A dense forest of dark wings erupted from Nesia’s back, their sharp, obsidian-like feathers fanning out in all directions. Sweeping forward like massive, writhing tendrils of corrupted steel, the feathers filled the sky in an endless, terrifying swarm.

The bladed wings blotted out the horizon, swaying in the air like thick strands of shadow whipped by a gale. Yet these were no ordinary feathers; they were lethal extensions of dark magic, guided directly by Nesia’s will. Having assimilated the internal cores of her four fallen peers, she now wielded the ultimate gift bestowed upon her by Lord Demon Shura.

In terms of raw parameters, Nesia had likely transcended the individual output of any single Annihilation Demon. She felt as though she held the entire world within her grasp. The dark magic surging through her vessel was so dense, so absolute, that she felt like a sovereign over sovereigns—capable of reshaping the battlefield at a whim.

She felt zero regret over abandoning the plan to reanimate her four former companions.

Nesia justified her choice easily: even if her four peers had been brought back, they would have existed merely as mindless thralls, unable to speak, think, or act with human agency. They would have been empty puppets waiting for Shura’s commands, leaving Nesia just as isolated as before.

By devouring their cores, her fallen comrades lived on within her own vessel. They would march alongside her in every battle, forging a unified legacy for the Five Gates. In her mind, they had fused into a single entity—a new legend born of dark magic.

It was a cold rationalization, yet Nesia found immense satisfaction in her newfound strength. She relished standing at the Demon Lord’s right hand, ready to crush any mortal foolish enough to oppose the dark army.

Across the field, Gayatri recognized the immense threat before her. She immediately prepared her high-tier defensive and counter-offensive spellwork to meet Nesia’s assault.

Through relentless, high-intensity conditioning, Gayatri had cultivated specialized counter-arrays designed to handle high-density target matrices. Still, facing Nesia's fivefold dark magic, she knew achieving total victory would be an uphill battle. The five distinct dark signatures surging through Nesia’s vessel represented the combined power of the entire Five Gates.

The duel between Gayatri and Nesia drew the eyes of combatants across the battlefield. Though engrossed in their own life-and-death skirmishes, nearby orthodox cultivators and dark operatives alike felt the suffocating pressure radiating from their clash.

Standing amidst the command vanguard, the continental advisors—Elder Silvi, Grandmaster Nurin, Alex, Yingnan, and Gundala—felt the heavy energetic resonance vibrating through the air. The opposing mana fields were so sharp they felt like invisible needles pricking the skin. Nearby Sky Squad members, fending off waves of dark cultists, kept a close eye on Gayatri’s position.

They held deep faith in her capabilities, especially Lao, who had always struggled to keep pace with his younger sister's natural affinity for spellcasting. He trusted that Gayatri could hold her ground against Nesia, buying critical time for the alliance vanguard to regroup.

Focusing on his own duty, Lao swept his weapons outward, parrying a wave of dark operatives pressing against his perimeter.

WOOOOOSH!

The endless wave of sharp black feathers descended upon Gayatri, blotting out the sun like a storm cloud of dark steel. The razor-sharp plumage streaked downward, eager to shred her vessel to pieces.

Gayatri unsealed a wide-area defensive array at a distance, attempting to intercept the volley. The initial layer of sharp feathers shattered against the barrier, but the sheer volume and kinetic weight of Nesia’s fivefold dark magic proved overwhelming.

CRACK!

The defensive array fractured and collapsed, allowing the storm of dark feathers to surge toward her uninterrupted.

Refusing to panic, Gayatri deployed her multi-elemental discipline—the Quadra matrix—combining four distinct natural elements into a fluid, defensive-offensive cycle.

Reaching into the soil, she summoned towering earthen pillars that erupted from the ground to form a physical wall against the descending feathers. Simultaneously, she channeled high-density wind mana into a localized cyclone to deflect the incoming trajectory, while calling down sharp bolts of natural lightning to destroy the feathers in mid-air. To stabilize her core, rotating rings of fire and water mana swirled around her frame.

It was an extraordinary display of elemental mastery. Rare was the support spellcaster who could command and balance four foundational natural elements with such seamless precision.

Gayatri laid bare the full extent of her Quadra discipline—a feat that earned the instant awe of nearby grandmasters. She did not merely weave two elements; she commanded the natural spectrum.

Nesia’s eyes narrowed in surprise as Gayatri’s multi-elemental array intercepted her dark plumage. So this is her hidden card, Nesia thought, her expression darkening. No wonder she spoke with such arrogance. Yet she remained eager to see how long this young spellcaster could withstand her continuous output.

Maintaining absolute focus, Nesia drove her dark wings forward in continuous, overlapping waves. Gayatri’s multi-elemental spellwork slowed the assault, but Nesia poured boundless dark magic from her vessel to overwhelm the barrier. She was no longer just a single Gatekeeper; she was the living culmination of the Five Gates.

