"Well."

  Alec grinned at Serena and raised an eyebrow. "I know you really like those Martial Arts experts. It's because you feel that kind of person can give you a sense of Security."

  The girl’s brow furrowed slightly as she raised her voice. "Indeed. Is there something wrong with that?"

  That’s what she said.

  But in truth, the real reason Serena was drawn to Martial Artists wasn’t because she worshipped brute strength.

  Rather, as a scholar with deep knowledge in Life Sciences and Biotechnology, she naturally held strong curiosity toward any form of life that defied the conventional.

  She was intensely eager to dissect and study a Martial Artist, purely for academic purposes, of course.

  "Haha."

  Alec let out a smug laugh, raised his arm, and suddenly punched the air beside him.

  BOOM!!!

  The air burst with a sharp sound.

  Serena’s beautiful eyes widened in delight. "You actually know this move too?!"

  Her mood visibly lifted. She was genuinely far too curious about how the body of a Martial Artist operated.

  Her mind was already working rapidly, formulating various lines of persuasion to coax Alec into participating in a few small-scale experiments.

  "Haha."

  Alec said smugly, "You just didn’t know before."

  Leo, who was walking ahead, turned his head in surprise.

  "Punch force piercing air! That’s only possible after reaching Fluid Force!"

  "Fluid Force!"

  Serena stared at Alec in astonishment. "You’re only twenty-five, yet you’ve already reached the third realm of Martial Arts?"

  As someone born into a noble family, she naturally wasn’t as na?ve as ordinary civilians.

  She never believed Martial Artists were just glorified athletes.

  On the contrary, they were well aware of the terrifying reality behind Martial Techniques and hidden arts.

  Although Martial Artists couldn't rival cannons or tank firepower, against individual soldiers, they were unquestionably dominant.

  Even more so considering that Roaring Vitalis extended one’s lifespan to 120 years, and Evershield Body to 180.

  Such longevity and power were extremely attractive to aristocratic families.

  However, Martial Arts cultivation required exceptional Talent. It wasn’t something that could be achieved simply by money or famous teachers.

  Which made someone like Alec, noble-born and talented, a true rarity.

  "Oh~"

  Alec waved his hand with feigned modesty. "I reached it a few years ago. I haven’t even been training seriously."

  Leo frowned. "You’re wasting your talent. If you stayed focused, you might actually reach Evershield Body one day."

  "Evershield Body, huh..."

  Alec clicked his tongue, clearly a little tempted. "That’s too far off. There are only a handful in the entire Emberlight Empire. Let alone Evershield Body, I’m not even sure I’ll make it to Roaring Vitalis."

  "It’s not impossible." Leo smiled encouragingly. "You’ve still got ten years. There’s still a chance."

  Serena added excitedly, "Exactly! Roaring Vitalis has over a thousand pounds of strength! I’ve always been curious: what must a Martial Artist’s muscles and bones look like at that level?"

  "A thousand pounds, huh... haha."

  Alec laughed as if recalling something. "You might not know this, but my family was involved in developing the new generation of single-soldier Exoskeletons. They've already passed testing and are expected to be deployed by the military soon."

  "Even an ordinary person, just by wearing one, can instantly gain three tons of strength. That’s more than enough to kill a Roaring Vitalis Martial Artist instantly."

  "Zenbach Armament Engineering, huh..."

  Leo said with a sigh, then asked curiously, "But what about technique? Speed?"

  As if waiting for that very question, Alec glanced left and right, then leaned in and whispered.

  "I’m not supposed to say this, but the Intelligent Combat Suit my family’s been developing for years is almost complete. From what I’ve heard, it’s absurd. Once worn, an ordinary person becomes a Super Warrior, lifting 50 tons and sprinting at 100 meters per second."

  "It can even transmit vast combat data into the suit’s intelligent system. Within minutes, someone can move and fight like an Evershield Body expert."

  Alec laughed smugly. "So yeah... the times are changing."

  "Hiss..."

  Both Leo and Serena couldn’t help but suck in a breath.

