered on impact.

More than thirty level-seven Doomsday Warriors surged forward like sharks scenting blood.

Their annihilation blades fell, intent on rending everything asunder.

Sorund's guardian blanched and began chanting.

Crimson Hills secret art—The Crimson Slaughter!

In the air, innumerable red blossoms bloomed, each one laden with terrifying energy, frantically siphoning the surrounding elemental forces.

Bolstered by the guardian's peak master rank 9 surging mana, the blossoms cascaded down from the firmament like a lethal rain.

Every petal flashed with a perilous glow, enough to pierce steel plate with ease.

Just then—It was as if the blazing sun in the heavens was tugged by some unseen force, casting down a beam of searing light!

The Doomsday Warriors' combined strike absorbed the destroying aspect of the sun, transmuting it into the purest Light of Purification.

Under that sunlight, the falling crimson blossoms unraveled into fundamental motes of energy and vanished.

A flicker of fear crossed the guardian's eyes.

Above his head, a red array—an umbrella of interlocking floral runes—unfurled to bear the relentless sunlight as best it could.

Several Elemental Assassins seized the moment and slipped from the shadows, blades like icicles aimed at vital points.

He had to fling out a vortex of blossom-shaped mana to buffet these vexing killers away.

But in that instant of divided focus—a knot of Doomsday Warriors smashed through the collapsing pocket of fractured space ahead.

One of them brought his black giant sword down savagely on Sorund's shoulder blade.

The heavy armor tore like paper; half of Sorund's shoulder was lopped clean off.

"Ah—!"

Sorund screamed, a sound that tore at the soul.

The lurking Elemental Assassins would never waste such an opening.

Two crisscrossing blades of fatal light flashed like the scythes of Death—

Crack! Crack!

Sorund's body split apart in an instant.

A following annihilation greatsword cleaved straight down, hacking him into pieces.

What remained tumbled from the sky like a broken doll and hit the ground in a grisly rain.

"Damn you!!"

"You imperial dogs! What did the Empire give you to make you this reckless?!"

Sorund's guardian watched his young charge butchered before his eyes and roared like a maddened beast.

His peak master rank 9 mana erupted without restraint.

He hammered palm after furious palm toward the responsible Doomsday Warriors, chasing them with homicidal fury.

"He… he really dared to kill him!"Laiwood's voice trembled with terror.

Disapiel and the others felt a killing cold crawl up from their spines.Lister, Woviz, and the rest stared at Sorund's scattered remains, their lips shivering uncontrollably.

This was a rival, an equal—a fellow "genius" who was friend and foe by turns—cut down like a chicken, butchered like a dog by imperial soldiers.

Aurek was not posturing, not merely establishing authority.

He truly intended to exterminate every enemy present.

As they looked up at that oppressive mass of ten-thousand-plus black armored masters blotting out the sky, an icicle of dread drove from the base of their skulls straight to their crowns.

Silas had witnessed Sorund's grisly end as well.

It wiped away the last trace of condescension he held for Aurek.

His figure flickered through the air, leaving afterimages in his wake.

Each time the white cruciform sword in his hand swept out, the void split open with yawning black seams that lunged to devour War Bear.

War Bear rumbled a low growl.

He didn't raise his massive shield to block; instead, he slammed it forward.

The shield's surface erupted in a sun-bright flood of golden radiance.

Like a moving mountain, he crashed head-on into the rifts carved by Silas's blade.

BOOOOM—!!!

The thunderous blast shook the heavens.

In Eryndor City, many commoners closest to the battlefield clutched their ears and crouched in pain.

Yet Silas's sword aura—tempered by grandmaster-level law—was too keen to fully blunt.

Even that colossal shield bash couldn't completely disperse its condensed edge.

The gap from peak master rank to grandmaster was a chasm—far wider than that between peak master and master.

Grandmaster meant mind power and mana fused with the world's rules; it meant grasping primal truths and condensing a personal divine aspect, wielding the power of law within certain bounds.

A single grandmaster was the stabilizing pillar of an entire realm—the full moon in night, the blazing sun by day.

And in their presence, even peak masters were but stars circling that radiance.

"Aurek! I will personally break every crutch you lean on—every last soldier you rely upon!"

"I will make you—and the entire continent—understand that the Ordon Theocracy's majesty is not to be challenged!"

Silas's voice rolled out cold and vast, an edict impossible to deny.

"Ten thousand years ago, we planted Aurek's banner on this land; ten thousand years later, we will rip it up by the roots and erase this so-called Empire from history!"

Aurek's expression did not change.

In his eyes burned absolute confidence—and a scorn for Silas's proclamations.

War Bear's eyes went blood-bright.

He swept his giant shield to the side and settled into a charging stance.

His titanic frame lowered a fraction; jets of golden energy vented from the seams in his crimson armor.

Light surged along the battle-axe in his hand until the weapon seemed forged from pure, living gold.

He stamped down on the air.

Space groaned and popped beneath his heel.

Riding the recoil, he became a gold cannonball, a storm made flesh, thundering straight at Silas with momentum to crush all things.

His golden axe came down on the lingering sword-qi—

BOOM!

Sword energy and the surrounding void were chopped to pieces by that raw, tyrannical force, atomized into a maelstrom of chaotic power.

Without losing speed, War Bear flashed onward like a golden bolt, still hurtling for Silas.

Silas snorted.

"A brainless brute…"

His figure flickered once more, and the white cross-sword traced a rift that tore the firmament.

Fissures multiplied—black, greedy pythons of emptiness—twining toward War Bear to bind and devour him.

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