No matter how hard a mortal cultivator trained, no matter how many sleepless nights they spent refining their internal pathways, a single human vessel could not withstand the combined parameters of five Gatekeepers—entities who had each consumed the internal aura of hundreds of fallen cultivators over two decades.

Nesia’s dark magic erupted once more, unleashing a suffocating kinetic wave. The relentless barrage of dark feathers shattered Gayatri's earthen wall and sliced through her wind cyclone. Though her lightning bolts destroyed dozens of incoming projectiles, Nesia’s assault pressed steadily closer.

Forced onto the defensive, Gayatri found herself dodging high-speed passes from the razor-sharp wings. Nesia’s dark wings struck in rapid succession, dealing massive kinetic damage with terrifying velocity.

Vaulting across the terrain, Gayatri merged her fire and water mana fields, launching a barrage of explosive fireballs and high-density ice spears to counter the incoming feathers. Thousands of elemental constructs collided mid-air with Nesia’s dark plumage, lighting up the sky.

The continuous energetic impacts between Nesia and Gayatri generated massive shockwaves that rippled across the surrounding battle sectors. Every nearby cultivator was forced to maintain an active aura field simply to avoid being blown off their feet by the collateral feedback.

Viewed from a distance, the battlefield resembled an apocalyptic storm of light and shadow—high-yield energy fields colliding, detonating, and grinding against one another. The earth shuddered continuously under the strain, while the heavens vibrated with atmospheric feedback.

The kinetic vibrations of the battle traveled for miles across the province. Reinforcement columns from the outlying continents felt the earth tremble beneath their mounts, prompting commanders to double their pace. They needed to reach Prisma before the capital's outer defenses collapsed.

A united front was the sole key to balancing the scales and preventing Lord Demon Shura from subjugating the five continents. The sacrifices made by the Three Legends twenty years ago could not be allowed to end in defeat.

Elsewhere on the front line, Warlord Tora—one of the 10 Annihilation Demons—swung his heavy iron chains in a wide, sweeping arc. The razor-sharp cleavers attached to the links swept across the field, hurling several orthodox cultivators backward with severe internal injuries. Wielding heavy chain mechanics infused with corrupted dark magic, Tora’s terrifying presence forced nearby defenders to hesitate.

Five orthodox cultivators froze in place, terrified to step within the lethal reach of Tora's rotating chains. They recognized that their Rank 7 and Rank 8 parameters were no match for a supreme warlord capable of sweeping away a ten-man squad with a single swing of his arms.

Noticing their hesitation, Tora grinned viciously and vaulted toward them, swinging his curved chain-cleavers in a sweeping execution arc. Infused with dark magic, a single pass of his rotating weapon possessed the kinetic force to fell an ancient forest.

A wave of corrupted dark aura surged toward the five defenders before they could execute an evasive maneuver.

We're dead!

Trembling, they raised their steel swords in a desperate, futile attempt to block the blow.

As the chain-cleavers flew toward them, Tora smiled with cruel satisfaction, anticipating the sight of five cultivators shredded in a single stroke. Accept your fate as soft meat for my blades, he thought maliciously.

The absolute strength of the 10 Annihilation Demons was undeniable. When they took the field, global destruction followed in their wake. Yet these foolish cultivators had chosen to resist?

What a hilarious death wish! Tora nearly laughed aloud as his blades closed to within inches of the trembling defenders.

FLASH!

A blinding glare illuminated the space between them.

Tora's chain-cleavers suddenly ground to a violent halt, their sharp tips embedding deeply into a massive stone pillar that materialized out of nowhere. As the dust cleared, an elder warrior stepped into the line of fire.

He had seized a fallen longsword and expertly wrapped it around Tora’s iron links, neutralizing the kinetic momentum of the strike before it could harm the five defenders.

It was Warrior Jiro!

Moving with practiced fluidity, Jiro had intercepted the warlord's heavy assault using pure aura control.

"Fall back and support the other sectors!" Jiro commanded without turning his head. He knew that ordinary Rank 7 or Rank 8 cultivators were merely fodder against a supreme commander of Tora's caliber.

As Aji had cautioned, the 10 Annihilation Demons were high-tier warlords who had spent twenty years refining their parameters in isolation, summoned only for absolute conquest. Their individual combat parameters matched—or even exceeded—those of the Five Gates.

Jiro dropped into a low combat stance, releasing his blade so Tora could recall his chains.

The two battle-hardened grandmasters locked eyes amidst the roaring chaos of the battlefield, their weapons ready. In a war where a single lapse in focus meant instant death, they prepared to test whose discipline would prevail.