  What Alec was saying was too terrifying.

  If true, then in the near future, Martial Artists might very well be replaced by these so-called Exoskeletons, or worse, the Intelligent Suits.

  Even if one Exoskeleton couldn’t defeat a real Martial Artist, they could be mass-produced.

  With enough money and manpower, ten or twenty Exoskeleton soldiers could easily overwhelm a Martial Artist.

  Even the near-invincible Evershield Body experts would find themselves in danger.

  Just three or five Intelligent Combat Suit users, leading a squad of a hundred Exoskeleton warriors, could very well surround and kill an Evershield Body grandmaster.

  Just as the hai were uncontrollably shocked by this information, a shout suddenly came from behind them.

  "Over there! What nonsense are you babbling about, what crooked bones and mentally deficient suits? I can turn them into ash with one punch!"

  The three turned their heads, only to see a young man with extraordinary bearing striding towards them.

  It was Kael.

  Alec narrowed his eyes and looked at Kael, snorting with a laugh.

  "And what onion are you?"

  Kael glanced at him coldly, and said loudly: "I am the Ninth Highness's second disciple! Kael Dithran!"

  "Hmm?" Serena and Leo looked at each other in surprise.

  Alec frowned and said questioningly: "Disciple? Learning what, learning Martial Arts?"

  "Of course!"

  Kael frowned, "Master is the number one Martial Artist from north to south, past and present!"

  "Utter nonsense!"

  Alec sneered, "She... Hmph, as far as I know, the Ninth Princess is not considered proficient in Martial Arts."

  Kael looked at him as if looking at an idiot and said: "Narrow-minded and ignorant, I won't bother with you."

  Having said that, he raised his head and shouted forward: "Master! I have broken through to Evershield Body and cultivated the Celestial Flute!"

  "Evershield Body?!"

  Leo's thick eyebrows furrowed, and he said in disbelief, "Young man, the path of Martial Arts requires sincerity. You can't just boast wildly!"

  "Exactly."

  Alec stood aside with his arms crossed, mocking, "I don't know where you heard that term. I think you completely don't understand the meaning of Evershield Body."

  "Why talk nonsense! Don't believe it? Then let's have a fight!"

  Kael impatiently waved his hand, interrupting them.

  "Come, lend a hand!"

  As soon as he finished speaking, he disappeared on the spot, appearing behind Alec the next moment.

  SPLAT!

  Kael swung his arm and delivered a heavy slap to Alec.

  Afterward, his figure flickered back to his original position instantly. He completed this series of actions in less than half a second.

  BANG!!

  Alec was fiercely slapped over ten meters away, crashing onto the ground with his cheeks visibly swollen and bright red.

  "This!!"

  Only then did Leo and Serena react, looking at the young man with shocked expressions.

  "This speed... I, a martial artist of the Roaring Vitalis realm, couldn't even perceive it!" Leo said, dumbfounded. "Could it be he's truly Evershield Body?!"

  Kael snorted with a laugh and spoke to Alec, who was slowly getting up. "Know this: if I had really wanted to kill you just now, that head of yours would have already been torn off by me!"

  Having said that, he ignored the shocked Leo and Serena and strode directly toward the depths of the Princess's Mansion.

  "Cough cough cough..."

  Alec laboriously opened his swollen eyelids, looking viciously at Kael’s back. He roared in a low voice, "You bastard! I'll fucking kill you!"

  He suddenly pulled out a silver-white pistol from his chest, aimed at the departing Kael, and gritted his teeth as he pulled the trigger.

  Serena, seeing this from the side, cried out with a frightened expression, "Don't..."

  At this instant, Kael's heart jumped, and he suddenly turned his head.

  BANG!!

  A deep BANG, and a sharp bullet shot out of the muzzle.

  The next moment, Kael's head jolted, hit squarely.

  Seeing that he had hit the opponent with a headshot, Alec laughed fiercely. "Heh heh heh heh, HA HA HA! What martial arts garbage! Weren't you still killed by a shot to the head!!"

