"Hahaha… splendid—kill them all!"

"Those thieves who siphoned the Empire's lifeblood—every last one deserves to die!"

Their eyes were wide, as if trying to brand the scene into their very souls, to comfort the colleagues who had perished in the long years of darkness.

Farther off, across the sky occupied by a grandmaster domain and a raging giant—a pure-white sword of laws clashed madly with a golden battle-axe and a bulwark-sized shield.

Each exchange detonated ruinous shockwaves that annihilated everything nearby.

As a special summoned unit, the War Bear fought with primal instinct and inborn might; incredibly, it met the grandmaster-rank Silas head-on without falling behind in the slightest!

Add to that the nonstop coordinated fire from more than five thousand Doomsday Warriors surrounding them—pillar-thick bolts of annihilating lightning tore through space, pummeling the pure-white cross-shaped greatsword and the King of Snow divine aspect behind it, pinning Silas hard in place!

The burly man watching from far away twitched at the corner of his mouth.

A grandmaster's dread power defies ordinary limits; it is not something the mundane mind can fathom.

Legend has it that the former Pope Karon, bearing a top-tier Light divine aspect, once repelled an army of over a hundred thousand from the Filoro Empire and nearly ten ordinary grandmasters—with a single strike.

Silas's rank and accumulated foundation might not equal Karon's, but he was dazzling all the same.

A King of Snow divine aspect had, in its day, carved legendary achievements into history.

And yet now he was being suppressed—by imperial soldiers whose average power was only Peak Master Rank 4–5, led by a commander technically below his own rank.

Worse, the opposing side didn't even have a true grandmaster anchoring their formation!

The sword-snow domain he'd raised, that boundless realm of falling blades like snow, erupted ceaselessly with extremity-honed sword auras.

They collided again and again with the dense, raging storms of annihilating lightning, tearing the sky to tatters. The earthshaking reverberations could be felt for hundreds of miles.

Silas's heart grew heavier as the battle wore on, and his moves became ever more cautious.

There was a time when his King of Snow divine aspect alone could suppress tens of thousands of Peak Masters—when a single sword strike could cull hundreds of them.

But now the enemy's power far exceeded that old boundary, and their combined annihilation was too terrifying to ignore.

By himself he could not withstand this ever-growing, perfectly synchronized Doom Legion—let alone break through to rescue Sacco, who knelt in humiliation within the Emperor's Dominion.

What's more, the opponent at hand utterly upended his battlefield expectations—

His energy tier was clearly around Peak Master Rank 8, and yet the ferocity of his assault and the uncanny, four-armed giant body allowed him to match a true grandmaster head-on.

If he were half a step into Master Rank… or even…

The thought flashed through Silas's mind.

At last he felt a deep, unsettling foreboding toward this young emperor Aurek, who had hidden his edge for so many years.

I must report to His Holiness…

Neither the Crossbridge Empire nor Aurek can be allowed to remain!

Silas reached his decision.

Inside the Emperor's Dominion—supreme majesty crushed all enemies within its bounds.

Aside from the ragged old man and a few Peak Master Rank 9 guardians, who struggled bitterly to endure, everyone of Peak Master Rank 1–2 and below had already fallen to their knees in unwilling shame.

Sacco's self-confidence—born of top-tier talent and the Church's radiance—suffered a shattering blow.

Humiliation gnawed at his heart like a venomous serpent, darkening the resolve in his once-steady eyes.

To be publicly crushed and forced to kneel—the disgrace seared deeper than any slight or jeer.

He fought, straining against the shackle of royal authority.

He goaded the power embedded within the Codex of Solo, trying to break the suffocating yoke of the crown.

On every kneeling face, unwillingness twisted their features.

The ragged old man's withered hands clenched a shabby-looking backpack.

Together with several guardians, he resisted the omnipresent domineering will, sheltering the prodigies behind them as best he could.

At the same time, they hurled surging magic against the intangible yet unbreakable Emperor's Dominion, trying to tear open a path for Lister, the masked youth, and the others.

Under the pincer of internal and external pressure, the entire dominion quaked violently.

Aurek's eyes were cold; he hesitated not at all.

He raised the King's Sword in his hand—and brought it down toward the kneeling Sacco!

But the Divine Carapace flared once more.

A dense, heavy carapace-etched barrier blossomed around Sacco, shielding him completely.

The artifact's power was indeed formidable.

The Ordon Theocracy's investment in Sacco was staggering; even the killing edge of

King's Swordsmanship—carrying the Empire's will—had been stymied repeatedly.It had even saved him from a lethal blow earlier.

Just then—a sharp gleam flashed in the ragged old man's eyes.

He tilted his backpack ever so slightly.

A sliver of cold light shot out like a darting fish—and in a blink it became a short blade wreathed in icy radiance: a runic dagger!

The instant the dagger appeared, the domineering rules within the Emperor's Dominion seemed provoked, colliding against one another in violent turbulence.

The runic dagger itself exuded an edge and killing intent near the level of laws—like a sky-splitting beam of dawn that tore through darkness.

It ripped a gash in the dominion's barrier by brute force and, moving faster than sight, lunged straight at Aurek!

A spark of surprise flickered in Aurek's eyes.

To directly contest the absolute rule of Supremacy of the Crown—this short blade was anything but simple.

And more:the killing intent within the blade made him feel a long-absent sense of danger.

Even facing a grandmaster like Silas had not stirred this feeling.

This dagger was anything but ordinary.

"Now—go!"

With the Emperor's Dominion briefly torn open, Teresa seized her one chance at escape.

Aurek did not immediately pursue Sacco.

Instead, he flicked his sword in a single, death-laced arc.

Slish!

Teresa's exquisite figure split cleanly at the waist, severed midair.

"Old sir, save me!"

Seeing the Church's heir saintess cut in two in an instant, Lister panicked, scrambling toward the ragged old man on hands and knees.

He recognized the short blade from the wine gourd—the old man's last-ditch lifesaver, rumored to have been condensed by a Stellar Rank powerhouse!

Its killing power was immense, said to cleave S-class weapons as if they were paper!

With sufficient mana behind it, it could even wound a grandmaster's divine aspect!

"Ah—!!"

At the same moment, Sacco threw back his head and roared.

He activated a forbidden technique within the Codex of Solo; holy light burst from his eyes in twin, dazzling lances.

Pure, blazing radiance surged skyward, briefly scouring the kingly sword-intent around him.

The instant Aurek bisected Teresa, he invoked his light-shadow affinity again—his form melted into the void, as though he had never existed at all.

The remaining guardians were stricken with terror, scouring the air for the slightest trace of him.

"Combine forces—kill Aurek first! Otherwise none of us leave alive!"

The guardian of the Brotherhood of the Old Gods tried to rally the others—

But Aurek, fused with the void, arrived in an eye-blink.

The sword light of the Sacrospring Sword lanced down through the head of the bear-masked youth—and drove on, straight for the guardian standing behind him.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.