"State your name, warrior," Warlord Tora demanded, yanking hard on his heavy iron chains. He coiled the links deliberately around his right forearm, spinning the curved, razor-sharp cleavers attached to the ends in continuous, lethal circles as he spoke.

Warrior Jiro evaluated the looming threat before him, keeping his center of gravity low. All across the plains of Prisma, the martial alliance was engaged in a desperate, uphill battle against the dark legions. Outnumbered and facing unnatural, corrupted magic, the defenders had to hold the line at all costs.

At the portal stations inside the capital, vanguard detachments continued to materialize from outlying provinces—a trickle of thirty to forty elite cultivators every few minutes. While insufficient to turn the tide immediately, these incoming units provided vital relief to the front line while they waited for the primary continental reinforcement columns to complete their overland march.

Survival was the sole imperative.

"They call me Warrior Jiro," he replied calmly, meeting the warlord's gaze. "And I presume I am facing one of the legendary 10 Annihilation Demons?"

Tora let out a booming, arrogant laugh. "Fortune smiles upon me today, granting me an audience with one of the alliance's celebrated pillars! I have heard much of your exploits, Warrior Jiro—you have slaughtered countless dark operatives across the land. Yet every opponent you have slain thus far was merely low-tier trash! Today, you shall experience the absolute parameters of a supreme warlord!"

Jiro offered a quiet, measured smile. "I look forward to testing the strength of a supreme commander—one of the mythic 10 Annihilation Demons."

Both warriors unsealed their internal aura fields simultaneously. As Jiro lunged forward, his fists wrapped in dense, high-frequency kinetic energy, Tora whipped his heavy chains outward in an immediate counter-strike. Their duel erupted in a clash of steel and shockwaves.

Elsewhere on the front line, brutal skirmishes raged in every sector. At the outer edge of Jiro and Tora's duel, a joint detachment comprising military defense troops and Sky Squad members was holding its ground admirably, repelling wave after wave of dark cultists.

Suddenly, the ground beneath their boots turned sodden and unstable. A roaring torrent of murky water materialized out of thin air, sweeping across the plain like a catastrophic flash flood. The sudden deluge trapped the defenders in violent whirlpools, severely constraining their mobility.

How could a massive flood erupt in the middle of an open plain?

Trapped in the rising waters, Sky Squad members Domar, Rosa, and Astro fought to stabilize their footing. Commander Gonan, deputy chief of the military defense divisions, reacted swiftly. Raising his heavy quarterstaff, he channeled a high-density mana barrier, slicing through the incoming torrent so the roaring waters split and flowed harmlessly past his flanks.

Gonan recognized the phenomenon immediately: it was a high-tier visual and sensory illusion deployed by a master of dark magic. Though he had successfully deflected the physical impact of the water with his barrier, he had not yet broken the underlying psychological array generating the domain. The caster commanded an extraordinary level of mental manipulation.

Even for a veteran spellcaster like Gonan, breaking a grand-tier illusion array required supreme concentration. Before he could recalibrate his focus, the illusion shifted—the murky waters vanished, replaced by howling, catastrophic gales descending from the upper atmosphere, capable of tearing flesh from bone.

Cultivators unaware of the array's illusory nature risked being swept away by their own panic. High-tier illusion disciplines did not merely trick the eyes; they directly invaded the mind, forcing the target's nervous system to experience the generated phantoms as physical reality. If a victim believed the gale was crushing them, their body would manifest actual internal trauma.

Gonan reinforced his internal parameters. Raising his short staff skyward, he unleashed a continuous torrent of roaring, spiraling flames, forming a dense fiery dome to intercept the descending tempests. His high-density fire pillars slammed into the swirling wind vortex like heavy iron battering rams.

Yet the illusory gale continued to press downward, threatening to crush his fire domain.

Just as the wind vortex closed to within meters of Gonan's position, dozens of towering, spectral energy constructs materialized out of thin air. The massive guardians raised glowing armaments, locking their shields together to absorb the kinetic force of the tempest.

Standing at the center of the summoning circle was an elder woman holding a heavy, unpolished wooden staff. It was Elder Silvi, advisor from the Frost Line continent—renowned across the realm for her high-tier spirit summoning disciplines.

The grandest of her spectral guardians—a towering titan brandishing a glowing trident—swept its weapon forward, shattering the wind vortex into scattered mana particles.

FLASH!

The howling tempest dissolved instantly, revealing a female figure standing at the center of the dark host. A sleek, midnight-black visor covered her cheekbones, matching her dark battle armor. It was Widi, one of the 10 Annihilation Demons—a master of high-tier illusions and energetic manipulation. In her hands, she held a pair of razor-sharp iron fans, unfurled in a low combat stance.

