He was a sealed vessel crammed with far too much — a hair's breadth from shattering. The Acupoints acted as desperate valves, cycling the overflow, but it poured in faster than it could escape.
He had to release it. Now.
Sagat was the outlet.
Nerion vanished. The stone where he stood cracked like thunder under the launch force. He reappeared in a frenzy of fists — over 100 in a single second, each punch igniting air-friction flames that scorched his own skin.
BAM, BAM, BAM, BAM, BAM!
Sagat parried with tiger-claw hands of crimson Qi, blow for blow, the cavern echoing with meaty impacts.
Nerion retreated, fists raw and bloody. His raw power outstripped Sagat's now, but he lacked a Legate's honed Will or elemental edge. His child's body couldn't wield it all — like a toddler swinging a war-axe, more danger to himself than the foe. The Milk was poison disguised as salvation: quenching thirst only to burn from within, scorching his future potential in this desperate blaze.
Sagat coughed, tasting iron. He couldn't break this runt fast enough. The woman's aura was stirring — a wild, ancient thing uncoiling. If one drop had turned this boy into a monster…
He went all-in.
Qi flooded his limbs; two crimson halos ignited around his core. The air thinned, pressure building like a storm front.
His partial Will manifested: a two-metre spectral tiger, ghostly but lethal, nearly doubling his output.
ROAAAAAR!
The tiger's eyes sharpened to deadly focus. Sound became a weapon — a psychic hammer slamming Nerion's skull. Ears bled; vision swam; bile rose.
Sagat blurred towards Arbak.
Nerion staggered, choking back vomit, and barely managed to place himself between them.
Sagat's claw-hand sent him skidding back, fresh veins bursting, blood spraying from ruptured acupoints. His nerves shrieked in agony.
"Enough games, brat," Sagat snarled, closing in. "That power's eating you alive. Let me end your misery."
Three seconds gone. Nerion's hands trembled from overload. If not for the narcotic-like frenzy the Stone Milk had forced into his body, the roar would have shut his brain down completely.
Sagat pressed, his strikes a whirlwind of claws.
His arms moved in smooth arcs. His feet followed a natural rhythm. The chaotic power in his body found channels through the open Acupoints, following the First Form’s circular path.
Sagat’s next barrage crashed against Nerion’s movements… and faltered.
Qi spiralled, absorbing impact like a whirlpool. Sagat’s own force partially rolled back onto him, forcing him to retreat half a step, his first backward motion of the fight.
For a heartbeat, Nerion felt the strange serenity he had glimpsed in the Radon Woods.
Five seconds.
Nerion stopped attacking. Defence only. Stall. Buy time.
Ailan whimpered behind him, Eliana pressing fabric against the stump of his leg, but her wide, trembling eyes remained fixed on the boy fighting a monster.
Exchanges blurred into hundreds: Warrior speed compressing eternity into heartbeats.
But Sagat was no fool. If he couldn’t break through in time, the woman would awaken, and then nothing he had would matter.
The Legate growled, Qi condensing denser. Crimson halos doubled; flames licked the tiger's paws. His Core Meridian — Fire — ignited fully, four Acupoints like scorching lava in each arm.
The air scorched; stone bubbled.
“My Will is to devour you…
The tiger leapt, twin inferno claws raking forward in a blaze wide enough to incinerate the cage whole.
Nerion detected the target. It was not him, but Arbak who was in deep meditation, waiting, restoring, her own presence becoming null, the calm of an ocean before a tsunami.
He had to step once more. He reappeared in front of Arbak, arms extended, spinning counterclockwise, drawing heaven-earth energy into a visible whirlpool. For one flawless instant, Qi and Mana aligned — perfect balance. A compact sphere of pure, unified force formed between his palms.
Energy lost to this world, neither Qi nor Mana. Supreme Energy.
Palms thrust; a compressed sphere detonated outward.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
The epicentre erupted: flames meeting revolution in a shockwave that cratered the floor and rained stone dust like grave ash.
Sagat flew back, coughing blood. Will shattered into crimson wisps. A Legate humbled by a child not even Master-rank. If told, no one would believe it.
Nerion staggered, limbs numb, acupoints in arms and legs exploded. Blood poured from every pore. His power guttered out; he was crippled, his future cultivation a ruin… that is, if he lived.
He never noticed the Genesis Stone pulsing with intensity. His blood had been drunk, as well as part of that Supreme Energy he miraculously released.
Sagat seized him by the throat. One squeeze, and done.
"Too bad, kid. With that display, you'd have been a legend. But for what? Everyone dies anyway."
Nerion's ruined face split in a serene, bloody smile.
