Warrior Jiro felt his physical frame throbbing from the sudden parameter overload. Yet thanks to his new enlightenment—manifesting the three external light needles to store and channel massive volumes of natural mana beyond his vessel's natural limiters—he had achieved a breakthrough he had strived for his entire life.

In the aftermath of that exhausting clash, an unforgettable truth settled deep within his core. The dying smile on Tora's lips stood as a tragic testament to the cruel inequalities of the martial world. Tora had been a victim of circumstance, forced onto the dark path to achieve high-tier parameters quickly to survive.

Jiro’s absolute strike had pierced Tora's vessel, disintegrating his core so completely that cellular regeneration was impossible. Yet, with his internal reserves completely drained, Jiro felt his consciousness waver. His aerial control dissolved, and he began falling rapidly toward the earth.

Closing his eyes, a profound peace washed over his mind. He felt ready to yield the field to the younger generation. His role in this war felt complete, and he longed only for rest.

As he plunged toward the soil, a broad, iron-clad hand caught his wrist mid-air, halting his momentum inches above the ground before guiding his feet gently onto solid earth.

"It is far too early for you to rest, Warrior Jiro! Can a true knight sleep while his comrades risk their lives to stand against darkness?"

That voice...? Has he returned?

Jiro opened his eyes. Standing beside him was Aji, steadying his frame and channeling a gentle wave of stabilizing aura to help him stand upright. Though Jiro's legs remained weak, he forced himself to stand tall under Aji's support.

Behind Aji stood three familiar figures: Barsha, Alicia, and Aaman. All three offered warm, confident smiles. Each had engaged in their own life-and-death trials within the Mirror World—and their safe return proved they had achieved victory and attained higher realms of martial enlightenment, just as Jiro had.

"You have all returned safely... thank goodness," Jiro exhaled softly, a faint smile gracing his lips. "Allow me a moment to restore my core."

Jiro recognized that he could not afford to yield the field just yet. The war was far from over—in truth, the final phase was just beginning. The sight of these four young grandmasters ignited a renewed fire in his spirit.

He recalled Tora's final words. Though Tora had served as a warlord of the abyss, at his core he had lived as a knight—a knight who had entrusted Jiro with upholding the pillar of justice across the five continents.

Detecting the group's arrival, a dense detachment of dark operatives surged toward them, eager to capitalize on Jiro's exhaustion. They offered zero breathing room, moving in for an immediate kill.

"We shall guard your perimeter, Warrior Jiro," Aaman declared, drawing his twin long daggers from his back. "Focus on restoring your parameters—and do not keep us waiting long."

Aaman stepped in front of Jiro, his blades raised to intercept the incoming wave of dark cultists.

"Place your trust in us, Warrior Jiro," Alicia added smoothly, her longsword blazing with incandescent light mana. "Center your focus on your internal pathways and rejoin the clash when you are ready."

Once again, Jiro found himself protected by the very disciples he had trained. Alicia dropped into a high-tier spellcasting stance, her elemental barrier expanding to cover their flank.

"Warrior Jiro, we will hold the line," Barsha said, her tone carrying her signature cool authority. "So focus on your core and hurry back!"

With her twin trench daggers locked in her hands, Barsha drew her right foot back half a pace, preparing to unseal her absolute velocity. As the captain of the Sky Squad and the granddaughter of Saint Ganada, her fierce confidence was well-earned.

The three young grandmasters formed a tight triangular formation around Jiro, covering three cardinal vectors. Aji stepped into the fourth position, covering the remaining angle. Surrounded by these four, Jiro felt a profound sense of security. Standing and fighting as a united front was the highest honor for any true martial artist.

Unity and mutual trust forged an impenetrable shield.

Unsealing his wooden staff from his back, Aji planted the base firmly into the soil, pointing its tip skyward.

"Jiro... we grant you one minute. Not a second more!"

Looking at Aji's broad shoulders, Jiro felt another wave of quiet awe. This was the same youth who had bested him during their initial sparring match in Dompai using the absolute strike passed down by the legendary Thunder Striker.

