On one wing of the battlefield, a supreme warlord among the 10 Annihilation Demons was rampaging through the alliance ranks. He wielded a massive, living broadsword carved with intricate black runes—a sentient armament known as Dragon Ego. The warlord was Draudo.

The orthodox defenders facing him trembled in sheer terror. When four brave cultivators raised their steel blades to block his incoming strike, Dragon Ego unsealed its living maw, devouring all four armaments whole. Possessing its own dark consciousness, the living blade served Draudo as a loyal partner. Draudo was the sole dark grandmaster who had conquered a sentient weapon, having pursued its legend for years until binding its ego to his core.

Now, master and blade operated as one, with Draudo constantly feeding its appetite with steel and human flesh.

The kinetic parameters of Dragon Ego were horrifying. Every standard slash released a heavy gravitational field that applied a severe movement-impairment domain over targets caught within its range, pinning their vessels to the earth.

After devouring the four cultivators' swords—crunching the tempered steel like brittle glass—the tip of Dragon Ego mutated into a grotesque dragon head. Applying its movement-impairment field over the four defenders, Draudo swept his massive blade in a horizontal execution arc, bisecting their frames while the living sword consumed their flesh and internal parameters.

The gruesome sight sent a wave of panic through nearby cultivators, forcing them to retreat with trembling hands. Energized by the slaughter, Draudo rested the flat of his heavy blade against his shoulder, striding confidently toward the fleeing defenders. Though paralyzed by fear, the remaining cultivators raised their swords in a desperate attempt to form a perimeter.

Draudo relished the carnage. Slay a hundred cultivators, devour their steel, and assimilate their internal parameters—it was the ultimate combat high. Accelerating his pace, he leaped high into the air, plunging toward the thickest cluster of defenders with his living blade raised for a decimation strike.

WOOOOOSH! CLANG!

Draudo’s execution arc was intercepted mid-air by a high-velocity parry.

Two long trench daggers caught the heavy edge of Dragon Ego, their forged steel reinforced with high-density internal aura. Crossing his daggers in a tight locking arc, the defender absorbed the kinetic shockwave head-on.

A warrior moving at near-invisible velocity stood rooted before Draudo, holding the supreme warlord’s strike at a complete standstill.

It was Aaman. Though trained primarily in dual-sword disciplines, Aaman preferred wielding twin elongated trench daggers in high-stakes engagements. While he ordinarily deployed a single blade for standard reconnaissance, the sheer pressure radiating from Draudo demanded his full, dual-wield output.

Straining his vessel, Aaman assimilated ambient natural mana to reinforce his footing against the warlord's crushing weight. Unsealing his spiritual circles, he channeled the high-tier cellular immunity granted by his prior parameter absorption with the Heart Dragon celestial artifact. Still, he internally acknowledged the staggering reality: the entity before him was a true dreadnought among the 10 Annihilation Demons.

Draudo detonated his dark core, surging his dark magic output to overpower Aaman's lock. The tip of Dragon Ego mutated once more, forming a shadowy dragon head that hissed with corrupted aura, lunging straight for Aaman's neck.

No!

BOOM!

Before the dragon head could snap its jaws around Aaman's throat, a heavy kinetic strike slammed into the living blade's snout. The sheer kinetic impact vibrated down the steel, forcing Draudo to execute a backward backflip to maintain his grip on his weapon.

Landing several meters back, Draudo stabilized his parameters. The heavy punch had rattled his core, yet a cold, eager grin spread across his face. The stronger the opponent, the greater the parameter yield once he extinguished their life force.

Reining in Dragon Ego’s wild vibrations, Draudo looked up at the newcomer standing beside the dual-dagger warrior.

"Exercise extreme vigilance, Aaman," a calm voice warned. "This opponent commands parameters just a tier below the Demon Lord."

It was Aji. He stepped to the vanguard, offering a quiet warning to keep Aaman from dropping his guard.

Across the wider battlefield, the orthodox alliance was being steadily pushed back by numerical inferiority. With eight of the 10 Annihilation Demons ravaging the front lines, the defenders were taking heavy casualties. Aji recognized that he needed to systematically eliminate the supreme warlords to relieve the pressure on the alliance.