"Hehehehe… I won."
Sagat's grip tightened. "What did you win? You're dead."
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"I won," Nerion whispered, joy overflowing despite the pain.
Sagat hated that smile. His fingers clenched. At least he tried.
A hand smooth like jade, yet stronger than iron, clamped his wrist. Sagat froze. The grip could crush mountains.
Following the arm: Arbak. Chains shattered at her feet. Aura wild, ancient, unchained. He felt like a small cat in front of a magnificent serpent.
"He won," she said, voice a melody of disdain and pride. "Because ten seconds have passed."
Arbak’s jade hand clamped around Sagat’s wrist. A crunch like breaking stone echoed through the cell.
Sagat’s hand twisted at an impossible angle. His fingers went limp. He was forced to release Nerion.
Before the boy could collapse to the ground, Arbak flicked her other arm.
CRASH
Sagat was hurled across the cell block, smashing through iron bars and slamming into the opposite wall in an explosion of dust.
Only then did she lower Nerion gently, placing him on the cold stone as if handling priceless porcelain. Two fingers pressed to his wrist as her energy flowed into him in a precise diagnostic wave.
Her brow furrowed. His Acupoints: ruptured. His organs: shredded. His blood: dangerously low. His body temperature: dropping fast. His future as a cultivator: ruined… if
What surprised her most was not the severity. It was the of his survival. By every known principle, Nerion should have died five seconds ago.
Yet the boy smiled faintly, eyes closed, and in a slurred whisper begged, “Please… save them.”
Arbak’s chest tightened by a fraction.
She stood. First, she would handle the rot in front of her.
Sagat staggered upright, coughing blood, trying to force his broken body into one last suicidal technique. His Qi flickered violently — desperation, fear, and pride bound together.
But Arbak’s voice cut through the air, melodic and merciless.
“Little tiger cub… allow me to teach you the true meaning of not playing with your food.”
Her pupils thinned into vertical slits.
A regal, predatory aura snapped into place. Natural Energy thickened in the air until the stone itself bowed
A serpentine shadow unfurled behind her — vast, ethereal, coiling through the cell until its presence blotted out the remaining torchlight.
Sagat froze.
“W-Wait—”
The giant spectral serpent wrapped around him in one fluid motion.
Sagat screamed… or tried to. The serpent’s coils forced the air from his lungs.
Its head rose before him, eyes level, unblinking: the stare of a sovereign beast looking upon vermin.
The serpent opened its jaws. Inside its mouth, a radiant cascade gathered: a waterfall of light, pure, annihilating, shimmering with divine heat.
Arbak spoke the name of the technique:
Световой водопад (Svetovoy vodopad - Light Waterfall)
The serpent unleashed the beam.
Sagat’s scream never formed. His throat burned away before sound could emerge. His flesh evaporated. His bones charred, cracked, and disintegrated.
In less than a second, the leader of the Ferocious Tigers — the traitor of Ansara, the butcher of innocents — was reduced to drifting ash.
Arbak exhaled slowly, lowering her hand as the serpent dissolved into motes of light.
The cell block fell silent. The nightmare of years ended in a heartbeat.
The central hall was gone — swallowed into a crater of dust and shattered stone. Only the echo of violence remained, the air still trembling from the force Mikael had unleashed. Mikael had abandoned all restraint the instant Nerion’s aura detonated. He was a silhouette now, hunched, breathing like a wounded dragon, Qi spilling from him in unstable waves.
He didn’t care.
All he sensed was Nerion’s aura — faint, flickering, — and that terrified him more than any wound he had ever endured.
Sylas stepped between him and the tunnel. Even with Mikael unleashing his Rank 8 power, Sylas knew it was unstable.
“Going somewhere, old beggar?” His smile was thin, his lips split with his own blood. “That little sun dying in the distance… it matters to you, doesn’t it?”
Mikael didn’t answer.
His Will answered for him.
A deep, thunderous growl filled the ruins as the Mastiff behind him blurred — its form thickening, brightening, taking on weight. The world bent around Mikael’s body as his Qi surged past its normal constraints.
Sylas’ expression died.
Mikael inhaled once — a long, ancient breath — and the boundary between man and Will tore open.
His spine cracked. His muscles swelled. Lightning-veins crawled across his skin.
A partial Fusion with his own Will. Rank 8 Saint
A golden paw tore through Mikael’s flesh where his arm should have been, lightning spiralling up the limb. His legs elongated, digitigrade, wolfish, the claws of the King Lycan punching through his battered boots.
Sylas stumbled back involuntarily.
