Chapter 1270: Battle at Aqua Iron City II

The sharp blade exploded through the barrier, shards of energy scattering like glass, but it bought him a heartbeat.

That was enough.

The Seventh Shackle Realm expert twisted aside. As Franklin’s body slipped past, his hand snapped out, fingers clamping onto Franklin’s arm with crushing force. He pivoted hard, muscles straining, and hurled Franklin through the water.

The ocean roared around him.

Before Franklin could stabilize, the other two were already there, one above and one below, closing in like predators. Their weapons cut through the sea, leaving violent trails in their wake as they drove them straight toward him.

Franklin smiled.

He didn’t dodge. Didn’t flinch. Instead, his energy coiled inward, compressing, tightening, his dream power surging like something alive beneath his skin.

"You won’t defeat me by holding back."

The words had barely left his mouth when the weapons punched through him.

Flesh tore and blood burst outward, swallowed instantly by the churning sea.

One from the front and one from the back.

For a moment, everything stilled.

The two experts narrowed their eyes, unease creeping in. No resistance. No struggle.

Why?

Then, the fabric of space split open beside them.

Ohm!!

The ocean convulsed. Water rushed violently into the rupture as white smoke erupted outward, hissing and boiling.

Something forced its way through.

A colossal shape emerged, fur blazing, flames devouring the surrounding water, turning it into a storm of bubbles and steam.

It was Yuko.

The sea screamed as the temperature spiked.

She moved.

A single swing of her massive paw and the expert in front of Franklin didn’t even register it.

The impact detonated against his body.

His bone cracked and his figure vanished in a blur before slamming into the seabed with catastrophic force, the ground collapsing beneath him as debris and sand erupted upward in a violent plume.

Bang!!

Franklin grinned, blood trailing from his lips. Still impaled, he twisted his muscles grinding against the weapons lodged in his body and seized the trident buried through him.

His grip tightened and then he turned.

The expert behind him barely had time to react. Franklin stepped in and drove his elbow straight into the man’s face.

The sound was sickening.

With a savage pull, he ripped the trident free.

Flesh tore further but instead of bleeding out, his body shifted, writhing as it swallowed the weapon, binding it into himself like a living sheath.

"Let me borrow this for a while," he said, voice low and feral.

Then, he vanished forward.

Swoosh!!

On the other hand.

"Grraaargh... Ra!!"

Yuko’s massive form shifted beneath the crushing weight of the ocean. Muscles rolled under her blazing fur as she steadied herself, claws digging into the seabed. Steam hissed violently around her, the surrounding water boiling where her flames licked outward.

Her eyes moved, sharp and predatory, locking onto Franklin... then the others.

She watched, listened, and waited.

Understanding slowly ignited behind her gaze.

"...Fight."

The word forced its way out, not spoken but driven, her will surging through the water like a shockwave. The sea trembled faintly as her voice carried, distorted but unmistakable.

Her eyes flared brighter.

So this was it.

Speaking underwater... wasn’t difficult at all.

In fact, it felt natural.

Far easier than clawing her way into someone else’s dream.

With her best feram at its peak, her will pressed outward, wrapping around her words and shoving them through the ocean unhindered unless something stronger crushed it first.

Yuko slowly turned her head.

Several Seventh Shackle Realm experts were already watching her.

Wary and tense.

Their instincts screamed.

"Master said... fight the strong ones."

Her voice rumbled again, heavier this time, carrying a dangerous excitement.

"And defeat them."

Her lips pulled back slightly, exposing rows of burning fangs.

Her eyes ignited with pure battle intent as they locked onto two figures below Wavey.

The one she had just blasted away?

Not hers.

That one belonged to Franklin.

She wouldn’t take it.

But these two... They would do.

The water around her began to churn. Heat surged and pressure rose sharply. And then, Yuko leaned forward slightly.

ROOOOOAAARRR!!!

Yuko’s jaws wrenched open and a sphere of compressed flame formed deep within her throat, dense and unstable, pulsing like a newborn star. The surrounding seawater screamed into vapor, bursting into violent clouds of bubbles as her flames thrashed outward, devouring everything within reach.

The surrounding water itself recoiled.

For a fraction of a second, everything bent around that point of heat.

In the next second, she unleashed it.

A beam of blinding solar fire tore free from her maw, a concentrated torrent of destruction that punched through the sea like a god’s judgment.

BOOOOOOM!!!

It ripped straight through the army formation.

Bodies didn’t just burn, they disintegrated. Armor sagged and liquefied, flesh vanished into ash before it could even drift away. The water along its path turned into a roiling corridor of steam and pressure, a boiling grave carved in an instant.

