"So... you were the one who killed Gultron?" Denta's eyes flared with crimson fury, a suffocating aura of dark magic enveloping his frame. "Who are you really, arrogant brat?!"

Aji offered a serene, unbothered smile. "We are the Sky Squad. That is the only name you need to remember."

Unable to contain his rage any longer, Denta lunged forward, dense dark wings erupting from his back. Propelled by the sudden burst of momentum, he accelerated to blinding speeds, bringing his dark scimitars down directly onto Aji. Aji spun his wooden staff, interposing the shaft to block the dark general's strike.

BOOOOOOM!

A localized shockwave exploded mid-air, displacing atmospheric currents and sending a crushing wave of kinetic pressure across the clearing.

Down on the forest floor, Saga charged forward, wielding a barbed chain attached to razor-sharp sickles at both ends. He swung the weapon in wide, violent arcs; whenever the whirring chain brushed against massive ancient trees, the trunks were sliced through effortlessly. Saga directed the lethal weapon straight toward the six Sky Squad operatives flanking their left side.

SWOOOSH!

Ancient trees collapsed in rapid succession, but Alicia stepped forward without hesitation, deploying a luminous array to form a defensive wall that shielded her comrades from the barrage.

Saga's assault ground to a halt against Alicia's barrier. Nagada immediately leaped into the air, executing a lightning-fast aerial thrust toward Saga, his blade glowing with concentrated aura. Sensing the lethality of the attack, Saga backpedaled rapidly. He realized with a jolt of surprise that these young warriors possessed sufficient parameters to hold off their mutated forms.

They were no ordinary disciples hailing from regional academies—they were elite combatants operating under cover.

Drisin flashed forward to intercept Nagada's advance. Nagada dropped into a firm stance, drawing upon his internal core to manifest a hovering ring of blade energy around his vessel. Wielding a heavy broadsword, Drisin brought his weapon down to shatter Nagada's stance, resulting in a deafening clash of metal.

To the upper left, Junta found himself blocked by two Sky Squad operatives: Arion and Sanjo. Drawing upon the refined atmospheric mana they had mastered during their two months of hellish conditioning, the two young warriors coordinated their strikes seamlessly, matching Junta move for move even as the dark general deployed his full Demon Transformation.

Junta was inwardly stunned. How can two mere twentysomethings hold off my transformed state?! It made no sense. He was a veteran warrior over sixty years of age, empowered by vast quantities of dark magic granted directly by the Demon Lord. How could these greenhorns match his parameters?

Spear met spear as Arion parried every thrust of Junta's polearm, which was shrouded in corrosive dark vapor capable of absorbing environmental energy. As Junta focused on pressing Arion, Sanjo executed a vaulting spin overhead, swooping down from above.

Wielding dual sai in his left and right hands, Sanjo unleashed a rapid flurry of strikes. Caught in a flawless pincer maneuver between two Sky Squad operatives, Junta was forced onto the defensive.

Fierce clashes erupted across every quadrant of the battlefield. The surrounding horde of dark operatives maintained a wide perimeter, terrified to intervene in the high-tier duels. Above the canopy, Aji and Denta traded catastrophic blows, each strike producing blinding detonations that shook the sky.

On the ground, Denta's three top lieutenants were locked in two-on-one skirmishes against the Sky Squad: Junta battled the fluid combination of Arion and Sanjo on the left; Drisin engaged Nagada and Alicia at the center; and Saga traded high-speed strikes against Gayatri and Nora on the right.

Energy detonations flared in every direction, generating localized gale-force winds that flattened the surrounding woodland. Ancient trees were snapped like twigs, caught in the crossfire of high-tier martial techniques. The thunderous commotion echoed across the forest, alerting the approaching military task forces. Spurred on by the explosions, Commander Yarko's vanguard accelerated their pace. Among them, Aaman sprinted at the forefront, confident that the Sky Squad was engaging the dark army's main strike force.

"Tell me, boy! If your name is truly Aji, how on earth did you manage to defeat Gultron?!"

Denta's eyes turned blood-red as he detonated a wave of dark magic from his vessel, forcibly amplifying his output. The surging pressure drove Aji backward through the air as their weapons collided.

Bracing his core against the kinetic shockwave, Aji replied calmly, "I will answer your question if you answer mine." Slipping to the side with fluid motion, he allowed Denta's follow-up dark energy beam to streak past him. The beam gouged a massive trench through the forest, incinerating rows of ancient trees in a blinding flash.

"Intriguing!" Denta sneered, steadying his footing as black vapor drifted from his hands. "Speak, then! What do you wish to know?"

"Why did you assemble cultivators from across the continents inside the Tulisma Forest?" Aji asked, holding his wooden staff firmly in his right hand. "Is your objective to slaughter them and harvest their life force?"

Denta flinched slightly, caught off guard by the precision of the question. Yet he quickly realized that the dark army's grand strategy had already been uncovered by the Sky Squad.

"Since your combat parameters prove you are worthy of the truth, I shall tell you," Denta boasted, raising his head haughtily. "We, the remaining Four Gates, have been infused with divine dark magic directly by Lord Demon Shura! Each of us carries a fragment of the sacred Blood Supreme artifact!"