"Not bad for an old woman," Widi remarked smoothly, offering a genuine compliment as Silvi dispersed her illusion array.

Elder Silvi descended to the earth, taking her place at the vanguard beside Commander Gonan and the defense troops.

"I never imagined I would live to see a living dark myth standing before me," Silvi said, her voice dripping with quiet authority. "The notorious illusionist who vanished from the high-security prison decades ago while awaiting execution!"

Silvi knew Widi's history well. Decades ago, before joining Shura's court, Widi had been a notorious bandit leader specializing in high-tier sensory illusions, preying upon wealthy merchant caravans traveling through provincial passes.

Eventually, the military defense divisions had lured her into a masterfully executed ambush, capturing her after a bloody siege. Given the magnitude of her crimes, she had been sentenced to life in a subterranean holding facility—only to vanish mysteriously from her sealed cell overnight. Lord Demon Shura had broken into the facility, rescuing Widi and granting her dark cultivation manuals that elevated her illusion disciplines to absolute heights.

"So you remember my past, old woman," Widi replied, her eyes narrowing behind her dark visor. "And who might you be?"

Silvi planted her heavy wooden staff into the soil, causing the earth to vibrate softly. "I am Silvi. I was one of the grandmasters who ambushed your caravan and bound your internal pathways all those years ago. I knew Shura had spirited you away, but to face you on this field today... fortune works in mysterious ways, Widi the Illusionist!"

Memories flooded Widi's mind—the memory of a lucrative caravan that turned out to be a trap, the heavy suppression arrays that bound her core, and the dark cell where she had awaited the gallows until Shura offered her absolute power.

It had happened so long ago that the memory had faded into history. Yet looking at the elder advisor before her, Widi recognized the same unyielding aura that had brought about her downfall decades ago.

The timing is exquisite!

This was her opportunity for absolute vengeance. She would demonstrate the dark power she had refined over twenty years of hibernation, grinding the alliance defenders into ash beneath her boots.

"Then this reunion is truly divine!" Widi shrieked, spreading her arms wide as her iron fans flared with dark magic. "I shall drown you all in a blood-siphoning nightmare!"

A terrifying pack of monstrous, dark-scaled dragons erupted from the shadows behind Widi. Their distorted, malformed heads dripped with volatile dark magic as they roared, surging forward to devour the defenders.

Silvi recognized the immense psychological weight of the array. If the young cultivators allowed fear to compromise their mental focus, the illusionary dragons would consume their vitality in reality.

"Stand firm, all of you!" Silvi shouted, her voice echoing across the sector. "Do not let fear breach your minds! If your resolve falters, the illusion will siphon your life force! Focus on your true parameters and keep your eyes on the caster!"

Her warning snapped Domar, Rosa, Arion, and Commander Gonan out of their stupor. They locked their stances, bracing for the incoming wave of dark dragons.

An illusion generated by a master-tier caster operated on the boundary between phantom and reality. If a target treated the illusion as real, the brain would manifest physical trauma matching the phantom strike. To break the array, one had to meet the illusion with absolute physical truth.

Commander Gonan understood the counter-discipline well. Focusing his core, he summoned a massive, tangible dragon constructed from ultra-dense elemental mana—a physical summoning, not an illusion.

Though Gonan could manifest only a single physical dragon due to the heavy mana cost, its dense parameters were absolute. The glowing mana dragon lunged forward, locking its jaws around Widi's illusory pack. Gonan's physical creation tore through the phantom beasts, driving Widi's array backward.

Unfazed, Widi flicked her iron fans, causing her illusory dragons to split into hundreds of smaller phantom beasts that swarmed around Gonan's dragon, targeting individual cultivators across the sector.

The phantom swarm thrown the alliance ranks into chaos, forcing younger cultivators to fight phantom beasts that appeared terrifyingly real.

Elder Silvi intervened, summoning a squad of giant spectral guardians to intercept the phantom beasts, engaging Widi's array in a war of summons. With Silvi covering the field, Commander Gonan seized the opening, directing his massive mana dragon straight toward Widi's physical vessel.

The key to shattering a high-tier illusion array was eliminating the caster. If the caster sustained a heavy physical blow, their concentration would break, dissolving the array instantly.

Gonan's mana dragon swept past the spectral battle, closing in on Widi at absolute velocity. He calculated that Widi would be defenseless while maintaining an array of this scale, making her vulnerable to a point-blank kinetic strike.

WOOOOOSH! FLASH!

A blinding glare erupted as Gonan's mana dragon slammed into Widi's position.

Did it land?! Gonan thought, straining his eyes through the dust.