Stripped of their dark magic, the surviving dark operatives slumped to the earth in severe weakness. They lacked the parameters to assist the orthodox grandmasters, who were currently straining every core to hold back the suffocating midnight fog expanding from the center.

The cultists, who had so recently strutted across the plain slaughtering alliance defenders, were reduced to helpless burdens requiring protection from the very enemies they had sought to destroy. Overwhelmed by shame and regret, they could not bring themselves to meet the eyes of the orthodox cultivators guarding their fragile lives.

Remorse always arrived too late. They finally realized that the absolute power they had so proudly bragged about was merely an energetic mirage. The moment their master retrieved his borrowed dark magic, they were left utterly helpless. Now, their lives hung by a thread, threatened by the very dark aura they had worshipped.

"Flawless! Hahaha!"

Lord Demon Shura’s laughter reverberated across the heavens like roaring thunder. He had waited a century to feel this absolute volume of parameters coursing through his pathways. The combined dark magic harvested from over a million followers—vessels engineered solely to gather fuel for his ascent—had returned to his core.

It was an absolute, divine force capable of shattering the physical plane, signaling a new era for the five continents.

Shura clenched both gauntlets, releasing a concentrated pulse of dark parameters. The massive joint barrier deployed by the orthodox grandmasters to contain the expanding midnight fog was pulverized into scattered mana embers in a single instant. The kinetic feedback hurled hundreds of alliance cultivators backward, their defensive aura fields completely overwhelmed.

CRACK! BLAAAAM!

"Surrender willingly!" Shura’s voice echoed across the enclosed basin with absolute authority. "I shall grant you a painless execution! Welcome to a world of absolute, eternal justice!"

Shura discharged a second, wider pulse of dark magic. The midnight fog expanded at an accelerated velocity, sweeping across the basin like an unstoppable dark tide. It advanced relentlessly toward the outer boundaries, aiming to engulf every living soul trapped inside the spatial dome.

Anyone touched by this combined aura—forged from raw dark magic and the celestial parameters of the Blood Supreme—would be reduced to airborne ash within seconds.

Observing the approaching catastrophe, Commander Dasatama felt the full weight of leadership rest upon his shoulders. Vaulting to the front of the alliance formation, he unsealed the absolute ceiling of his parameters.

Raising his broadsword toward the heavens, Dasatama drew a massive bolt of celestial lightning from the upper atmosphere, binding the electric aura directly to his steel blade. The parameter density output was staggering, transcending the baseline limits of mortal grandmasters. His spellsword expanded in length, its luminous point piercing the atmospheric shroud.

High above, Shura registered the sudden parameter surge. The God of War...

Dasatama was undoubtedly the most formidable warrior within the global alliance. Unfortunately for him, he was facing an entity who had cultivated dark magic for a century, an immortal sovereign who had achieved total integration with the Blood Supreme while absorbing the life force of an entire army.

To Shura, the martial artists he had trained and the dark operatives he had commanded over the decades were nothing more than expendable pawns. They existed solely to harvest dark magic across the five continents to fuel his final ascension.

Not a single follower carried value beyond serving as a living battery. They were raised to gather parameters, then slaughtered as sacrifices to complete his divine form. They were necessary stepping stones for him to claim absolute godhood and enforce perpetual peace across the realm.

With a thunderous roar, Dasatama executed an absolute downward cleave, directing his blinding blade straight toward Lord Demon Shura.

WOOOOOSH!

The massive column of celestial lightning and sword aura cut through the dark sky, accompanied by a deafening sonic boom that shook the earth. The light was blinding, casting a white-hot glare across the darkened basin as it surged toward the floating Demon Lord.

The divine sword arc sliced through the expanding midnight fog, parting the dense dark clouds with sheer kinetic force.

The rolling wave of death was split wide open by Dasatama’s strike, and the luminous sword arc drove straight for Shura's chest.

Across the field, the alliance grandmasters gasped, hoping against hope that the God of War’s absolute strike would pierce the sovereign of darkness.

Yet Shura remained motionless, watching the descending celestial blade with absolute indifference.

SNAP!

As the absolute strike closed to within inches of his vessel, Shura casually raised his right hand. Enveloping his gauntlet in a dense coat of midnight aura, he caught Dasatama’s colossal sword arc between his fingers!

The sound-shattering strike was halted mid-air. Shura held the massive, glowing energy blade above his head with zero visible effort.

"You are still decades too early, God of War!" Shura sneered, his voice echoing over the crackling energy. "It would take you a century of unbroken cultivation to stand on equal footing with me! Your journey ends here!"

CRACK!

