It was dusk, and the great valley burned with light.

  Golden essence flames rose like divine pillars to the heavens, casting a shimmering brilliance over the entire arena. They danced along the edges of the colossal fighting stage, illuminating it in otherworldly fire.

  Suspended all around, floating audience platforms pulsed with that same golden radiance, but despite the spectacle, the countless figures seated within them sat in baited, reverent silence. The air thrummed with expectation.

  Then the announcer stepped forth.

  Clad in layered robes of silver and gold, embroidered with symbols of old sects and ancient factions, he raised his hands toward the crowd. For a breathless moment, he inhaled, and then his voice boomed across the valley with the weight of ceremony.

  “When they first arrived at the capital, they were nothing but mere lords,” he began, his voice steady and sonorous.

  “Simple scions. Students of various factions, each burning with the need to prove themselves. And prove themselves they did, in the crucibles of combat, they forged their bodies, tempered their spirits, and ascended beyond the realms of Lords and Highlords alike, entering the sacred domain of the Master Realm, true cultivators of Adamath.”

  His voice rose with fervor now, rippling through the air like a martial anthem.

  “They have tasted victory, and they desire more. So now, I present to you… Your Master Realm contestants!”

  With that, Tunde descended like a falling star, serene and poised, his figure bathed in gold as he floated down onto the stage. At his sides came Zhu and Sera, flanking him with effortless strength.

  Together, they cut an imposing silhouette, radiating power and quiet authority. Tunde didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. His presence, honed in battle and silence, was declaration enough.

  Zhu stood proud, his aura exuding the majesty of a divine beast, noble and untamable. Sera’s presence, by contrast, was forged of carnage, a blade honed in war, sharpened by bloodlust and discipline alike.

  One by one, the others arrived.

  Rhyn, Master Realm cultivator of the Heralds, his every movement steeped in ruthless discipline.

  Thorne, the abomination of the Revenant Cult, whose very presence reeked of rot and decay. His aura was a thing twisted by undeath, like a mockery of vitality.

  Kaishen, of the Razor Jaws Sect, brought with him the fury of the seas. He no longer wore the water bubble that once enclosed him, his aquatic transformation now nearly complete, his pale blue skin gleaming like ocean stone under the stage lights, his bald head smooth and inhuman.

  Elyria, draped in silver robes, floated silently. A dozen orbs hovered behind her in precise formation, flickering with restrained, unstable energy. Her storm-grey eyes hinted at inner turmoil, rage wrapped in silence.

  Dia emerged, the strange and spectral conjurer who had overwhelmed Jing with summoned darkness. Her appearance was quiet, but behind her flickered horrors best left undescribed—things from nightmares, cloaked in shadow and mind-rending form.

  The announcer smiled broadly, relishing the moment before his voice rang out again.

  “The draws have been made. The matches chosen.”

  He raised a scroll, then declared:

  “Zhu of the Talahan Clan, you will face Kaishen of the Razor Jaws Sect!”

  Zhu nodded with folded arms, a small smile curving his lips. Another beast. Another test. He welcomed it.

  “Thorne of the Revenant Cult, you will face Elyria of the Technocracy!”

  Tunde’s head snapped toward Elyria, but she didn’t flinch. Her eyes remained forward, cold and unreadable. He turned next toward Thorne, but there was nothing in the revenant’s hollow black gaze, only empty darkness, as though the mind within had long since departed.

  “Sera of the Talahan Clan, you will face Rhyn of the Heralds!”

  Sera rolled her shoulders with a grin, fire already dancing behind her eyes. Across from her, Rhy, the former heir of the Verdant Clan, didn’t spare her a glance. But Tunde watched him carefully.

  Then the moment came.

  “And Tunde of the Talahan Clan, you will face Dia of the Veilweavers!”

  A resonant gong echoed through the valley as the announcement concluded. The very earth beneath them trembled.

  From the center of the stage, a massive structure began to rise.

  A crescent forged of hardened stone and interwoven strands of pure Ethereon, glowing silver, emerged from the ground with mechanical precision. It was anchored by a towering pedestal carved with unreadable scripts, and as it rose into the air, it pulsed with energy.

  “For this stage,” the announcer called, “all matches will take place simultaneously.”

  The audience stirred at this revelation.

  “This construct holds four separate rifts, each cultivated and loaned to us by the great factions themselves for this event. Each rift tailored to push our contenders to their limits.”

  Tunde narrowed his eyes. That explained the sudden urgency. The synchronized battles meant no chance to observe others, no time to adapt. More importantly, it meant the tournament was being accelerated. Rushed.

  Which meant only one thing.

  The regents were on borrowed time—and they knew it.

  “Each pair will be transported to their respective rifts. Contestants, prepare yourselves. And may the heavens favor the strong.”

