Grandmaster Jinho kept his eyes closed for a long moment. "Is death truly this serene?" he murmured softly under his breath. Yet he could still feel a scorching wave of thermal aura radiating directly before him.

I am not dead? Jinho wondered, his mind racing. Forcing his eyelids open against the blinding glare, he blinked in disbelief. Why was there a broad human back standing between him and annihilation?

Directly before the old master stood a man in his early thirties, absorbing the crushing weight of the dark energy blast. The man's internal core output was staggering. I was saved? Jinho's mind snapped back into focus as conscious control reclaimed his body.

The warrior standing in front of him was Warrior Jiro, who had arrived at the scene in the nick of time after separating from his elder brother, Dasatama. Trusting that Dasatama possessed more than enough power to assist Barsha's group, Jiro had sprinted toward the adjacent sector, only to discover another Sky Squad unit locked in a desperate confrontation with a Gatekeeper: Zagar.

Zagar had already deployed his full Demon Transformation, mutating into a towering reptilian abomination overflowing with dark magic. He had been a hair's breadth away from pulverizing Grandmaster Jinho's vessel with a high-density dark strike.

Deploying absolute momentum, Warrior Jiro had intercepted Zagar's lethal blow. Drawing upon the refined conditioning he had undergone under Aji's guidance, alongside the inherited techniques of Saint Ganada, Jiro combined extreme velocity with raw physical output—generating sufficient kinetic force to block the monster's massive arm.

"HAAAAA!" Jiro gritted his teeth, channeling his core parameters to hold the dark strike at bay, creating a vital window for Jinho and the two young warriors to fall back.

"Retreat, Master Jinho! Do not daze off!" Jiro shouted, his voice snapping the old master out of his shock. Jinho immediately executed a high-speed backstep, creating distance. Simultaneously, Domar and Astro flared their internal aura, leaping to the lateral flanks to evade the shockwave.

Yet Zagar's downward kinetic pressure continued to weigh heavily upon Warrior Jiro.

"You are built differently, human!" Zagar's voice boomed, the acoustic force vibrating violently through the woodland as it shattered the silence of the Tulisma Forest. "Yet your efforts are meaningless before Zagar—the supreme combatant among the Five Gates!"

Bracing against the crushing surge of dark magic, Jiro pushed his internal core to his absolute limit as an assassin, activating "Ghost Speed!" He channeled a pulse of kinetic aura through his boots, integrating his physical parameters with environmental mana to maximize his mobility.

The opposing energy fields collided, generating localized shockwaves that pulverized the surrounding terrain. Violent aura sparks flared continuous explosions, forcing the nearby Sky Squad members to deploy defensive barriers against the flying debris.

"We shall see about that!" Jiro roared, driving his full parameters into a counter-push.

BLAAAAAR! BOOM!

The explosive shockwave blasted both combatants backward. Zagar, however, stabilized his massive frame almost instantly, suffering only a minor recoil step. Taking advantage of his size, the giant monster charged forward, his heavy footsteps causing the earth to tremble violently beneath their boots.

Zagar unleashed a barrage of multi-armed strikes toward Warrior Jiro. Leveraging his peak assassin mobility, Jiro relied on maximum velocity to weave through the assault. He dodged six massive, scale-covered arms shrouded in dark magic, fluidly twisting his body past the incoming limbs. Wherever Zagar's fists struck, ancient trees detonated into splinters and the soil ruptured into cratered ruins.

Their movement speeds were astonishingly fast, their Afterimages flickering across the field in a high-speed blur. The massive, mutated Zagar extended his six arms across wide trajectories, raining down continuous, heavy blows in a frantic attempt to crush the agile master.

Cornered by the sheer area of effect, Jiro was forced into a purely evasive pattern, combining rapid dodges with high-density parries while searching for a split-second window to launch a counter-strike.

Seeing their mentor pushed onto the defensive, Astro and Domar surged forward, executing a full-yield pincer assault from Zagar's blind spot directly behind his massive back.

Their objective was clear: draw Zagar's attention away from Jiro, opening a flaw in the Gatekeeper's defense. As they closed the distance at high velocity, their blades inches away from striking Zagar's scale-covered spine...

KLAP!

To their absolute shock, two of Zagar's six arms whipped backward, catching Astro and Domar's incoming weapons in mid-air as kinetic shockwaves erupted off his palms. Zagar had manifested localized dark barriers over his rear hands without even turning around—his heightened sensory perception detecting their approach with flawless precision.

Zagar's sensory domain read every atmospheric disturbance around his frame. While two rear hands pinned Astro and Domar's weapons, his remaining four arms lengthened, continuing their relentless assault on Warrior Jiro.

Grandmaster Jinho fully recovered his composure. He understood that he had a vital role to play in this battle. If cowardice had paralyzed him twenty years ago, courage would define him today. He would stand and fall fighting the Five Gates. No longer bound by fear, he resolved to etch his name into history alongside the Three Saints, forging a path of hope for the next generation.

It was time to unleash his ultimate support magic.

Nearby, Master Gonan observed the escalating clash, realizing it was time to enter the fray. As a high-tier spellcaster, he had earned his position as the Deputy Commander of regular military forces through absolute merit, not mere political status.

Commander Yarko had chosen Gonan as his second-in-command because of his combat capability—a reputation recognized across the entire martial alliance.

Having just concluded his sweep against the regular dark operatives, Gonan viewed the initial skirmish as a mere warm-up. Now, he prepared to join the grand offensive to eliminate Zagar, who had fully given in to demonic mutation.

Before him stood a high-tier raid boss. Floating into the air, Master Gonan channeled atmospheric mana into his ancestral staff, using wind magic to stabilize his flight. As he rotated his staff, a dense, swirling vortex of fire aura erupted around his vessel—a high-density kinetic force built for total destruction.

