Aji's gauntlets radiated divine brilliance as immense parameters flowed seamlessly from his core. The ambient natural mana harmonized with his internal pathways in absolute, perfect resonance. From her vantage point, Gayatri watched in awe—how could a cultivator integrate environmental mana with internal reserves with such flawless precision? Was it truly possible for a mortal to compress such monumental power into such a refined, subtle field?

Ordinarily, discharging parameters of that magnitude produced violent spatial distortions, leveling everything in the immediate vicinity. Yet Aji’s aura was completely contained; he compressed the catastrophic energy so tightly that zero kinetic waste leaked into the surrounding atmosphere, stabilizing his parameters against the destructive feedback around him.

Vaulting high into the sky, Aji leapt over the fleeing alliance ranks, descending directly into the path of the encroaching midnight fog that was dissolving every living soul in its wake. Cultivators screamed in terror as they scattered; those touched by the dark smoke were instantly reduced to airborne ash.

An apocalyptic nightmare was unfolding before their eyes, striking sheer terror into the hearts of the grandmasters.

It felt as though their lives were being offered as helpless sacrifices, with absolute annihilation awaiting them only seconds away.

Aji landed smoothly among the fleeing ranks. Stepping to the front, he braced himself to face the expanding sea of dark smoke head-on. The rolling shroud maintained an eerie, translucent charcoal hue, allowing everyone to witness the horrifying spectacle of bodies dissolving into dust upon contact. It was a sight of pure horror—the agonized shrieks of the dying echoing across the plain before their physical vessels vanished into the wind.

The dark fog expanded steadily, closing in on Aji's position, yet he advanced toward the tide without a single flicker of hesitation. Gayatri felt a surge of intuition—she knew Aji was not a man to throw his life away carelessly.

He was executing a deliberate strategy. With divine aura coiling tightly around his frame, he prepared to unleash his parameters. Tethers of trust bound her to him; she waited in quiet anticipation, eager to see how Aji intended to neutralize a catastrophic wave capable of incinerating grandmasters into dust.

WOOOOOSH!

The superheated wind driving the dark fog closed in on Aji. As the surrounding cultivators panicked, a few grandmasters paused, staring in disbelief at the lone youth standing as a bulwark against the apocalyptic tempest.

Closer and closer the midnight wave rolled, until merely meters separated Aji from the tide. Centering his posture, Aji focused his total parameters into his right gauntlet. High-density aura condensed around his fist in a blinding sphere—an absolute technique capable of flattening an entire metropolis in a single strike.

Aji pressed forward, continuing his steady march while finalizing his parameter alignment. He required only a split second to harmonize the atmospheric mana with his core. Before he could discharge the strike, the midnight fog swept over his position, engulfing him completely.

Gasping in horror, the retreating crowd watched as the dark fog consumed the youth. The moment the corrupted parameters touched Aji's vessel, his flesh began to shred. His skin peeled away like burning parchment, yet he endured the agonizing sensation without flinching. Remarkably, as his tissues dissolved into dust, his body regenerated instantly, entering a continuous, rapid loop of destruction and rebirth.

From the ridge, Alicia and Barsha watched the agonizing scene, their hearts clenching with acute anxiety. Yet memory quickly intervened. They recalled the lengthy conversations they had shared with Jonas and Marie inside the Mirror World after their duel had ended in defeat.

The tales Jonas and Marie had shared had sounded almost mythical at the time, though Marie had merely provided buff arrays while synchronizing her parameters with Jonas during that encounter.

Jonas had revealed the absolute secret of Aji’s physical vessel: an innate cellular regeneration trait that far surpassed the mechanics of Black Blood. While Black Blood regeneration relied on corrupted dark magic and required a deliberate temporal window to rebuild tissue, Aji’s recovery was entirely different.

Aji’s cellular restoration consumed zero parameter reserves and triggered automatically the moment trauma occurred. No matter how catastrophic the wound, his vessel repaired itself instantly, though he remained fully susceptible to physical pain.

It was as though Aji were an immortal entity incapable of permanent death or permanent bodily harm. His physical vessel operated on an autonomous survival matrix independent of his conscious will, leaving Aji free to direct his total mental focus toward offensive parameter deployment.

It was a terrifying anomaly: Aji could engage in high-intensity, absolute combat while his body autonomously repaired fatal trauma in real time. He required zero rest or recovery periods, fighting and healing simultaneously without missing a single stride.

Though it sounded scientifically impossible, the proof was unfolding directly before their eyes. They watched as the midnight fog shredded Aji's vessel, reducing portions of his body to airborne dust, only for the scattered particles to recombine instantly as he continued his steady march forward.

The concentrated energy around his right gauntlet reached absolute critical mass, a swirling, incandescent vortex of celestial light coiling tightly around his fist.

Hovering in the upper atmosphere, Lord Demon Shura looked down, his dark eyes narrowing as he spotted a solitary youth stepping unbothered into his cosmic-annihilation wave. The boy was not dissolving into ash; his physical vessel was continuously regenerating against the absolute parameters of the dark fog.

Who is this youth? Is he a member of the alliance vanguard? How can his vessel withstand my parameters?!