  The announcer raised his hand once more, and light flared from the rift construct, as the crowd leaned in with breathless anticipation.

  Tunde flew into the glowing silver construct as it rippled around him, space twisting and warping for the briefest of seconds before reality reasserted itself.

  Then—impact.

  He landed on solid ground with a muted thud, the world around him unveiling itself as a vast, ashen wasteland. A moment passed before he breathed, taking in the landscape. It bore a passing resemblance to the Black Rock Wastes his sect once called home, but there was no desert heat or whispering dunes here. This was something else entirely. A dead place.

  The wind swept over the ruins of what must have once been a city or ancient kingdom, its bones long picked clean by time. Tattered banners flapped weakly from broken columns, their sigils worn into unrecognizable threads, like memories too old to recall. Beneath Tunde’s boots, bones crumbled into dust—so old, so dry, that they disintegrated on contact. The air itself was thick with soot, clinging to his skin and catching in his lungs.

  He activated his Ethra sight, blinking away the haze, and stared across the desolation.

  Ash drifted through the sky, caught in the slow-moving winds beneath a dark, turbulent sky. His robes swayed in response, echoing the still tension that hung over everything.

  This was perfect.

  The realm had been crafted, curated, for Dia. A domain woven from death and decay, silence and shadow. The Veilweavers thrived in such places. It was an advantage that would break most fighters before the first strike. To Tunde, it was almost funny.

  He tilted his head upward.

  Dia floated in the sky above, silent, spectral. Her features hidden behind veils of dark cloth that blended seamlessly with the ash-filled air. It was as if the realm itself had birthed her. A ghost of the battlefield.

  Their eyes met.

  “Well?” Tunde said, voice calm, eyes narrowed. “It seems the Paragons have favoured you.”

  She gave no reply. Instead, she lifted her arms slowly—graceful, almost reverent—and then, without a sound, became one with the ash itself.

  To most, she would’ve vanished entirely. Even old Master Realm cultivators would find her presence utterly erased, dissolved into the swirling haze.

  But not Tunde.

  His Ethra sight showed him everything.

  Dia’s authority spilled outward in a formless tide, an invisible shroud that merged seamlessly with the ashen winds. She wasn’t hiding in the ash. She was the ash now, manipulating the dust as if they were her limbs. She wove them together, her will molding the clouds into forms.

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  And then they began to take shape.

  Humanoid figures first. Then monsters. Then things that were neither. Grotesque amalgamations of man, beast, and nightmare. Dozens upon dozens, birthed from the soot and stitched together with Ethra and aura. Each one burned with essence flames—empowered directly by her authority.

  Tunde observed, unshaken. He planted his feet and drew his weapon—a smooth pull—and let it transform into a naginata. He held it loosely, its weight familiar, balanced. Behind the serene expression on his face, calculation danced.

  The army grew.

  Hundreds now. Each construct pulsed with strength equivalent to early to peak-tier Highlords. The sheer Ethra being funneled into them was staggering. Someone—something—had invested deeply into Dia. Whatever backing the Veilweavers had, they had spared no cost for this battle.

  He knew why.

  Tunde’s authority, since Gue and Harumi, was vast. A lake still deepening, far from the ocean of a Paragon’s, but deeper than most dared dream. Gue’s strength had been taken by force. Harumi’s, given with grace. The result was power, a Master at peak form.

  Yet Tunde knew he was still incomplete. He felt it. The next realm, Paragon, hovered like a distant star. There were insights yet to uncover, paths yet untraveled, trials yet to burn themselves into his soul. He had not earned the heavens' acknowledgment. Not yet.

  And for now, that was fine.

  As Dia continued her dark display, Tunde watched—no, felt—her retreating behind her creations. A puppeteer hiding behind a curtain of horrors.

  He could end it now.

  A single void step could take him to her. He could bypass her legion, snap her spine before she knew the battle had begun. He could break her before she blinked.

  But what would be the point?

  He was a Master now. And he wanted to feel it.

  He wanted to test himself.

  To see what his body could do. What his techniques had become. To enjoy the art of battle, even if it ended in death.

  The first monster charged, a six-armed titan wielding cleavers forged of molten rock and infused with Ethra. Its weapons glowed as it swung all six blades in tandem, a blinding overhead slash meant to cleave him from the sky.

  The attack tore the heavens apart, the impact rumbling through the cracked ground, blotting out the sky above.

  Tunde smiled.

  He imbued his body with Ethra, feeling the surge of power pour through him. His naginata ignited, violet fire roaring along its length. With a smooth, lethal motion, he launched himself upward—meeting all six cleavers mid-air with a single, devastating strike.

  The weapons exploded on contact.