Fine spiderweb fractures appeared along the length of Dasatama’s celestial blade.

Dasatama gritted his teeth, straining his core to maintain the strike. He continuously drew ambient natural mana to reinforce his pathways, attempting to overwhelm the Demon Lord through sheer parameter volume.

Yet Shura displayed zero strain. Tightening his grip, he shattered Dasatama’s celestial sword arc into a million falling fragments, severing the grandmaster's energetic connection to the atmospheric strike.

Dasatama stumbled backward in mid-air, his pathways severely depleted. His absolute, maximum-yield technique—a strike that could level mountain ranges—had failed to leave even a single scratch upon the Demon Lord's flesh.

"Your feeble resistance is over!" Shura declared, his dark eyes blazing with divine madness. "Now, allow me to execute my counter-strike! Rest in peace, every one of you! I shall resurrect your vessels as my mindless thralls!"

Shura raised his right fist skyward, condensing a ball of absolute, midnight-black aura above his gauntlet. The parameter density compressed to a critical point, generating an intense gravitational pressure that weighed down on every cultivator trapped inside the spatial dome.

The suffocating pressure forced grandmasters to their knees. Pulling his right elbow back beside his torso, Shura locked his gauntlet in an execution posture, his entire vessel pulsating with volatile dark magic.

Descending from the clouds like a falling meteor, Shura drove his right fist straight into the earth beneath his boots.

"Black Hole Fist!"

BOOOOOOM!

A catastrophic explosion detonated upon impact, shattering the bedrock beneath Shura's feet. The basin shuddered violently as a seismic shockwave rolled across the province, tearing open deep subterranean fissures. The sheer destruction parameter was sufficient to obliterate an entire continent.

As the earth buckled, throwing hundreds of thousands of cultivators off balance, a wave of absolute darkness expanded from the impact coordinate at sound-shattering velocity.

The midnight cloud swept outward in a 360-degree radius, consuming everything in its path. The dark operatives positioned closest to Shura served as the primary casualties, their physical vessels disintegrating into dust the instant the dark wave swept over them.

Agonizing shrieks echoed across the plain as thousands were erased in seconds. Panic turned into utter chaos. Is there truly no hope? Are we destined to perish without a fight? Is defeating this entity mathematically impossible?

The alliance troops were backed up against the impenetrable spatial dome, bracing for the end. Yet, refusing to die as helpless prey, they raised their armaments, pooling their remaining parameters to build a final defensive barrier against the encroaching tide of death.

The dark wave consumed cultist after cultist, their frantic cries for help echoing in vain. Above the rolling sea of midnight fog, Shura hovered in mid-air, his manic laughter resounding across the heavens.

"Gayatri, the time has come for me to step forward," Aji said softly, turning to face Gayatri amidst the chaos and deafening screams. He offered a serene, confident nod. "Please look after our comrades."

"Aji... what are you planning to do?" Gayatri asked, her voice trembling. She knew the reality of their situation—even Dasatama had failed to leave a mark on the Demon Lord. Shura’s unsealed parameters were absolute, an unstoppable force of nature.

Aji offered a tranquil smile. "Remember this, Gayatri: so long as a human lives, they must never abandon hope. And if hope cannot be found... they must forge it with their own hands."

Without a word of warning to the surrounding crowd, Aji unsealed the absolute ceiling of his internal pathways. Closing his eyes for a split second, he opened them to reveal eyes blazing with divine radiance.

An absolute, multi-elemental parameter field erupted from Aji's vessel, coiling around his frame in a dazzling array of rainbow-colored light. It was a complex, divine aura—a parameter density that felt as though it had been cultivated over a century of unbroken, flawless practice. Gayatri stared in utter disbelief, her mind unable to process the divine force surging beside her.

Aji... are you truly a ancient grandmaster returned from the past to cleanse the world of Shura's madness?

"Wait, Aji!" The question spilled from Gayatri's lips before she could stop herself. "Will... will we ever meet again?"

Aji turned his back to her, stepping slowly toward the approaching wave of midnight fog. "I do not know, Gayatri. But in the twilight of my journey, I am truly grateful to have met a woman like you. It is a memory I shall treasure forever."

The atmospheric wind whipped around his frame as divine parameters linked directly to his vessel. Vaulting skyward, Aji plunged straight toward the creeping sea of dark fog.

Mid-air, he drew his right gauntlet back. Blinding celestial light and crackling arcs of thunder erupted from his arm, enveloping his vessel in an aura of pure, divine judgment.

The mandate of his life was about to be fulfilled. It was time to end the Demon Lord once and for all.