Aji's eyes narrowed. Fragments of the Blood Supreme! It meant the Four Gates possessed the capability to absorb the residual life force of every cultivator they slaughtered. Celestial artifacts could indeed be fragmented—much like how the Heart Dragon had been purified and transplanted into the Sky Squad.

The Demon Lord had taken his strategy a step further, empowering his high-ranking generals to transform them into unstoppable overlords capable of subjugating the continents. Since the Four Gates were harvesting energy on his behalf, Lord Demon Shura himself was not present in the Tulisma Forest—he was merely observing the slaughter from afar while finalizing his own recovery.

Aji tightened his grip on his staff. "So you lured martial artists from every major academy under the pretense of the Moon Flower... simply to slaughter them and absorb their energy to approach Shura's realm of power?"

"Bwahahaha!" Denta's thunderous laughter echoed through the burning woods. "You should know that the entire Tulisma Forest has been sealed with our absolute high-tier array! Not a single soul will escape this forest alive—we will drain every last drop of their life force to fuel our rise! Bwahahaha!"

It was a calculated trap, engineered far in advance to exploit human greed. Cultivators had been enticed by the promise of a celestial artifact that could elevate their schools' standing, only to walk blindly into a slaughterhouse.

Yet the Moon Flower itself was no myth—it was genuinely preparing to bloom.

Aji could feel its impending arrival clearly, his perception heightened by the Soul Deep artifact transplanted into his vessel by Saint Yonan. The natural resonance of celestial artifacts caused a distinct vibration within his core. Initially, Aji had detected a faint trace of the Blood Supreme's signature, leading him to suspect Shura was hiding in the forest.

In reality, he had been sensing the fragments embedded within the Four Gates.

"Now it is your turn to answer, boy!" Denta demanded, dark magic surging around his frame. "Reveal your true identity, so you may take pride in dying by my hand—as the very first sacrifice to feel the absolute power I have harvested from those foolish cultivators over the past few days!"

Aji closed his eyes briefly, regulating his internal core to keep his emotions perfectly balanced. "Very well, Denta. I shall give you the truth. I am the true heir to the Three Legends—the ones who shattered your army's crusade twenty years ago. I carry their unyielding spirit and their mandate within me!"

Silence fell over the clearing.

Denta stared at the youth in momentary shock. The heir to the Three Legends?! That title evoked deep-seated trauma within the dark army. Twenty years ago, the Three Legends had inflicted such severe damage on Lord Demon Shura that the dark forces had been forced into two decades of silent recovery.

Now, a mere teenager stood before him, claiming to inherit their legacy.

"Nonsense!" Denta roared, drawing in a massive breath of atmospheric dark magic. His scale-covered hands, tipped with razor-sharp talons, slashed forward from a distance. A wave of pitch-black energy blanketed the sky, sweeping toward Aji with destructive force.

BOOOOOOM!

Ancient trees were vaporized as the dark energy wave tore through the clearing. Yet when the dust settled, Aji remained standing unharmed, a glowing barrier of pure aura repelling the dark magic completely.

"Do you honestly expect me to believe your pathetic lies?!" Denta spat, his face twisted in fury. "How could those three old fools leave a successor when they were blown to dust in the apocalyptic explosion twenty years ago?!"

Denta's mind flashed back to the final battle of the previous war—the moment when the Five Gates had been pushed to their limits, forcing Lord Demon Shura to step onto the battlefield personally.

The resulting collision of absolute parameters had detonated across an entire region, destroying half a continent in the process. Nothing had survived that explosion save for Lord Demon Shura, who had suffered severe injuries requiring two decades of deep slumber to heal.

The Three Legends had vanished without a trace, their vessels obliterated in the blast. It was utterly impossible for anyone to have survived, let alone passed on their legacy to a young boy.

"You will understand once this duel reaches its conclusion," Aji replied evenly, stepping through the dissipating smoke. "Their techniques, their resolve, and their mandate live on through me. I am the continuation of the Three Saints!"

Grasping his wooden staff, Aji executed a sweeping strike. A torrent of brilliant blue aura—resembling a roaring inferno of divine flame—surged toward Denta. Denta met the attack with his dark magic, unleashing a counter-blast.

BLAAAAARRRRR!

The sheer kinetic pressure of Aji's strike forced Denta backward through the air. The dark general gritted his teeth in disbelief. It was impossible for this youth to be the heir to the Three Legends, yet the weight of his aura was repelling him—a sensation Denta had not felt since facing the Three Saints twenty years ago.

"So... you are the rat Nesia warned us about!" Denta realized, his eyes narrowing in cold fury. "You are the hidden mastermind who has been systematically dismantling our operations from the shadows! And you were the one who killed my lieutenant, Jasum, during the Sky Squad trials!"

Aji offered a quiet, decisive smile. "You realize the truth at last, Denta... but you are far too late. Starting today, the dark army will be eradicated from this world forever!"

"Arrogant brat! You talk too much!" Denta roared, gathering dense dark magic into both palms. "HAAAAA!"

Drawing upon the harvested life force stored within his fragment, Denta multiplied his output, launching a high-speed, lethal assault. Aji regulated his internal core, preparing to meet the dark general's full strength.

He could feel that Denta's parameters had evolved dramatically. Is this the power of the Blood Supreme fragment?