A few minutes before the battle at the academy reached its conclusion...

Aji launched a relentless barrage using the longsword and dagger he had drawn from his staff. The central wooden casing had detached, revealing twin weapons built into opposing ends—a dual set of blades cleverly hidden inside a single staff.

Aji shot forward, his dual-wielding strikes descending upon Gultron in a flurry of blinding, lightning-fast flashes.

How is this possible? There is no way the Thunder Striker is still alive! Gultron’s mind reeled in disbelief.

The dark forces possessed a unique biological trait widely feared by the righteous alliance. Whenever their limbs were severed or their flesh torn, tendrils of dark blood would knit the wounds back together—an extraordinary capability for rapid regeneration.

However, fueling such high-speed regeneration demanded a massive expenditure of internal energy. To sustain it, dark cultivators often absorbed vast amounts of energy from those they slaughtered or sacrificed in dark rituals.

Executing this physical restoration inherently depleted their dark magic reserves. Gultron was no exception—crimson, worm-like tendrils wriggled out from his open flesh, swarming together to splice his torn muscle fibers back together as the slash marks began to close.

Oddly, Gultron's wounds refused to heal properly. A searing pain coursed through his frame; though he was a high-tier demon disciple, he was far from immune to agony. Why aren't my dark arts working? Only forty percent of his lacerations knitted shut, while the remainder stubbornly resisted healing. The process was agonizingly slow, completely defying his past experience.

"Surprised, Gultron?" Aji crossed his longsword and dagger in a dual guard, his eyes flaring as he prepared to strike again.

"What is this? What trick did you use?!" Gultron demanded, unable to process the phenomenon. An unknown force was actively neutralizing his dark regeneration, preventing his corrupt magic from reattaching his damaged flesh.

"I coated my steel in a reversal formula researched extensively by Saint Yonan!" Aji replied. "A compound designed specifically to neutralize dark regeneration, synthesized from three rare ingredients: the Tasmut Flower from the far northern glaciers, pure spring water gathered from across the continents, and the venom of the Tunic Snake—the undisputed king of desert vipers."

Gultron struggled to comprehend Aji's explanation. Could a compound derived from three obscure ingredients truly disable the dark arts' restorative properties? Regardless of the science behind it, his physical healing had ground to a crawl.

"How could Yonan have developed such a thing... and how can you claim to be the Thunder Striker?!"

"Whether you believe it or not, your journey ends today," Aji said calmly. "It matters little whether I am the Thunder Striker. All you need to know is that I carry the combined legacy of all three saints—I am the three legends unified as one!"

An explosive surge of internal energy erupted around Aji. Raising both arms, his crossed blades burst into a radiant glow. Seven dense orbs of dark blue and fiery crimson flame manifested around his frame, burning with intense heat.

Aji held the dagger hilt between his teeth, clenching his right fist as a wave of kinetic energy condensed around his arm.

Gultron felt a cold spike of mortal danger. Halting his ineffective regeneration, he channeled every remaining drop of dark magic around his body, summoning a cluster of pitch-black energy spheres pulsing with sinister power. He resolved to strike first to force an opening. Whether he defeated his opponent or secured a window to retreat, this was his only chance.

"Dragon Demon!"

Gultron thrust his right hand forward, flexing his fingers into a claw. The pitch-black energy spheres shot forward, twisting into serpent-like forms as they flew. The dark magic coalesced into massive shadowy dragons with terrifying jaws and glowing, dark-blue eyes. Dozens of dark dragons spiraled through the air, diving toward Aji with destructive force.

As the first dark dragon lunged, another spawned directly behind it from the trailing energy spheres. Soon, hundreds of shadowy dragons blotted out the sky, swarming Aji in a torrential wave of malice.

Aji spun his body, deploying a localized energy barrier while darting rapidly left and right. Detonations rocked the canopy around him, but Aji wove through the explosions with fluid precision, leaping into the air to evade the continuous onslaught.

This is my chance to escape! Gultron realized. Halting his casting, he allowed the remaining dragon projectiles to cover his retreat. As Gultron spun around and prepared to spring away, Aji's eyes flashed through the chaotic swarm of dark dragons.

Aji locked his gaze on the retreating general. Raising his right arm, a blinding wave of radiant force erupted from his hand, vaporizing the dark energy dragons approaching him. Dropping back to the earth, Aji drove his bare fist directly into the ground with catastrophic force.

BOOOOM!

It was the signature maneuver of the Thunder Striker—a monumental ground-strike that generated a vast area-of-effect shockwave, inflicting an absolute area-stun on everything nearby. The impact triggered a massive seismic wave spanning a full kilometer in every direction, uprooting ancient mountain trees and fracturing the earth.

The atmospheric pressure surged wildly. The air in the surrounding space thinned rapidly, leaving Gultron unable to maintain his balance mid-air. With his physical wounds still raw and unhealed, the sudden kinetic disruption threw him into complete disarray.

The overwhelming sensation was identical to the moment twenty years ago when the Thunder Striker had obliterated the dark army's vanguard, disrupting the Demon Lord Shura mid-ritual and causing the Blood Supreme absorption to fail. That singular disruption had sparked the legendary clash between the Three Legends, Shura, and the Five Gates that shook the world.

Could this youth truly be the Thunder Striker?! The sheer kinetic weight of the punch left Gultron completely dazed. Before he could recover his senses, Aji blurred toward him at a velocity that defied even Gultron's extensive combat experience.

In an instant, an overwhelming force materialized inches from his chest. Gultron found his entire field of vision consumed by thousands of radiant flashes. Hundreds—no, thousands—of precision slashes from both longsword and dagger rained down upon his frame, every single strike packed with concentrated internal energy.

CLING! CLANG! CLING!

The strikes fell so rapidly that Gultron felt no pain at first. Before his mind could process the onslaught or attempt to channel dark energy to brace himself, a ring of brilliant blue fire erupted around him, locking him inside a massive circle of flames.

Dense, luminous blue fireballs anchored the perimeter of the circle, creating a localized barrier that completely sealed off all avenues of escape.

In his final moments, Gultron watched as Aji extended his open hand and slowly clenched it into a tight fist.

The blue fireballs converged inward simultaneously. Gultron's entire vision dissolved into an inferno of roaring blue flames, consuming his vessel after it had already been shredded by thousands of high-speed energy strikes.

Gultron's consciousness faded into nothingness as his physical body was reduced to dark ash, scattered into the night breeze above the ruined mountain forest. There, in a remote corner of the Frost Line continent, lay the silent battleground where one of the Five Gates had met his ultimate end.

Channeling a pulse of internal energy, Aji recalled the central wooden sheath. He reassembled the longsword and dagger back into the hollow staff, locking the two pieces together seamlessly until the weapon resembled nothing more than an ordinary walking stick. Securing the staff across his back with its leather binding, he surveyed the area.

One major threat eliminated, Aji thought to himself. Time to return.

Aji extended his right arm forward, opening his palm. A brilliant white-and-blue spatial portal tore open in the air before him—a gateway leading directly back to the Golden Crane Academy. Aji was confident his comrades had held the line; with the commander of the dark force raid removed, defeating the remaining troops would have been well within their capabilities.

A subtle smile touched Aji's lips as he stepped through the portal. The spatial gateway collapsed behind him, leaving only the scarred, uprooted forest behind as silent proof of the battle that had just transpired.