And most importantly, after witnessing the defensive technique Grey had just used, Albert finally confirmed it.

It was the Seven Rings of Burning Heaven.

"There's no way he could have obtained it…" Albert muttered, his expression turning grim. "That technique was discovered inside a ruin."

His thoughts spiraled.

Doesn't that mean… he comprehended the technique just by observing it being used?

"No."

Only now did Albert realize how absurd his own thoughts sounded.

Comprehending a technique after seeing it only once or twice?

How could that possibly be real?

There had to be a mistake. There had to be.

But…

What other explanation was there?

As far as Albert knew, he was the only one who had ever entered that ruin. If that was the case, then how did the man in front of him obtain the same technique?

There were only two possibilities.

Either this City Lord Grey possessed a level of comprehension so monstrous that it outright defied all logic on the planet itself, allowing him to grasp techniques simply by observing them.

Or… he had encountered a ruin eerily similar to the one Albert had entered several hundred years ago.

Before Albert could settle on either answer, Grey's voice rang out once more.

"Hey, City Lord Albert." Grey laughed lightly. "You should probably start using your Seven Rings of Burning Heaven now. Otherwise, don't blame me if you get injured."

As his words fell, sword energy suddenly burst out from Grey's body.

Albert's expression changed instantly.

"Sword energy…"

A deep sense of unease, bordering on dread, surged through his heart. It felt as though what he was about to witness next would completely shatter his understanding of power.

The spectators watching the stream erupted.

[Seventeen? This man is seventeen years old? Don't joke with me. He's not even a man, he's barely a child. Do they think I'm blind, or do they think I'm stupid? This has to be fake.]

[He tanked an attack from a pseudo 3rd ranker and he's still standing? He didn't even spit blood.]

[Is the damage system bugged or what? Someone check this right now.]

[This is not a game dumbass, this is reality.]

[Please, someone call the referee. Call anyone. This is not normal!]

[What the hell am I even watching?]

[I hit my head really hard guys… but I'm not dreaming….]

Some streamers were skeptical. Others went further, storming straight into the streaming headquarters to make trouble, loudly accusing the broadcast of being fake because what they were witnessing simply could not be real.

How could a seventeen-year-old be matching the power of a pseudo 3rd ranker?

And more importantly, how was he doing it without showing the slightest sign of struggle?

The disbelief only intensified when the stream shifted angles and captured the next exchange clearly.

Sword energy.

[Sword energy? City Lord Grey has sword energy too?!]

[Huh? Didn't you guys see him using it back when he breached the barrier?]

[How the hell would I know what sword energy looks like when I wasn't there in person? I'm just an ordinary 1st ranker. I have no hope of comprehending sword energy. I only recognized it because City Lord Albert used it with the Heaven Opening Sword Line Technique.]

[Holy sh*t! Just how many powers does he even have?!]

[What kind of bloodline is that? Does it let him learn anything? His form looks reptilian, but also avian…]

[I searched the public net. There's nothing like this recorded anywhere.]

[Does anyone here have access to the floating cities' database?]

[Yeah, someone from the floating cities, check their archives!]

[City Lord Grey is too broken!]

As the messages flooded in, disbelief slowly gave way to something far heavier.

What they saw next made the chat fall completely silent.

"This…?" Albert's eyes widened. He felt it clearly, unmistakably.

Sword intent.

"No way…?"

Sword intent was not something that could be faked or borrowed. It was the ultimate proof of talent, and the ultimate proof of relentless hard work. It was born only after a sword cultivator grasped the law of the sword itself, merging will, body, and spirit into a single existence.

Once sword intent was released, reality no longer resisted the sword user. It bent.

For most, achieving it took countless years of comprehension. For many others, it was never achievable at all, no matter how long they lived.

Yet…

A seventeen-year-old was releasing sword intent?

Albert felt dizzy.

"Are you really seventeen?" he asked hoarsely.

"Now's not the time for chit-chat, City Lord Albert." Grey's cold laughter echoed across the barren lands.

The pressure around them surged violently, sword intent flooding the battlefield like an invisible storm. The air itself screamed, sliced apart by an unseen edge.

Albert's expression hardened.

He focused instantly, spiritual energy erupting as he activated his technique without hesitation. several flower rings of burning heaven burst in front of him, interlocking as they spun, forming a pink light of line of defense.

Grey stood there, nexus overclock circuit-like patterns spreading across his body as if they were being engraved directly into reality itself. Lines of light pulsed rhythmically along his body, intersecting and layering until his entire form resembled a living construct of laws and energy.

Above his head, the halo flickered.

It blinked with a terrifying intensity, each pulse carrying a pressure so heavy it felt as if the world itself might fracture if it lingered for too long.

Then Grey raised his hand.

His fingers moved with calm precision, forming a seal that Albert knew all too well. Every motion was exact, down to the smallest detail, as if it had been practiced tens of thousands of times.

Albert's pupils shrank.

Impossible!

Sword energy across the battlefield trembled, then responded.

The air began to distort as invisible lines were carved into existence. Molecules in the atmosphere were forcibly rearranged, compressed, and refined, turning the space itself into a medium for sword energy.

Then he heard it, Grey's glitched-like voice.

"HEAVEN OPENING SWORD LINE!"

The world screamed.

Sword intent surged, binding itself to the forming technique. The previously invisible lines ignited, erupting into blinding arcs of sword light that stretched across the sky, not coming from a single direction, but manifesting everywhere at once.

It was the opening of heaven itself.

Sword lines descended from above, below, and all directions in between, cleaving through space as if the laws of the world were mere suggestions. Mountains in the distance split cleanly in half, their peaks sliding apart in eerie silence before collapsing moments later.

Albert roared as he poured everything, he had into the Seven Rings of Burning Heaven. The blazing rings spun madly, overlapping and reinforcing each other, forming layers upon layers of defense.

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