Barsha knew that the moment the two reanimated legends launched their offensive, it fell upon her to intercept the physical vessel of her grandfather, Saint Ganada. When Ganada’s husk lunged toward the alliance ranks, Barsha prepared to unseal her absolute Ghost Speed. She had not anticipated that the thrall—under Lord Demon Shura’s direct directive—would target Gayatri immediately, marking the young spellcaster as the primary target of the Demon Lord's wrath.

Observing the terrifying velocity of Ganada’s vessel, Barsha surged forward, placing herself directly between Gayatri and the incoming dark daggers.

"I am your opponent, Grandfather Ganada!"

The physical husk offered no verbal response, emitting only a low, reptilian hiss like an agitated cobra. A pang of deep sorrow struck Barsha’s heart as she looked upon the beloved grandfather she revered, now reduced to an instrument of dark magic. Yet Aji’s earlier counsel echoed in her mind: on this battlefield, she had to face her ancestor without personal sentiment. The vessel before her was merely a dark clone forged through Shura’s dark art and the Blood Supreme—a psychological ploy engineered to shatter the alliance's morale.

Ganada’s husk intensified its pressure, driving its dark daggers forward with ferocity. Barsha reinforced her stance, channeling her total parameters to hold the line. This was the moment she had to unleash the full extent of her martial discipline.

Her hellish conditioning under Warrior Jiro—paired with the parameter absorption from the celestial artifact, Heart Dragon—had elevated her speed and lethality as an assassin to unprecedented heights. Barsha refused to yield, determined to transcend even her grandfather’s historical legacy. That was her unshakeable oath.

Aji had also clarified a critical rule governing Shura’s reanimation art: when the Demon Lord reconstructed a vessel using dark magic, it required only a fragment of the deceased—even a single strand of hair.

Crucially, the reanimated entity inherited the exact, peak combat parameters the individual possessed in life. Thus, Barsha was not facing a fragile imitation; she was dueling a combatant wielding the absolute peak strength of Saint Ganada at the height of his power.

It was a battle that demanded her total, unreserved effort. She could afford zero errors against a dark thrall wrapped in suffocating, high-density dark magic.

In the sky above, Lord Demon Shura looked on in surprise as a young female warrior stepped forward to block an entity possessing the full parameters of Saint Ganada. Historically, Ganada was revered as one of the ultimate Three Legends, yet this young woman had intercepted his high-speed dual-dagger assault without flinching.

Shura gestured for Ganada’s husk to double its pressure, confident the legendary saint’s parameters would overwhelm both women in short order.

The reanimated thrall surged forward, dark magic pouring from its blades in a heavy, suffocating wave. The sheer kinetic weight pushed Barsha backward, driving her close to Gayatri’s position.

Gayatri raised her hands, preparing to construct a supportive energy array, but Barsha’s sharp voice cut her off before the spellwork could form.

"Gayatri! Fall back! This is a private matter between a grandfather and his granddaughter! Do not interfere! Go support the rest of the Sky Squad—now!"

Gayatri froze. It was the first time she had ever heard Barsha speak with such absolute, commanding fury. In that instant, Gayatri understood Barsha’s heart: she needed to resolve her family’s legacy with her own strength. Win or lose, it was Barsha’s burden to bear, and no one else had the right to step in.

Gayatri offered a firm, trusting nod. "Stay safe, Captain! I believe in you!"

Barsha nodded back as Ganada’s dark aura flared again, breaching her parrying arc and driving her back across the terrain. The kinetic force was overwhelming, pushing Barsha continuously as she strained to maintain her footing. The thrall’s velocity was relentless.

A cold, satisfied smile touched Shura’s lips. To him, a young cultivator attempting to duel a legendary saint was an exercise in pure futility. The terror had officially begun, and the righteous alliance would soon pay for ignoring his mandate.

Ganada’s husk pushed Barsha far across the plain. Seeing her leader driven back, Gayatri hesitated, but Barsha flashed a quick hand signal over her shoulder—a clear gesture commanding her to hold her position.

Cornered mid-air, Barsha braced herself as Ganada’s husk raised its dark daggers for a high-yield execution strike.

FLASH!

A sudden, brilliant spatial distortion flared across the battlefield, catching every observer off-guard. A wide-mouth dimensional portal unsealed directly behind Barsha’s back. Allowing her momentum to carry her backward, Barsha crossed the portal’s threshold—and in that split second, both figures vanished into the spatial void. Driven by its programming to eliminate the target, Ganada’s husk pursued her at absolute velocity, disappearing straight into the portal before the array snapped shut.