He was a figure wrapped in absolute mystery. It was Aji who had instructed him to order custom armaments for each Sky Squad member, a maneuver that ultimately dragged the Mondu infiltration network at the Golden Crane Academy into the light.

It was Aji who had isolated Gultron of the Five Gates, orchestrated the tactical victory in the Tulisma Forest, and purified the volatile energy of the Heart Dragon artifact.

Looking at Aji's back, Jiro could never view him as an ordinary twenty-year-old cultivator. Aji moved like a celestial emissary dispatched from the heavens to guide humanity through its darkest hour—or perhaps, as Jiro privately believed, he was the living reincarnation of the Thunder Striker himself. It was far easier to believe Aji was a legendary soul returned to earth than a mere mortal.

Though such thoughts might be mere speculation, they reflected the profound authority and wisdom Aji commanded. A warrior of his caliber appeared once in a millennium—a champion who feared nothing in his defense of justice.

"Very well, you noisy brats," Jiro chuckled softly, closing his eyes. "Grant me my sixty seconds!"

Bringing his palms together before his chest, Jiro rested his hands upon his knees, crossing his legs in a meditative posture. Unsealing his highest-tier spiritual circles, he began absorbing ambient natural mana at maximum velocity, feeding the energy directly into his internal pathways. Internal aura and natural mana synchronized in a fluid, high-speed loop, rapidly refilling his drained core.

His internal aura flickered like a candle flame, expanding steadily into a roaring furnace as the natural elements harmonized with his pathways.

At that exact moment, the dark detachment reached their perimeter, launching a high-density assault.

The perimeter battle erupted. The four young grandmasters held their ground with absolute resolve, refusing to step a single inch from their assigned positions. Each covering a distinct vector, they unleashed their refined disciplines to repel the advancing dark host.

Their sole mandate: hold the line for sixty seconds and protect Jiro while his core recovered.

The dark cultists swarmed from all directions, but Barsha remained rooted to her post. Unsealing her Ghost Speed and absolute stealth, her velocity transcended human perception. She vanished into thin air, leaving only lingering afterimages as approaching dark operatives were systematically shredded, falling to the earth before they could even identify the origin of her strikes.

To the dark cultists, it felt as though they were battling an invisible phantasm.

On Alicia's vector, approaching dark operatives were intercepted long before they could step within striking distance. Sweeping her longsword forward, she discharged dense, high-yield energy slashes that incinerated dozens of dark cultists in mid-air. Her kinetic arc sliced through airborne attackers effortlessly, their lifeless bodies crashing to the soil around her.

On Aaman's flank, he wielded his twin long daggers with lethal precision. Striking his blades together, he generated a localized kinetic domain that applied a severe movement-impairment effect over a ten-meter radius before him.

Dark cultists entering his domain found their movements decelerated to a crawl. Before they could process the sluggish temporal flow, Aaman blurred forward at absolute velocity, driving his daggers directly through their hearts to deny them any chance of cellular regeneration.

Through their prior conversations with Jonas and Marie, the squad had learned the two absolute vulnerabilities of dark operatives: the neural core in the head and the cardiac core in the chest.

The head functioned as the primary command center; destroying it severed the neural signals required to trigger Black Blood cellular regeneration. The heart functioned as the primary pump for corrupted dark magic; destroying it prevented the dark aura from circulating through the vessel to repair physical trauma.

This confidential intelligence granted by Jonas and Marie proved invaluable: so long as a dark operative's head or heart remained intact, they could continually trigger Black Blood regeneration—provided their internal dark magic reserves held out. Once their dark magic was exhausted through prolonged combat, their cellular regeneration failed entirely, leaving them as reliant on mana recovery as orthodox cultivators.

On the fourth vector, Aji spun his wooden staff above his head, creating a roaring wheel of kinetic force. As dark operatives charged his position, Aji swept his staff outward, unleashing compressed waves of elemental energy that disintegrated the attackers into fine black dust upon impact.

Watching Aji's effortless slaughter, nearby cultivators looked on in awe. His output was staggering—he didn't even need to target heads or hearts, as the sheer density of his strikes disintegrated the dark operatives' entire physical frames in a single breath.

Aji moved like a living legend. Who was he truly?