  Shards of molten Ethra flew outward as Tunde vanished from the ground and reappeared in the air, naginata spinning in a wide arc. A violet blur.

  The arc screamed through the air, cleaving the six-armed titan’s head from its shoulders. The strike continued onward, slashing through flying horrors that descended upon him.

  Then he was in their midst.

  With a thunderous roar, he unleashed Joran’s Wrath.

  The ground shuddered as power exploded outward, an invisible mountain of pressure descending upon the battlefield. Everything it touched was swallowed in void-black silence. Then, nothing remained.

  Still, they came.

  Dozens more. Towering beasts of ash and bone. Some spat flames. Others summoned frost. They lunged with claws, blades, and fangs.

  Tunde scoffed.

  He called upon his Aspect—Void Ice.

  In a breath, the battlefield froze.

  A cocoon of black ice swept outward, encasing monsters mid-leap, mid-attack, mid-scream. Everything stopped.

  Dia had narrowly escaped the initial freeze—but now she was surging forward, launching her counterattack.

  Tunde snapped his fingers.

  The frozen army shattered.

  A thousand shards of black ice launched into the sky, then hurtled toward Dia like a meteor storm. She reacted instantly—summoning her domain. Billowing clouds of black smoke enveloped her, her authority flaring. Some shards dispersed. Others deflected.

  But not all.

  Before she could recover, Tunde stepped through space itself.

  A void step—silent, instant.

  He entered her domain.

  And unleashed his own.

  His presence expanded—crushing and overwhelming. Her domain cracked under the pressure, swallowed by the infinite void of his own. Her eyes widened, panic and awe mixing behind the veil.

  She tried to vanish again, to dissolve into the ash.

  But Tunde was faster.

  He seized her throat with one hand, Ethra and authority crackling along his skin. Then, with the force of a falling star, he slammed her into the ground. Stone split, the earth cratered, and shockwaves tore through the ruins.

  A knife appeared, silent and precise, aimed directly for his throat.

  He tilted his head slightly. The blade embedded itself harmlessly into the ground beside him.

  He stared into her eyes—defiant, unyielding.

  And then, he let her go.

  Floating backward, he watched as Dia staggered upright, her chest heaving, her breathing ragged.

  “No,” he said quietly. “Not yet.”

  She looked at him in disbelief.

  “Again,” he commanded.

  Her eyes widened.

  Why end the fight when he was finally enjoying himself?

  From Dia’s void ring came a dozen things at once, summoned with an almost desperate violence, each artifact steeped in dreadful intent.

  First—a blade of pitch-black steel that screamed with an aura so vile it felt like it could shred the soul just by being near. Then—a glowing golden pendant that shot into the sky and unfurled a formation above her, merging with the surrounding ash until it solidified into a massive statue: a six-armed sentinel carved from divine smoke and infernal memory.

  A talisman flew from her hand, bursting into nightmarish shadows that spiraled around them. A serpentine creature emerged from those shadows, swimming through the ash-thick air with a growl that rattled the bones of the dead. Tiny, glowing insects scattered next, almost dismissed—until they multiplied into a writhing, clicking swarm, wings clashing like metallic cymbals.

  Glowing pills followed, swallowed without hesitation, and with them, her essence flames erupted, billowing from her like a funeral pyre blazing at its peak. Lastly, a single knife, simple and unadorned—but as it appeared, a sudden weight crushed the air around them, even Tunde feeling the sheer pressure of its presence.

  That blade was different. It wasn’t merely powerful. It was alive.

  Whatever else emerged from her void ring, Tunde ignored. His attention narrowed on the knife alone. It pulsed with an unnatural resonance, the unmistakable feel of a soulbound weapon. It radiated its own authority, old and sharp as a forgotten grudge. And for the first time in ages, Tunde felt his own relic hunger. It throbbed with a primal desire, hungering for the weapon.

  “You have insulted me enough,” Dia spat, fury layered beneath the crackling sound of burning essence.

  Tunde said nothing.

  He simply shifted.

  His naginata shimmered, dissolving and reforming into a long, double-edged sword of void-forged black, etched with violet flame that licked along the blade like it yearned to consume all in its path. Without hesitation, he launched forward, a comet of lethal intent.

  The swarm came first.

  Wings crashed like steel upon steel, a chorus of shrieks aimed to disorient and blind—but Tunde merely extended his will, and Void Ice answered. The air plummeted in temperature, the swarm freezing mid-flight and dropping like jagged pellets to the earth below.

  The black, horrifying blade launched toward him, trailing an anguished scream as if the weapon itself resented existence. Tunde met it head-on, channeling his authority through his blade and bringing it down in a swift, crushing arc. The black sword shattered, its shards morphing into wraiths that clawed and wailed as they flew at him.

  They never reached him.

  His essence flames devoured them, violet tongues swallowing their tortured forms whole.