  Serena covered her mouth, her face pale and clearly frightened by such a brutal scene. Leo stood aside, shaking his head and sighing. "What a pity. What a pity for a young genius."

  "Heh!"

  "Hmm?!" The group looked in astonishment toward the source of the sound.

  It was Kael, who had supposedly been shot in the head!

  They saw him slowly lower his head and open his mouth wide. Tightly clenched between his two rows of teeth was a still-smoking bullet.

  "H-how is this possible??" Alec's eyes trembled as he shouted in dismay. "You can actually catch a bullet with your teeth! This is impossible!"

  Leo and Serena were also dumbfounded, belatedly realizing the truth. Catching a bullet fired from behind with his mouth—that was too illogical! How terrifying must this young man's physique, speed, and reaction ability be to pull off this feat!

  "He just said..." Leo's expression was one of shocked bewilderment as he stammered. "The Ninth Princess is his master. So how... how strong must the Ninth Princess be?!"

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  "From north to south, past and present!" Serena murmured the phrase, her face filled with incredulity. "Does this mean the Ninth Princess has already progressed very far on the path of human evolution?!"

  Clearly, Alec had also realized this point, and his face turned extremely grim.

  "Ptui~"

  Kael spat the bullet into the palm of his hand, looked at Alec's pale face, and sneered. "A little weak, isn't it? Here, take it back!"

  Having said that, he flicked his hand with force.

  BANG!!

  The air boomed. The bullet instantly pierced through Alec's right thigh joint several tens of meters away. Mixed with blood and shredded flesh, it splattered the brick and stone behind him.

  "AH AH AH AH!!"

  Alec immediately screamed tragically, rolling on the ground and shouting for his parents non-stop.

  At this moment, another elderly man stepped forward. He had an ancient appearance, short and thin, with green eyes. Although the old man looked ugly, the group could faintly sense a chilling aura instantly enveloping the entire scene.

  Before Kael could speak, Leo said in extreme panic, "Dreadlance Vale! How did you... how did you get in here?!"

  Vale stopped, casually looked at the agitated Leo, and said in confusion, "Who are you? I don't know you."

  "Uh..." Leo paused and said with a forced smile, "I am just a nobody. I originally intended to meet you at this Martial Arts Convention, but I was too busy with other matters."

  "So that's it." Vale nodded. "Not bad. You saved your life."

  "Ah?" Leo was startled. "What do you mean?"

  Vale said, "The literal meaning. A shocking great demon appeared at this Martial Arts Convention, slaughtering many martial artists. Fortunately, my master, the Ninth Highness, took action and suppressed him. Otherwise, everyone would have died."

  "Hiss~ Ninth Princess!" Leo gasped, clearly shaken.

  "Something's wrong!" Vale's eyebrows furrowed, and he suddenly turned his head to glare at Leo. "You said you wanted to attend the Martial Arts Convention, which means you have already entered Roaring Vitalis. But how could you not know my master's name?! Isn't it written on the 《Worldly Prodigy List》?!"

  "Ah?!" Leo was stunned. "I purchase every edition of the 《Worldly Prodigy List》, but the latest edition published these past two days indeed hasn't mentioned the Ninth Highness's existence."

  "This is impossible!" Vale's green eyes flashed, and he hissed. "This publication is one that I, along with a few others, started together. The information has always been accurate. How could it possibly fail to include such a world-shattering event?!"

  Leo was startled, his expression somewhat stiff as he took out a magazine from his chest and handed it over. "How about you take a look, your excellency?"

  Vale's glare had caused the circulation of Leo's vital energy to momentarily halt. A man over 40 years old was actually trembling inside, his behavior becoming very reserved. Truly, the gap in realm between the two was too great.

  "Hmph!"

  Vale took the magazine and quickly flipped through it, his expression grim as he discovered it indeed wasn't there. He immediately considered calling Alban, but after thinking about it, he didn't. This result clearly indicated that some kind of government power had intervened, deliberately concealing the information.

