Ten years.That is how long I believed the man who taught me how to fight, how to cultivate, and how to survive, was rotting in a shallow grave.I had seen Valerius Thorne pierce our master's heart with a spear. I had mourned him.I did not approach the stone doors that were a hundred feet away. I stood up and kicked them.A shock wave of pitch black and golden Qi rolled through my leg as my new Fourth Layer Eclipse core surged. The massive obsidian doors, already cracked by the Guardian's death, exploded off their ancient hinges, crashing into the absolute darkness of the inner vault.Aria came on in immediately after me, lifting up the silver relic. She had the ancient Warden energy lighting the room.The inner vault wasn't a grand throne room. It was a place of torture.A man was suspended in the middle of the room, with blood stained chains of light glowing through his collarbones and wrists. He was little more than a skeleton stretched over pale, withered skin. His hair was white

Malakor’s bloody, arrogant smile was the last mistake he ever made.He thought the threat to Maya would make me panic. He thought it would make me hesitate. He didn't understand that the Abyssal Void wasn't just a martial art—it was a reflection of my soul."You think angering a demon is a tactical victory, Malakor?" I whispered, my voice echoing with a distorted, terrifying resonance.I didn't just activate the void. I let it off the leash entirely.The pitch-black mist didn't slowly drain him; it violently imploded. Malakor let out a horrific, gurgling scream as the Eclipse Domain sank its teeth directly into his Tier 6 core. His flawless golden armor rusted and crumbled into dust in a microsecond. The flesh was ripped from his bones, and his colossal Tier 6 lifeforce was violently vacuumed into my chest.I dropped his mummified skull onto the obsidian floor. I crushed it beneath my boot without a second glance.The raw energy of a Vanguard flooded my Fourth Layer core, pushing my p

The Sterling Manor collapsed behind us in a shower of sparks and ash, burying a century of legacy under burning oak and shattered marble.I didn't look back. I picked up Maya and carried him over my shoulder, my free hand clutched to Aria's. The storm was moving away from us, as the silver and gold halo of my Eclipse core had pushed the storm away, leaving us completely untouched by the freezing rain as we walked down the ruined driveway.“Kael,” Aria said, her voice surprisingly calm for a woman who had just lost her home. In our soul-bond, I felt her quickened heart but there was no panic. The only cold, calculating determination. We have no house, no security, and no allies. Valerius knows we're alive. Where do we go?"No, we don't need to seek allies, Aria," I said in response, the crimson light in my eyes cutting through the dark street. We conquer them. The Crimson Lotus Triad is now headless, I ate their Grandmaster and their Grand Elder, so their empire is now ours.I didn't j

The rotary cannon didn’t spin up with a mechanical whir; it roared like a dying dragon.Gideon didn't give a monologue. He fired the gun.The barrels fired out a continuous hyper-condensed Tier 5 Qi, blinding the viewer. It was not a projectile, it was a laser beam of pure destructive kinetic energy that was meant to level city blocks. The asphalt instantly turned to steam as the beam made its way down the street towards me."Ghost, stay back!" I ordered, and I stepped in the path of the apocalyptic light.I extended my arms with both hands, creating the Domain of the Void.My pitch-black and gold mist were hit by the Tier 5 beam. I was knocked back and my boots dug deep into the concrete. It wasn't pure lifeforce, like a cultivator's, the energy was vile. It was synthetic, acrid, and hot, it was passed through the machine's arrays.However, energy was energy and my Eclipse core was hungry.I swallowed the blast, my veins burning with a dark crimson and gold as the rotary cannon's out

The violet spear didn't just fly through the air; it erased the space between Corvus and the western rooftop.A compact block of pure Tier 7 destruction at Mach 3. It had enough explosive, corrosive energy to destroy the entire building and all the occupants.I didn't have time to think. I didn't get enough time to create a Void Shield. I was pushing my Fourth Layer Eclipse core so much that the silver and gold runes that have been imprinted on my skin broke apart.Crack.Space shattered. I suddenly appeared in the air, three feet in front of the edge of the roof, in line with the apocalyptic spear.Both my bare hands flew forward and I caught the tip of the violet spear.It was as if I was trying to stop a bullet train with my chest. The rest of the roof tiles were blown to dust and the three Triad Elders were hurled to the ground. My boots hit the concrete edge of the roof grinding backwards. The violet energy was corrosive and it violently attacked my face, attempting to consume my