The landing ramp of the first ship hit the Varek shoreline with the sound of iron meeting stone.And before the ramp had stopped moving, the Arcturus forces were already running.From the sea, from the air, from every direction that had been cleared by the missiles earlier, thousands of agents and elite soldiers of the Arcturus Continent entered Varek soil in organized waves. Not running like people who were afraid, but running like people who already knew exactly where their feet needed to go.Varek met them head on.BANG. BANG. BANG. BANG.The first shots broke from the remaining positions along the Varek defense line, angles that hadn't been hit by missiles, posts that still had operators who hadn't fled. The bullets crossed the air in a density that left little room to stand in the open.But the Arcturus forces weren't standing in the open.An agent on the left flank ran in a route that wasn't straight, his body angling right one second then left the next, and the three bullets ai

Lein didn't step back.He charged forward.His feet pushed off the ground, his body shooting forward at a speed coated in white spiritual energy that had already wrapped around his entire surface, and his right fist rose with the same calm as everything else he did.Two forces moving in opposite directions, meeting in the middle.BOOM.Not the sound of an ordinary collision. Not the sound of two fists meeting, but the sound of two energy waves driving through each other and exploding at the point where they crossed. The pressure wave produced radiated outward in a circle, knocking down everything standing within twenty meters without exception.The ground around them overturned. Small stones and gravel launched into the air. Several light armored vehicles parked at the edge of the field were pushed back a few meters from a single wave aimed at nobody.Soldiers from both sides who were still fighting in the area stopped.An Arcturus sergeant grabbed the radio at his shoulder."Pull bac

Bragos was stunned. He wasn't sure his hearing was still working properly after ten minutes of fighting amid impacts that echoed across the battlefield.But this bastard had said it clearly... he wanted to get serious now?!That meant... the entire fight up until now, all the attacks Bragos had thrown, all the energy he had spent, all the techniques he had put out... hadn't been enough to make the Destroyer Devil get serious?!Before his mind could fully process what he had just heard, Lein continued. "I thought you were an opponent who would give me a real fight." His tone didn't change. Flat. Measured. Like someone commenting on the weather. "But as it turns out, you're very weak. So let's end this here."Something inside Ragnor Bragos's chest ignited.Not cultivation energy, but something deeper than that. A rage he had never felt before."I'LL KILL YOU, DAMN IT!"His feet exploded off the ground, his body shooting forward with everything he had. No technique, no calculation, no sy

Both of them stared at each other for three seconds, then moved at the same time.Lein drove his right fist forward. Xiao Yun opened her right palm, black and white energy like ink flowing across the surface of her skin gathering at that point.They met in the middle.BOOM.The wave that exploded from the point of impact wasn't an ordinary wave. The ground around them in a ten-meter radius overturned all at once, gravel and stones launched in every direction like bullet fragments.Both of them leaped backward from the collision, landing at two different points.Xiao Yun advanced again and turned her body. A spinning kick from the left, fast and precise, aimed at the side of Lein's head. Not a rough kick, this was the kick of someone who had used it thousands of times until the angle was never wrong.Lein raised his left arm, blocking it.But before he could throw a counter jab, Xiao Yun's left foot was already moving, kicking his shoulder from a different direction. Not hard, but enou

One day earlier.The room had no closed walls. On three sides it opened directly onto a forest that stretched far into the distance, tall trees whose tops couldn't be seen from here, wind carrying a clean cold that had no city smell in it.The man stood with his back to the door, looking at the forest.Three knocks came from behind."Come in."The door opened. The footsteps that entered stopped at a distance that had been learned from experience, a distance that taught that getting closer than that wasn't always welcomed."Supreme Leader." His voice was quiet but clear. "Ryoken is dead."The man didn't turn around."Dead?""That's correct, Supreme Leader. He was defeated by the man named Lein. His dantian was destroyed, and after realizing what had been done to him, he chose to end his own life."A few seconds of silence. The wind from the forest came in uninvited."So that man is stronger than a mid-tier Eternal Realm cultivator." Not a question, more like someone placing the final p