  'Could it be the handiwork of the Secret Service?' Vale stroked his goatee. 'No, that's not right. Those people aren't that idle. Is it the Military Intelligence Office again? Doesn't seem like it. That group of soldiers always prefers to mess around in foreign territories.'

  "Could it be..." He looked toward the northeast. That was the direction of the Imperial Palace. "The Imperial Guard..."

  At this moment, Serena glanced curiously at the two and quietly asked Kael, "Hey, who is that old gentleman?"

  Kael glanced at her. "That’s my senior brother, Vale—an Evershield Body, a big name in the martial arts world."

  Serena’s eyes widened, her voice filled with disbelief. "You... did you really just say that? The Ninth Princess is actually that amazing?"

  Kael frowned, clearly displeased. "What, you think I’m lying? You women, always so full of doubt."

  Just then, Seraphine, shrouded in dazzling golden light, slowly descended from the sky like a Great Sun.

  This extraordinary entrance instantly stunned everyone present.

  The moment she appeared, Seraphine seemed to become the center of the world, drawing every gaze toward her.

  Her face was exquisitely beautiful, and her Aura was unlike anything the world had ever seen.

  Looking at her, it was impossible to harbor even the faintest impure thought.

  She inspired both reverence and awe.

  Even Serena, the moment her eyes landed on Seraphine, she froze in place. Her cheeks flushed red, even though she was also a woman.

  It only made her look more charming.

  In Serena’s eyes, Seraphine’s physique was powerful, her features exquisitely delicate, and her skin radiated a brilliant glow.

  Almost like a celestial being.

  The sight of her stirred an uncontrollable surge of dopamine throughout Serena’s body.

  Overflowing.

  "The Ninth Princess... she’s perfect. Like a goddess born from the ultimate evolution of humankind..."

  Serena mumbled endlessly, her eyes filled with infatuation.

  Leo, standing nearby, was too stunned to speak.

  As a Martial Artist, he could feel Seraphine’s boundless power even more directly.

  A crushing sense of inferiority. Of powerlessness.

  It was like standing before the vastness of the world itself: immeasurable, overwhelming, infinite.

  As Seraphine descended, Vale and Kael stepped forward without hesitation and bowed deeply:

  "Greetings, Master!"

  "Hmm."

  Seraphine nodded slightly and said calmly, "It seems you’ve cultivated Aether."

  Kael chuckled. "As soon as you left yesterday, I got it done."

  "Oh~"

  Seraphine looked mildly surprised, then turned to Vale and said, "Didn’t expect you to be so fast either."

  Vale let out an awkward laugh.

  He felt slightly underestimated by his Master, but compared to his junior brother, he truly was a bit slower.

  So he answered with some embarrassment: "Junior Brother's talent is exceptional. I can’t compare."

  "Haha, talent is important, but diligence matters more."

  Seraphine shook her head and smiled. "Cultivating Aether is just the first step. After that, you must purify your entire Vital Energy into Aether. That takes work."

  "Yes, yes."

  The older and younger disciples both nodded respectfully.

  Leo and Serena stood in place, completely dumbfounded.

  After hearing the exchange between Master and disciples, they finally understood.

  Kael wasn’t exaggerating at all: everything he said was true.

  Seraphine, the Ninth Princess of Emberlight, was really an Evershield Body, or perhaps someone even higher in the martial hierarchy!

  "But... isn’t Evershield Body the highest realm in Martial Arts? Could there really be something beyond that?!"

  Leo’s face went blank, his worldview visibly shaken.

  But how could any of it be fake?

  Even Dreadlance Vale had willingly come here to become a disciple of the most disregarded Ninth Princess in all of Emberlight.

  Could it be that the Ninth Highness was truly, as Kael said, an unparalleled Martial Arts Sovereign, unseen in both ancient and modern times?

  Serena, meanwhile, had clearly fallen into a dazed infatuation.

  She stared blankly at Seraphine, her expression filled with intense admiration and burning curiosity.