Hovering mid-air, Master Gonan prepared his spellwork, surveying Zagar engaging Warrior Jiro and the Sky Squad from both the front and rear. On the opposing ridge, five more Sky Squad members readied their ultimate techniques. A unified alliance was converging to shatter Zagar's absolute defense.

The remaining squad members—Midan, Hamda, Aria, and Mega—drew their ultimate armaments, drawing heavily upon environmental mana. They launched a coordinated multi-directional assault, weaving around Zagar's massive frame to target exposed joint gaps.

Master Gonan unleashed his fire magic, summoning swirling columns of flame that coiled around his frame like roaring fire dragons. Condensing the spellwork, he directed the massive inferno directly toward Zagar's towering body.

"Dragon Fire!"

Gonan's assault was relentless: multiple fire dragons materialized from the air and erupted from beneath the soil, engulfing Zagar's scale-covered vessel in a raging inferno.

Zagar swung his massive arms frantically, attempting to swat away the incoming spellwork while deflecting Gonan's fiery dragons with dark aura pulses.

At that exact moment, Grandmaster Jinho deployed a high-tier support array across every ally engaging Zagar. Luminous magical circles materialized beneath the boots of Jiro, Gonan, and the Sky Squad members, boosting their overall combat parameters by thirty percent!

Empowered by Jinho's buff, Warrior Jiro felt his internal core overflow with kinetic force. His mobility multiplied, allowing him to easily dodge incoming strikes while identifying flaws in Zagar's guard. The support array provided the exact edge needed to turn the tide. It was time for the counter-offensive!

Jiro's broadsword radiated a brilliant, incandescent light, executing high-yield slashes that pierced Zagar's scale armor. Where previous strikes had bounced off harmlessly, Jiro's buffed blades gouged deep, bleeding lacerations into Zagar's mutated hide, driving the Gatekeeper into a unhinged frenzy.

Astro and Domar, similarly empowered by Jinho's support array, surged forward past Zagar's sweeping arms. Astro executed a sweeping aerial slash, leaving a long, smoking wound across Zagar's massive shoulder.

Domar seized his window, launching a vaulting spin as his dual short spears hummed with high-voltage lightning aura. Propelled by Jinho's buff, he transformed into a kinetic drill that struck Zagar's exposed abdomen, the force driving the fifteen-meter monster a step backward.

Midan, Hamda, and Namud flanked the abomination, landing precision strikes with their armaments that tore through his scale defenses. The support array filled their vessels with boundless stamina. Aria charged in with an aura-infused strike, her fist shattering the scale plating on Zagar's thigh before she executed a high-wind spell that hurled a concentrated gale at Zagar's head.

Concurrently, Master Gonan drew upon the amplified mana provided by Jinho, channeling magic deep into the soil beneath Zagar's boots. The ground fractured as hundreds of thick, magic-infused root tendrils erupted from the earth, wrapping tightly around Zagar's massive lower limbs and torso. Though Zagar smashed dozens of roots with his hands, the sheer volume overwhelmed him.

Entangled on all sides, the monster roared in helpless fury as high-yield attacks rained down upon his vessel from every quadrant.

Zagar lashed out blindly, unleashing explosive dark aura pulses and swinging his six arms in frantic arcs. Yet the attackers evaded his counter-strikes smoothly, maintaining a continuous bombardment. Gonan's magical tendrils tightened their grip, binding two of Zagar's six arms in thick, twisting energy knots that severely restricted his movements.

His mobility compromised, Zagar spewed streams of pitch-black fire from his jaws, forcing his attackers to scatter. Utilizing high-speed evasive maneuvers, the young guardians circled the giant, targeting his open wounds without pause.

Though Zagar rumbled with unbridled rage, the multi-elemental suppression array was steadily eroding his defenses. Yet his mutated vessel relied on dark cellular regeneration—thick, worm-like tendrils constantly squirming to knit his torn scales and flesh back together, allowing the monster to endure the onslaught.

Still, the relentless, uninterrupted barrage forced Zagar to endure continuous agony, his cellular recovery speed steadily declining under the sheer volume of incoming damage.

"This is madness! I am Zagar—the invincible!" the monster bellowed, thrashing his massive body wildly. Explosions detonated across the clearing as his unhinged dark strikes tore through the landscape, completely flattening what remained of the surrounding Tulisma Forest.

Suddenly, a strange glow flared along Zagar's neck, illuminating a series of gill-like respiratory pores lining his throat. A blinding, high-density light radiated from within the openings.

"Energy Orb!" Grandmaster Jinho yelled out, shouting a high-priority warning to the entire field. Jinho could sense an enormous volume of dark magic condensing within the monster's throat, preparing to discharge in a catastrophic blast that would vaporize everything in its path.

Jinho's instincts were dead accurate. Driven into a corner by his severe injuries and restricted mobility, Zagar was mobilizing his total dark core to unleash a ultimate destruction spell.

"HOOOOOAAAAAHHHH!"

A dense, pitch-black beam of condensed dark magic, wrapped in swirling pillars of blue light, erupted from Zagar's cavernous jaws. The catastrophic energy stream shot forward, accompanied by rotating kinetic shockwaves that obliterated the landscape for miles in its trajectory.

The martial artists executed emergency evasive maneuvers as Zagar swept his head to the right, sweeping the catastrophic energy beam across the entire forest in a 360-degree annihilation arc. Continuous shockwaves shattered the earth, setting the sky ablaze as the terrifying stream of dark magic consumed everything in its path.

BLAAAAAR! CRACK! WOOOOOSH!