“You truly went mad, Michel”, he hissed. “Every Saint in Ansara and Rhodar will feel this. Your power is broken — you’ll kill yourself before you kill me!”
Mikael’s answer was a guttural growl. His eyes glowed molten gold.
“My Will tears apart the fabric of reality—”
The cavern shuddered as if a god inhaled.
“
The cavern roof groaned as golden lightning claws rent stone like paper. The air itself screamed. Mikael crashed into Sylas with a blow meant to annihilate mountains.
Sylas threw up his final defence. Eight spider legs folded into a violet shield.
BAAAAAM!
Seven legs shattered into purple mist. Sylas was hurled a hundred metres straight through solid rock, ribs caving, blood exploding from his mouth. He lived — barely.
But only because Mikael’s body, already ruined before the Stone Milk, couldn’t sustain Half-Fusion longer than a heartbeat.
The power guttered. Mikael collapsed to one knee, panting, sweat pouring down his temples like cold rain.
He was done.
Sylas rose, trembling, murderous. “Damn madman. You can go and die now.”
He raised his hand like a spear for the killing blow. The last standing spider leg hurled towards Mikael.
Suddenly, a wall of lustrous glass snapped into existence between them, pushing Sylas back.
Elisha, Saulo, and fifteen elite soldiers burst into the ruined hall — a single spear of synchronised blue Qi still fading from their coordinated charge, right into the fray.
Saulo’s monocle glinted coldly.
Elisha rushed to Mikael’s side, catching him before he fell. “Father—are you alright?”
Mikael grunted, barely conscious.
Saulo’s voice rang out, sharp and decisive.
“Sylas Du Sakar. And Rolando Du Sakar. So Sagat truly was tied to Rhodar. Men—take them!”
But Sylas was already moving.
In a single blur, he appeared beside Rolando, grabbed his shoulder, and hurled him toward the Rhodarian tunnel. His voice echoed directly in Rolando’s mind:
Then Sylas turned back to face the soldiers.
He pushed his Will to full manifestation. Seven legs flickered ghostlike from Mikael’s strike, but he forced the spectre forward anyway. It was too late now. There was no need to keep restraining himself anymore.
His Qi started boiling, flooding the cave, sharp enough to sting skin. His pupils were divided into two. Four spider limbs sprouted from his back like writhing appendages, extending his reach and forming a perimeter of lethal arcs. However, three of the spider legs showed deep cracks, the aftermath of the injuries caused by Mikael.
“Hmph. You’ll find stopping a Sakar Emperor is not so simple.”
The Ansaran Legates began forming their battle array.
Saulo simply raised one hand. His monocle flared.
A dome of mirrored glass snapped around the soldiers, shrugging off Sylas’s opening strike like rain on steel.
The soldiers retaliated with long-range techniques, forcing Sylas to reposition constantly. Each exchange widened the distance between him and Rolando’s escape route, buying crucial seconds.
Mikael leaned toward Elisha, voice hard despite his exhaustion.
“Go. Now. Toward the cells. Find Nerion. Something’s happened. Don’t worry about me—.”
Elisha didn’t hesitate. He sprinted past the fractured remains of the corridor, heart pounding, thoughts drowning in dread. Saulo saw the exchange and gave a signal. Some Captains followed after Elisha immediately.
But some things can never be gained back.
Darkness.
Not cold. Not warm. Just infinite, still darkness.
Nerion floated in it, weightless, painless, thoughtless. His body wasn’t truly present — only a faint image of himself, a spiritual echo unravelling thread by thread.
Years seemed to pass. Or perhaps just the blink of an eye.
His outline flickered. Bits of him dissolved into the void — tiny motes drifting away like fireflies dying in winter.
He was fading.
A voice rose.
Not sound in a literal sense. Reality itself, speaking, more ancient than the Universe itself.
“Mmmm… sacrifice. Mistake. Yet you threw everything upon the altar to fix what was yours to fix.”
The darkness vibrated.
“You are six years old, and yet your Will is unbreakable. The longing to honour your parents. The hunger to change destiny — yours and theirs. You faced death without surrender. Admirable… foolish… both.”
The voice was everywhere. And nowhere.
His last fragments dissolved.
“But I do not want you to leave yet.”
The void reversed.
Particles flew back together, weaving Nerion’s spirit into coherence, stitching him whole. Energy — not Qi, not Mana, not Beast — — hummed around him.
The voice deepened.
“So you will not leave.”
Silence.
Then, the voice returned. Closer. Inside him.
“Nerion.”
The name vibrated to his core.
“Wake up.”
The command struck like cosmic lightning — a jolt through every atom, searing his core with raw, electric life. The void trembled.
His eyes snapped open.