  "Just how many secrets are hidden within Your Highness’s body?! I have to study her!"

  Farther away, Alec had stopped screaming.

  His swollen face hung low as he struggled to get up.

  His teeth clenched, his eyes fixed on the goddess-like Seraphine.

  His gaze was frantic. Twisted. Filled with rage.

  Then he turned to look at Serena, who was staring in blind admiration.

  In that instant, collapse, madness, jealousy—all of it surged into Alec’s heart.

  And the last thread of rationality snapped.

  A wicked thought filled Alec’s mind:

  ‘So what if your Martial Arts are powerful?! I have Superpowers. I have a divine ability that can tear apart souls and reconstruct personalities!’

  ‘I, Alec, am the true Chosen One!’

  With that, a strange light burst forth from Alec’s eyes.

  A sinister spiritual anomaly surged out, invisible and invasive, rushing toward Seraphine who stood not far away with her hands behind her back.

  “Damn Seraphine, I’ll turn you into a stray dog that only knows how to eat shit and piss!!”

  BUZZ!

  In an instant, Seraphine, standing in the distance, sensed an extremely weak, scattered Mental Power surging toward her.

  Just as she was about to casually extinguish it, she paused slightly—having discovered something—and withdrew her hand.

  "Interesting. The magnitude is extremely weak, but the ability type is rather rare. A purely spiritual force."

  "It should be a newly awakened Superpower user, likely one that appeared after the Ether tide."

  After pondering for a moment, Seraphine easily blocked the strange Mental Power.

  In that instant, she fully analyzed its nature.

  "Emotional manipulation, spiritual lashing, personality overwrite. Not bad. This type of ability has several applications. Even someone at the Roaring Vitalis level would probably have difficulty resisting it."

  "Unfortunately, the magnitude is far too weak. Any Martial Artist with even a trace of soul-unleashing capability could reflect it back and turn him into a vegetable."

  In fact, after several expansions of her soul attribute value, Seraphine’s Mental Power had already become overwhelmingly terrifying.

  Even though her attributes leaned toward the ethereal, spiritual spectrum, her abilities were distinct.

  Mental power focuses on manipulating physical entities.

  Spiritual power focuses on thoughts, emotions, and the soul.

  This was a distinction Seraphine had come to understand clearly over the past few days.

  Even her weakest telekinetic force, if unleashed at full strength, could now easily twist a ten-thousand-ton ocean freighter into a steel pretzel.

  With a slight shift of intent, she reversed the direction of Alec’s mental force and sent it back, striking him precisely in the center of the forehead.

  A moment later, Alec’s face froze.

  He suddenly realized that everything in his field of vision had become strange and unfamiliar.

  If one needed a parallel to describe what Alec was experiencing, it would be like a person suffering from semantic satiation.

  After staring at a single word for too long, neurons fatigue and sensory confusion occurs, leaving the person unable to comprehend what the word even means.

  Alec was experiencing exactly that.

  He saw the people and objects around him and knew what they were, yet he could no longer process them.

  His heart filled with a powerful, disorienting sense of unfamiliarity.

  As time dragged on, Alec’s cognitive functions rapidly declined while this sense of alienation surged wildly.

  In short, he was becoming stupid.

  “Wrong! Something’s wrong!”

  Alec struggled to regain clarity, finally realizing the truth.

  His spiritual attack had been bounced back by Seraphine!

  His eyelids twitched uncontrollably as he looked at her, stammering in horror:

  “I clearly... WOOF WOOF... I was the one who wanted to turn you... WOOF WOOF... into a dog! How... how...”

  By this point, he had unknowingly collapsed to the ground, his face twisted in despair and terror.

  He clenched his teeth and sobbed:

  “Seraphine! AHHH—spare me... Your Highness, please spare me... WOOF WOOF... I regret it!!”

  Tears and snot sprayed down his face as Alec suffered a complete breakdown.

  “My Chur family... won’t let you get away with this!!!”

  “WOOF WOOF WOOF... WOOF WOOF WOOF...”