Before Shura could launch a targeted strike against the intruder, the youth drew his right arm back. Whirring with blinding, celestial aura, he drove his gauntlet straight down into the earth. The seismic pressure generated by his parameter surge shook the bedrock before his fist even made contact with the soil.

BLAAAAM! BOOOOOOM!

A catastrophic energetic explosion erupted across the basin. Aji drove his fist into the earth, discharging a kinetic shockwave that expanded faster than the speed of light. The sheer magnitude of the detonation caused the entire continent to tremble. The earth buckled violently beneath the feet of every cultivator on the field, throwing both armies off balance as the acoustic roar thundered through the atmosphere.

The seismic energy was directed entirely toward the midnight fog ahead. A colossal shockwave of purified celestial aura blasted forward, tearing through the dark fog like a hyper-velocity gale scattering smoke. The absolute kinetic pressure swept the sky clean, completely eradicating Shura’s cosmic-annihilation wave from the basin.

From above, Shura stared down in utter disbelief. The youth who had stepped into his absolute wave was now kneeling in a low three-point stance, his gauntlet still buried deep in the fractured earth.

He... he neutralized my cosmic-annihilation spellwork?! Shura’s mind reeled. It is mathematically impossible for a mortal youth to command such parameter density!

The residual shockwave of Aji's strike surged skyward, the kinetic force slamming into Shura's floating position and forcing the Demon Lord back half a pace. The parameter output was staggering. Who is this boy?! In all his intelligence reports, no cultivator within the global alliance possessed baseline parameters exceeding Dasatama.

Could this be the unknown youth from the Sky Squad—the one rumored to be the successor to the Three Legends?

Curiosity turning into deep wariness, Shura watched as the youth rose to his feet. Slowly, Aji lifted his head, locking his gaze onto the floating Demon Lord.

Their eyes met across the vast sky.

An absolute, heavy silence fell over the battlefield. Combatants on both sides held their breath, completely paralyzed as they looked between the floating Demon Lord and the solitary youth who had single-handedly erased an apocalyptic catastrophe.

Around Aji, zero traces remained of those who had previously succumbed to the fog—their physical vessels had been erased so completely that not a single bone particle was left behind, swept away like dust in the wind.

A gentle breeze blew across the quiet basin.

CRACK! SHATTER!

An impossible sound echoed through the heavens.

The colossal spatial dome sealing the entire province began to fracture. Fine spiderweb cracks spread across the translucent boundary before the entire structure shattered into millions of sparkling mana shards that dissolved into the atmosphere. The absolute spatial pressure generated by Aji's ground-shattering strike had completely dismantled Shura's inescapable barrier!

A terrifying realization dawned on Lord Demon Shura. This youth was no ordinary grandmaster. Shura had carelessly dismissed the field reports detailing a powerful young cultivator operating within the Sky Squad, assuming the rumors were exaggerated. The boy had concealed his true depth with terrifying perfection.

He claimed to be the disciple of the Three Legends. Memory flashed through Shura's mind, recalling the agonizing internal trauma the Three Legends had inflicted upon his core twenty years ago—when he had been on the verge of claiming the world, only for those three grandmasters to disrupt his grand design.

Now, after twenty years of patient reconstruction and meticulous planning, their successor had taken the field to ruin his ambition once more!

Why must there always be a pest standing in the way of my peaceful world?!

Incandescent rage flared within Shura's heart. His patience evaporated completely. Utilizing the celestial parameters of the Blood Supreme, Shura had pushed his physical vessel beyond its natural limiter, maintaining eternal youth and absolute immortality.

He had endured a century of isolation solely to prove that he could construct a new world of absolute justice, free from mortal conflict. Is my ambition flawed?! Is utilizing dark magic to forge eternal peace a mistake?!

NO!

Shura reinforced his dark conviction. Whatever means necessary to enforce eternal tranquility were entirely justified—even if it required taking millions of mortal lives.

Once the old world was erased, he would establish an eternal, conflict-free order—the ultimate achievement for creation. Sacrifice was a mandatory prerequisite for absolute peace. Yet the youth standing below sought to dismantle his life's work once again, exactly like the Three Legends had done twenty years prior.

Not this time!

Shura raised his right hand, a dense, chaotic orb of dark aura condensing above his gauntlet. He resolved to obliterate this youth immediately and proceed with his divine work.

WOOOOOSH!

A catastrophic beam of dark magic erupted from Shura's palm, streaking downward toward Aji. As the lethal beam closed in, a glowing energy barrier materialized before Aji to intercept the strike. Yet the barrier proved insufficient against Shura's dark parameters, buckling rapidly under the intense pressure.

Alicia was straining her core to its absolute limit, the trident sigil upon her forehead blazing with incandescent light as she poured her total parameters into the shield.

Seeing Alicia strain, Gayatri unsealed her absolute parameters, her light nano-armor glowing blindingly. Manifesting thousands of spectral energy guardians, she commanded her constructs to physically reinforce Alicia's barrier, their glowing palms pressing against the shield to absorb the kinetic feedback.

"You think this feeble defense can halt me?!" Shura bellowed, amplifying his dark output.

The escalated pressure shattered Alicia's barrier and obliterated Gayatri's spectral constructs in a single breath. The dark beam pierced clean through their joint defenses, roaring straight toward Aji, who remained standing calmly below.

BLAAAAAM!