"I care nothing for your pathetic words—today, your life ends by my hand!" Draudo roared, his voice booming across the basin as dark magic surged through his massive torso and the eight metallic limbs sprouting from his spine. He locked his focus entirely on executing Aji. His mind briefly weighed the possibility that Aji's claims regarding Jonas and Marie were true.

Why? Because Draudo was experiencing Aji's parameters firsthand. This youth was undoubtedly the unknown grandmaster referenced in intelligence reports—the hidden strategist who had systematically dismantled Lord Demon Shura's operations. He was the central pillar standing between the dark army and total global conquest.

Unsealing his total output, Draudo transformed the tips of his eight metallic limbs into razor-sharp, obsidian broadswords wrapped in volatile black smoke.

Brandishing his array of blades, Draudo lunged at Aji. Yet his sweeping slash sliced through empty air—Aji had already shifted behind his flank, moving with the near-invisible velocity of an elite assassin.

Sweeping his eight metallic limbs backward, Draudo launched a relentless volley of thrusts. Aji retreated half a pace, parrying and dodging every incoming vector. Executing a backward flip, Draudo airborne his heavy frame, spinning his entire vessel alongside his eight metallic blades to transform into a roaring, high-speed kinetic drill aimed straight for Aji's chest.

Aji raised his wooden staff, receiving the kinetic impact head-on. Though the force drove him back several steps across the terrain, Aji absorbed the momentum seamlessly. Draudo was attacking with ten weapons simultaneously—his two primary fists paired with the eight metallic blades extending from his spine.

Possessing spatial fluidity, the eight metallic limbs extended and retracted at will, guided directly by Draudo's dark consciousness.

CLANG! TRANG! SHATTER!

Staff and ten blades collided in an unbroken, high-speed exchange. Both combatants moved with fluid agility, trading high-yield strikes across the basin—clashing mid-air one instant, then crashing into the soil the next.

Shockwaves detonated continuously across the landscape. Observing from a safe distance, Aaman watched the high-tier duel with a tense expression. Facing even a single warlord of the 10 Annihilation Demons in open combat was an ordeal beyond standard grandmaster parameters.

Yet Aji engaged the demonized warlord with absolute composure, matching Draudo blow for blow. In terms of internal depth, Aji clearly held the upper hand.

Despite his massive, mutated frame, Draudo's operational velocity had multiplied significantly. Yet internally, a seed of desperation began to take root. My transformation limit is approaching! The ultimate Demon Transformation carried a strict temporal boundary; if he failed to execute the youth before his core entered its exhaustion phase, the combat momentum would shift permanently against him.

He needed to deploy his absolute, high-yield secret discipline—the pinnacle art he had perfected during two decades of subterranean exile. While he possessed numerous high-tier techniques, he recognized that standard arrays would be effortlessly countered by Aji's versatile parameters.

Against an opponent of this caliber, only his absolute peak discipline would suffice.

No more delays! Draudo resolved to finish the clash, eliminate the youth named Aji, and shatter this isolated dimension to rejoin the main host outside Prisma.

Bringing his primary palms together before his chest, Draudo synchronized his eight metallic limbs, pairing them up into five distinct sets of opposing hands.

Dense, midnight-black aura erupted from his core, enveloping his massive frame in a swirling vortex.

"Dark Clones!"

Draudo’s massive frame imploded, splitting into ten distinct spheres of volatile dark magic that scattered across the basin. Each black sphere hovered mid-air, wrapped in a suffocating shroud of pitch-black aura. The dark masses swirled like localized tempests, expanding and mutating into irregular, throbbing constructs.

FLASH!

The ten dark spheres detonated simultaneously. As the smoke cleared, ten identical, five-meter-tall demonized dreadnoughts emerged—each an exact copy of Draudo in his ultimate Demon Transformation, complete with eight spider-like metallic limbs extending from their spines.

Ten supreme warlords now stood on the field, locking their collective bloodlust onto Aji.

Aji dropped into a low, vigilant stance, picking up the suffocating aura fields radiating from all ten entities. His sensory domain confirmed a horrifying reality: these were not illusory phantoms or optical mirages. Every single clone possessed a living, physical vessel fueled by an identical dark core.