  He could feel it; his consciousness was rapidly plummeting into a bottomless abyss of stupidity.

  He was about to irreversibly become a stray dog that delighted in eating feces.

  “WOOF! WOOF WOOF WOOF! WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF!”

  After a string of harsh, ragged barks, Alec’s eyes went completely dull.

  The sentience in his mind collapsed and dissolved, replaced by a murky, scrambled mess.

  Under Seraphine’s calm gaze and the horrified stares of everyone present, he prostrated on the ground.

  Whimpering endlessly.

  Finally, he had become a humanoid stray dog.

  Serena looked at Seraphine, her face filled with shock, and gently asked: “Ninth Highness, Alec, he...”

  Seraphine didn’t answer.

  Divine light erupted from her eyes.

  BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ~

  Serena and Leo, not far away, instantly stiffened as their thoughts froze.

  A massive spiritual force pierced directly into their brains, beginning to forcibly read their memories.

  Seraphine was reading their minds.

  She no longer had the patience to communicate through inefficient means like language.

  Back in the old world, Seraphine had imagined that when mental power users read someone’s memory, it was like flipping through a book, turning pages and jotting down notes.

  But now that she possessed these abilities, she realized mind-reading was far from simple.

  When Seraphine activated her mental power to read their memories, it felt as though the entirety of their lived experiences had burst into her mind—two vast memory streams rushing into her consciousness.

  She stood in a rift outside reality, watching two worlds collide at once.

  In a single flash, she absorbed all of Serena’s and Leo’s lives: their thoughts, knowledge, and experiences from the moment they gained consciousness.

  In a sense, the two of them were now living again within Seraphine’s consciousness.

  If an ordinary person with spiritual abilities attempted such a feat, they would likely have their conscious self shredded by the torrent of foreign memory.

  At best, their mind would split and they would become deranged.

  At worst, the overload would shatter their brain, leaving them a soulless vegetable.

  “A bit reckless. But perhaps for the better; it lets me realize the unpredictable dangers of mental abilities early on.”

  While contemplating, Seraphine softly muttered to herself:

  “The deduction and creation of soul cultivation methods must be prioritized. Otherwise, even with such potent mental power, I won’t be able to make full use of it. What a waste that would be.”

  As she thought this, she began recalling the sects within 《Dragonblood》 known for soul-type secret arts, preparing to forcibly seize their scriptures for research.

  That was her way of doing things now.

  As the gap between her strength and that of Earth's living beings widened, Seraphine’s methods grew ever more domineering.

  Very quickly, her eyes lit up as she murmured:

  “Found it. Heavenreach Sect.”

  In her memory, that sect was one of the oldest lineages in the original story. They excelled in martial arts and wielded numerous mysterious techniques related to the soul.

  If she had to choose a target, then Heavenreach Sect was currently the best option.

  After locking in her choice, Seraphine turned back to look at Serena and Leo.

  Having scanned through their memories in a split second, she now fully understood the purpose behind their visit.

  “They want me to be their backer?”

  Seraphine withdrew her spiritual force with indifference, then controlled the two of them to turn around and walk out of the Princess Mansion.

  She had implanted temporary mental suggestions in them.

  They would take a plane back to the Bellamy family today.

  As for how the useless Bellamy patriarch would react, Seraphine had no interest in knowing.

  They were just pebbles on the road, not worth a second look.

  Her gaze shifted again, falling upon Alec, who was still trembling and whimpering on the ground. She swept him with a trace of spiritual force, cleansing him.

  “I’m in a good mood. Too lazy to kill you.”

  “Go find a female dog to play with.”

  Alec whimpered softly, tongue hanging, as he crawled away on all fours.

  Facing the sunlight, Seraphine stood with her hands clasped behind her back, gazing toward the distant horizon.

  She softly sighed:

  “I truly am... merciful.”

  Kael and Vale, standing not far off observing everything, both trembled uncontrollably.

  Merciful?

  Forcing someone to become a dog is far crueler than death.