The beam surged forward, unstoppable, until it met resistance.

A violent impact.

Energy howled and the beam detonated outward, splintering into arcs of raging flame that tore through the ocean in every direction.

Yuko’s jaws snapped shut with a thunderous crack.

Her eyes burned.

They moved.

The two Seventh Shackle Realm experts surged forward, their auras flaring against the inferno, carving a path through the boiling sea.

Yuko welcomed them.

Her body trembled then twisted and in the next instant, she released everything.

OHM!!!

Power erupted from her core.

Flames exploded outward in a violent bloom, swallowing her entire form. The ocean around her was forced back, displaced by sheer heat and pressure as if reality itself rejected her presence.

She stepped out of the inferno.

Her body was sheathed in crimson, armor-like plating, glowing with suffocating heat. A radiant sun insignia blazed on her forehead, pulsing with each beat of her power. Her eyes, no, they were no longer eyes. They were suns, burning, watching, and judging.

Her size barely change just two meters tall but everything about her presence screamed to collapse.

An Infernal Radiant Sun Bear.

ROOOOAAARRR!!!

The moment her roar spread, the surrounding water turned into a furnace. Water boiled violently, currents destabilized, pressure spiked, every living thing within range felt their flesh sear as if they were being cooked alive.

Because they were.

The two Seventh Shackle Realm experts’ expressions hardened.

They felt it.

The extreme danger.

Without hesitation, they raised their weapons. Power surged through their bodies, pushing back against the overwhelming heat as they shot forward, intent on crushing her before she could escalate further.

BOOOOOM!!!

They collided.

Yuko didn’t slow down.

She slammed into them like a falling star.

BANG!!! BANG!!!

Each impact detonated through the surrounding, shockwaves ripping outward in savage pulses that tore the battlefield apart. The water twisted into violent spirals, dragged by the sheer force of their clash.

The surrounding fighters were thrown away, their bodies battered and spun helplessly as the water itself turned against them.

No one could get close.

No one dared.

All they could do was watch.

Three figures blurred together, moving faster than sight, crimson, gold, and violent surges of power colliding again and again in flashes of destruction.

"Damn it!! A Seventh Shackle Realm!!"

"Fall back!! We’ll die if we get caught in that!!"

"An initial fifth stage...?!"

Their voices were swallowed by the chaos. Shock filled their eyes. Disbelief and fear written on their faces. And beneath it all, there was respect.

Because no matter the battlefield, the weak always understood one truth.

Strength matters.

And right now, an initial fifth stage monster was fighting two Seventh Shackle Realm experts.

No one expected this, not this fast, and not this violently.

Most battles never even reached the point where Seventh Shackle Realm experts had to act.

But now, that line had been obliterated.

Franklin, Yuko, and the five Seventh Shackle Realm experts.

They became the center of the battlefield, a violent convergence point where power clashed and the ocean itself seemed ready to collapse.

Everything revolved around them at this point.

Above the battlefield, Wavey frowned.

Her gaze sharpened, cutting through the chaos as calculations raced through her mind.

She had already seen it.

Understood it.

Yuko’s arrival... wasn’t natural.

It was forced.

A passage torn open between reality and the dream realm.

Her eyes shifted toward Franklin.

A flicker of cold realization passed through her thoughts.

Not him.

’This man... didn’t bring that monster here.’ Her eyes narrowed further. ’His dream power isn’t nearly enough...’

Franklin wasn’t the source.

He was an anchor.

A point.

A fixed coordinate that allowed something else to latch onto reality.

Her gaze darkened.

Which meant someone else had reached through the dream.

Someone had opened the path.

...and sent that fifth stage monster through it.

’Their so-called Realm Lord...’

The thought settled heavily in her chest, like a stone sinking into deep water.

The power of dreams was no ordinary force.

It was rare, dangerous, and unpredictable.

And those who wielded it... were never weak.

Wavey’s eyes shifted again, far into the battlefield. They landed on a distant figure, the Nightmare Conjurer.

Her expression tightened.

So it wasn’t that one.

’That creature... isn’t the Realm Lord.’

For a moment, she had assumed it was. After all, an advanced fifth stage monster like Nightmare Conjurer was a powerful force.

It fit.

But now?

Now she knew better.

Which meant there was something else. Something above it. Something that hadn’t revealed itself yet.

Her grip tightened. A quiet tension coiled in her chest.

’...So there’s another one.’

Wavey’s gaze grew colder.

’This threat... must be neutralized immediately.’

She muttered in her heart.

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