  Then came a thunderclap of force—a massive metal shield slammed into him, echoing across the ruined expanse as it sought to shatter his spirit. Instead, Tunde roared, borrowing from his authority, and shattered the weapon with a violent pulse of power.

  But he barely recovered before a towering humanoid emerged behind Dia, silent as shadow, its form surging with authority. It thrust a massive spear—pure energy, deadly precision—straight for his heart.

  Tunde raised his sword and met it mid-air, the clash hurling him backward, where he hovered, stabilizing himself with calm precision.

  “The waking days of man are nothing,” Dia’s voice rang across the ruins, layered and ritualistic, like a hymn for the damned.

  “Ours is the command of dreams and nightmares… of horrors yet unleashed,” she continued, voice swelling into a full-blown mantra.

  The ashen clouds above stirred, trembling under her words. They gathered and formed again—monstrosities as large as the humanoid that had just attacked him. Then they merged, layer upon layer of unnatural anatomy fusing until a singular titan emerged, pulsing with dreadful purpose.

  A formation sounded high above, marked by a thunderous gong, and Tunde actually felt it—the unmistakable pulse of serious power manifesting.

  The humanoid titan began to rise, drifting skyward as the cracked earth trembled below. Raw authority flowed from Dia and funneled upward, siphoned into the creature’s form. Tunde watched with his Ethra sight, narrowing his gaze.

  Even for a Master, that much power couldn’t reside in one vessel. It wasn’t hers alone. Something was feeding her.

  The creature’s spear began to glow, its entire form becoming a conduit as it reared its arm back to throw it—no, to obliterate with it.

  Tunde's expression shifted. The light in his eyes hardened.

  Now it was time.

  He summoned Joran’s Wrath and Empty Silence, fusing both into his weapon. Authority surged, layering the blade until it blazed like a violet sun. He gathered the concept of the void and allowed it to devour him, transforming him into a spear of ruin incarnate.

  He locked eyes with the creature, saw through its core—its flaws, its strings, its soul.

  And then, he unleashed his strike.

  A lance of unimaginable power shot from his blade at the exact moment the titan hurled its spear.

  They collided.

  Reality cracked.

  Then shattered.

  The collision tore open space, flinging them into a howling dark void where no light remained. Silence followed—complete, oppressive, infinite.

  But the void fed Tunde.

  Within it, insights poured into him. His aspects, Void Ice and Space, resonating with the void itself. Concepts once distant now crystallized. He felt the river of authority surge through him, pouring into his being as if the heavens themselves were pouring knowledge into his soul.

  But just as quickly as it came, it was severed.

  Reality healed, the rift mending itself violently, forcing him back into the battle’s remains.

  Tunde vanished in the blink of an eye.

  A knife stabbed where he had just stood—perfect in aim, devastating in force—but he was already behind her.

  Dia had tried it again.

  The same move she had once used on Jing.

  He grabbed her throat, then caught her blade arm mid-swing, crushing it in a burst of strength. Bones snapped with a sound like thunder, and she screamed in agony, her soulbound blade clattering to the ground.

  A void space opened—a tiny, spiraling hole in the fabric of the world.

  He cast the blade into it.

  Then her void ring.

  He was done playing.

  Tunde began to devour her. Not just her power—her essence, her authority, her everything. She struggled, hands clawing weakly, face contorted in a terror so raw it cracked her defiance.

  Her eyes widened—blood-curdling horror painted across them.

  Then—

  The sky broke.

  Six figures dropped like divine judgment, surrounding Tunde in a circle. Blades drawn. Points to his throat.

  “Let her go,” they said in unison.

  Tunde blinked.

  Masters. Veilweavers, clad in grey robes, radiating lethal pressure. He turned his gaze skyward, where eyes surely watched from above. From the rift. From outside. The whole audience, perhaps.

  “Is this allowed?” he asked aloud, voice calm.

  “I will not—” began one of the Masters.

  Tunde moved.

  Dia slammed into the metal-masked speaker, cracking bone and sending both of them flying across the broken terrain.

  The others lunged.

  Tunde reached for Empty Silence—but they froze mid-air, as if time itself recoiled.

  A voice, deep and world-shaking, rumbled through the void:

  “No.”

  The word echoed with the weight of law. The authority of a Paragon, made manifest.

  The rift tore itself open again.

  Tunde, Dia, and the rest were dragged through it.

  They reappeared in the valley below.

  A roar split the sky.

  Tunde turned, breathing heavier now, eyes searching. His gaze landed on Zhu—bloodied, bruised, but standing. Alive.

  But he frowned.

  Tunde opened his mouth to ask what was wrong.

  Then he saw them.

  Two figures stood beside Zhu.

  Thorne and Rhyn.