The 10 Annihilation Demons were truly terrifying combatants. Facing Jonas and Marie earlier, Aji had been forced to exert significant parameter output, strategically isolating Marie's support domain to break Jonas's offensive.

Now, he faced ten identical warlords, each commanding absolute physical parameters and high-speed metallic weaponry. Yet Aji remained calm, aware of the fundamental law governing dark cultivation: no matter how absolute a dark transformation appeared, its duration was strictly limited.

If brute force couldn't achieve an immediate breakthrough, stalling until Draudo's core entered its post-transformation exhaustion phase was a mathematically sound strategy.

Over on the ridge, Aaman stared at the ten identical juggernauts in utter disbelief. A single lieutenant of the Demon Lord commanded parameters of this magnitude—capable of duplicating his physical vessel and dark core ten times over!

They really are monsters...

Giving Aji zero time to prepare a counter-array, the ten Draudo clones surged forward simultaneously, converging on his position from all directions. Aji unsealed his movement discipline—Ultimate Ghost Speed—an assassin technique that allowed the user to relocate across spatial coordinates without leaving a kinetic footprint.

Aji blurred through the narrow gaps between the incoming strikes, dodging the first, second, and third Draudo clones as they attacked in seamless rotation. Though the massive clones attempted to box him in, tracking his evasive trajectory, Aji glided past their bladed limbs with effortless grace.

Draudo’s frustration flared into unbridled rage. How could ten fully transformed vessels, wielding eighty metallic blades between them, fail to pin down a single human target?

Roaring in fury, the ten clones formed a tight circular perimeter around Aji mid-air. Using their eight metallic limbs as kinetic boosters, they rotated their spinal armaments like high-speed drills, discharging compressed gales of dark magic that multiplied their forward velocity eightfold.

The sudden speed burst closed the escape vectors. Aji felt the surrounding kinetic pressure double as the ten clones converged on him with crushing damage potential. Vaulting upward to clear the initial sweep, Aji found his overhead path blocked by a volley of descending metallic blades.

Twisting his torso mid-air to evade the upper blades, two Draudo clones materialized along his flanks, swinging their heavy fists in a synchronized pincer strike. Caught mid-air with zero room to maneuver, Aji brought his forearms up, deploying a dense mana barrier to absorb the blow.

BOOM!

The double impact slammed into Aji's barrier, shattering the array and launching him downward like a falling stone. Aji crashed into the earth, rolling across the soil as a heavy cloud of dust billowed over the impact crater.

Without giving him a second to catch his breath, the ten Draudo clones landed in a disciplined line at the crater's edge, their spinal blades spinning at maximum velocity as they raised their primary hands toward the dust cloud.

Corrupted dark energy condensed before their palms, forming ten high-density dark magic spheres that blazed with volatile black light.

They were preparing to unleash a joint execution bombardment.

WOOOOOSH!

Ten beams of concentrated dark magic fired simultaneously, streaking toward Aji at blinding velocity.

Facing a point-blank bombardment, Aji chose not to retreat. Drawing his right fist back, he prepared to test a high-tier discipline he had never before deployed in live combat.

A brilliant ring of incandescent light condensed around Aji's right fist, encircled by crackling threads of celestial lightning and multi-elemental aura runes.

"Magic Thunder Fist!"

BLAAAAAM!

The opposing energy fields collided at the center of the basin, triggering a catastrophic detonation that shook the earth and warped the atmospheric channels. The violent kinetic shockwave hurled Aaman backward, forcing him to unseal his highest-tier defensive barrier to withstand the collateral feedback.

Aaman watched the blinding light with wide, awe-struck eyes. Aji had seamlessly fused the physical parameters of the Thunder Striker with high-tier spellcasting barriers—an absolute synthesis of the warrior and mage disciplines.

Aji's true depth transcended all mortal comprehension. Standing in that quiet dimension, Aaman recognized a simple truth: if every grandmaster across the five continents were to duel Aji one-by-one, not a single warrior could overcome him. He stood alone at the absolute apex of the martial path.