The dimensional gateway dissolved into nothingness, leaving no trace of Barsha or the reanimated saint behind.

Lord Demon Shura stared at the empty space in shock. The maneuver had been executed so swiftly that even his sensory domain failed to track its origin. A high-tier spatial array had materialized for a fraction of a second, swallowed both combatants, and vanished. Concentrating his core, Shura attempted to track the dark magic signature embedded within Ganada’s vessel to locate his creation.

Simultaneously, on the main front line, the reanimated husk of Saint Yonan raised its heavy dark staff, unleashing a wave of concentrated laser-like energy projectiles. Thousands of dark energy arrows swirled through the air, raining down upon the alliance defenders like a lethal tempest. The orthodox grandmasters dropped into defensive stances, preparing to absorb the bombardment.

Decades ago, humanity had revered Yonan as a holy savior, but the entity before them now was merely a soulless puppet bound to the Demon Lord. They had no choice but to destroy the false saint.

Commander Dasatama stepped to the vanguard, raising his heavy broadsword to construct a wide-area defensive wind barrier. But before his blade could sweep forward, a female figure descended from the sky at absolute speed. Clad in the distinctive uniform of the Sky Squad, her long hair—half tied in intricate braids and half flowing freely—whipped in the wind. It was Alicia, granddaughter of Saint Yonan.

Landing before the alliance vanguard, Alicia unleashed a massive protective domain, manifesting a colossal, radiant shield of high-density mana that spanned the entire front line.

The thousand dark energy arrows slammed into her giant shield, detonating in a series of blinding explosions.

BOOM!BOOM!BOOM!

The heavy impacts reverberated across the plain like continuous thunderbolts, lighting up the sky as shockwaves rippled off the barrier's surface. The assembled grandmasters watched in awe as the young Sky Squad member single-handedly neutralized the full offensive output of a reanimated Legend.

True to their title, the Sky Squad stood as the ultimate shield for the martial world—a specialized unit forged specifically to counter the dark army's horrors.

Shura’s concentration broke as his link to Ganada’s thrall went dead. Looking down at the main battlefield, he was met with another unexpected development: a second female member of the Sky Squad had stepped forward, neutralizing Yonan’s heavy bombardment with an absolute defense barrier.

Though her shield was extraordinary, the relentless kinetic pressure began driving Alicia back inch by inch. Recognizing the strain, Shura commanded Yonan’s husk to escalate its output, condensing even larger dark energy spears that rained down upon her barrier without pause.

BOOOM!BOOOM!

Cracks began spiderwebbing across the surface of Alicia’s giant shield. Her face grew pale under the strain, yet she held her ground, refusing to let her grandfather’s corrupted parameters reach the defenders behind her.

"Come at me, Grandfather Yonan!" Alicia shouted, her voice ringing across the plain.

Releasing her barrier, she inverted her mana field, drawing Yonan’s dark projectiles into a high-density kinetic vortex that trapped his spellwork like fish in a net. Imploding the vortex at its core, Alicia triggered a massive counter-detonation.

BLAAAAAM!

A blinding flash of pure, incandescent light erupted between them, obscuring the battlefield in a radiant haze that forced both armies to shield their eyes.

Alicia’s defensive output was staggering, demonstrating that she possessed parameters capable of matching her grandfather’s reanimated vessel blow for blow. As his true bloodline descendant, her talent honored his legacy.

As the blinding glare faded, a high-speed spatial portal materialized at the epicenter of the blast.

Just as Yonan’s husk lunged through the clearing haze to launch a point-blank counter-attack, a soft smile touched Alicia’s lips. Her tactical distraction had worked perfectly. Aji had instructed her that the moment she detonated her mana field, a spatial gateway would unseal behind the thrall to isolate them both in a separate dimension—where she could complete her mandate and free her grandfather’s soul without external interference.

The wide-mouth spatial portal advanced rapidly from behind, swallowing both Alicia and Yonan’s husk in a single breath before collapsing into the void.

Silence fell over the battlefield once more. Both the orthodox defenders and the dark army stood frozen in absolute bewilderment. Two high-tier clashes involving the reanimated Three Legends had ended instantaneously, with all four combatants vanishing into thin air.

Lord Demon Shura’s face darkened in cold fury. He had been outmaneuvered with surgical precision by an invisible strategist whose identity remained completely unknown to him.

The sudden emergence and collapse of those spatial gateways had stripped him of two primary strategic assets in a matter of minutes.

Recognizing the truth behind the spatial maneuvers, Gayatri glanced toward Aji. Standing quietly among the ranks, Aji offered her a subtle, knowing nod—a silent directive communicating their next tactical phase:

Your turn.