"Fall back and support the other sectors, Aaman," Aji instructed gently. "I shall handle this one."

Aaman adjusted his grip on his twin daggers, bringing their tips forward to align beside Aji. "No, Aji. Just once... I want to lock blades beside you. Do not deny me this opportunity to stand at your side."

Aaman had never fought alongside Aji in open combat. Deep down, a powerful conviction urged him to fight by his side today. Though they had trained together and shared confidential intelligence for nearly a year, they had never joined forces against a shared foe. He longed to experience the true depth of the living legend firsthand.

"Bwahaha!"

Draudo’s mocking laughter reverberated across the field. "There is no need to debate who fights whom, brats! I shall slaughter you both together! You may take pride in dying by my hand!"

Aji ignored the warlord’s taunt, turning a warm, gentle smile toward Aaman. "Very well, if that is your wish. Though be warned, Aaman... this may very well be our final clash together."

Aaman offered a firm nod. He cared nothing for foreboding prophecies or the outcome of the war; his sole focus was fighting alongside the friend and mentor he had respected for months. It was a priceless privilege, knowing Aji harbored god-like parameters behind his calm exterior.

"Come at me, foolish brats!" Draudo roared, gripping Dragon Ego with both hands in a low side stance.

"Move!" Aji commanded.

Surging forward at absolute velocity, Aji unsealed the wooden staff from his back, spinning the weapon in a tight defensive wheel. Beside him, Aaman moved like a high-speed assassin, his twin long daggers blazed with kinetic aura. Though Aaman was primarily a swordsman, his affinity for assassin velocity allowed him to weld heavy physical damage with high-speed lethal thrusts.

Draudo smirked, amazed by their suicidal arrogance. The two youths were charging head-on into his domain, ignorant of his standing as a supreme commander over a hundred thousand dark operatives—a warlord who had spent twenty years refining his combat art in subterranean exile.

To Draudo, their frontal assault was nothing short of a gift. He prepared to grant them a swift death and absorb their refined parameters into his core.

As the distance closed to meters, Draudo raised Dragon Ego high above his head.

"Close Ego Black!"

Swinging his living blade downward, Dragon Ego discharged a sprawling, net-like shroud of dark magic that expanded like a casting net over the terrain. The dark magic woven into the net intensified instantly, wrapping around both youths as they closed in.

Got you!

The sprawling shroud enveloped Aji and Aaman, folding around their vessels like a massive black cocoon. The dark cocoon hovered mid-air, anchored to the tip of Dragon Ego by a thick umbilical tether of dark magic.

Confident of his victory, Draudo thrust his blade forward, triggering the internal detonation sequence.

BLAAAAAM!

The dark cocoon imploded violently. Anyone trapped inside should have been shredded into fine dust by thousands of spectral blade fragments generated by Dragon Ego’s shattered consciousness.

Draudo narrowed his eyes, waiting for the dark smoke to clear so he could collect their remains. Yet as the haze dissipated, the cocoon was completely empty—zero physical remains or blood splatters were left behind.

The Close Ego Black domain was engineered to trap the target's soul and shred their vessel from within. Once detonated, escape was mathematically impossible. Where had they gone?

Before Draudo could process the anomaly, a wide-mouth spatial portal unsealed directly above his head, pulsing with dark dimensional energy.

Two figures plunged from the spatial rift at terminal velocity. Aaman unsealed his full kinetic parameters, sweeping his dual long daggers downward in a execution strike aimed at Draudo's neck. Instincts flaring as Dragon Ego vibrated violently in his grip, Draudo snapped his heavy blade upward to intercept the strike.

CLANG!

Their weapons collided mid-air. The tip of Dragon Ego instantly mutated into a shadowy dragon head, lunging forward to devour Aaman's upper torso at point-blank range.

"I have you now! Die!" Draudo bellowed, certain of the kill.

"Thunder Strike!"

A blinding flash of celestial light, absolute velocity, and a crushing movement-impairment domain erupted simultaneously. The blinding glare forced Draudo's eyes to shut against the searing heat.

An iron fist wrapped in crackling, celestial thunder slammed directly into the snout of Dragon Ego's mutated dragon head, driving the living weapon back into its steel form with catastrophic force!

CRACK! SHATTER!