2026-02-09 08:19:12Michael walked up to the twins.
They turned to face him.
"Hey, what's up?" Michael asked, trying to sound casual.
"Hi," they said in unison as they sized Michael up from head to toe.
His short hair was disheveled, and his black eyes, which normally carried an uncaring glint, were now scanning the two girls with open interest.
"I'm Michael. I heard you guys talking about the Ground of Awakening. I just got here, so I was wondering if I could tag along?" he asked, going straight to the point.
"You're heading there too? Of course, you can tag along," the twin with the black hair said, sounding surprisingly welcoming.
Michael had thought it would be difficult trying to tag along with these two beauties.
"Aina!" Kaida chimed in, her voice cold but melodious.
The contrast between the warmth of the first twin's words and the chill in Kaida's tone was striking.
The girl with the black hair was Aina, and the one with the white hair was Kaida.
Two names that shared similar vowel sounds.
Well, Michael knew their names now.
So it wouldn’t be that easy tagging along after all, he thought, glancing at Kaida, who seemed distant.
"He’s just tagging along, Kaida. Do you always have to be so cold?" Aina said to her sister, sounding slightly dissatisfied.
Kaida didn’t reply.
She only stared at Michael coldly.
"Damn, what's with that look? I’m just tagging along, sister."
Michael didn’t say anything directly to Kaida.
He just smiled at her as if to say, I'm a good guy, you know.
Scaring me with a stare? Keep dreaming.
"You can tag along. She’s always like that," Aina said, turning back to him.
"So you have a map to the Ground of Awakening? That’s even better. It saves us a lot of stress," Michael glanced at Kaida, noticing she was about to say something.
Not wanting to lose his chance, he quickly cut in.
"Yeah, Kaida, open the map. Let’s head out," Aina said.
"Hmph." Kaida shot Michael another look but said nothing more.
His smile was annoying, so she focused on the map instead.
As they journeyed toward the Ground of Awakening, Michael noticed that many others were heading in the same direction, judging by the crowd’s movement.
It didn’t take long before he synchronized well with the twins.
They were around the same age, after all.
But the difference between them was as clear as daylight.
While Aina’s constant chatter and jokes filled the air, Kaida maintained an unyielding silence.
Michael found himself growing more comfortable around Aina, which was inevitable, given her personality.
Whenever he tried to include Kaida in the conversation, however, she simply remained silent.
He occasionally glanced at her, trying to read her expression, but her face remained indifferent.
Noticing Michael’s awkwardness, Aina leaned closer and whispered, "She’s always like that."
Michael just shrugged.
He didn’t really mind.
"Wow, so magnificent!" Aina suddenly exclaimed.
Michael’s train of thought was cut short.
"Is this the Ground of Awakening?" he asked, confused.
"Yeah. Welcome to the Ground of Awakening," Aina replied.
Ground of Awakening?
Tsk. This was a mountain.
Not a ground, a mountain, right in the middle of the city, and it felt magical.
The mountain was enormous, easily taller than any building in the city, almost piercing the sky.
The strange thing was that unless you reached the center of the city, you couldn’t see this structure from afar, which should have been impossible.
It was as if the mountain had been hidden from view, shrouded in a mysterious veil that only lifted once you entered the heart of the city.
As they approached the foot of the mountain, Michael’s eyes widened at the sea of people gathered there.
The crowd was massive, easily over fifty thousand people.
But what he saw next nearly made his eyes pop out.
"What are those?" Michael asked, pointing at the people nearby.
"Powers," Aina replied excitedly.
"What do you mean by powers?"
"Spirit weapons. That’s what we’re here for in the first place," Aina explained.
He stared in wonder at a guy who had awakened an axe that could retract and extend with swift precision.
A sword and a bow made of pure energy.
A staff glowing faintly.
These were weapons people could summon at any time to fight.
Michael felt excitement building inside him.
He had never seen anything like this before.
Aina nudged him.
"Come on. Let’s see what we’re capable of."
So he simply sat down cross-legged like everyone else.
He had no idea how he would find Alex in all this.
"I hope I awaken something special. Something higher than Dad expects," Aina said, her tone unusually serious.
"Something special? Higher?" Michael asked, confused.
Was there a ranking system he didn’t know about?
"You don’t know anything about what we’re doing here, do you?" Aina asked, looking at him strangely.
"Painfully, no," Michael admitted, slightly embarrassed.
"Okay, here’s a quick summary of what my dad told me.
There’s a ranking system.
It depends on the type of spirit qi you’re able to grasp."
"Eh? Spirit qi? I don’t know anything about that," Michael said, growing even more confused.
Aina sighed in exasperation.
"You really don’t know anything about Elyria.
Close your eyes and try to sense your surroundings.
You’ll feel a wisp of energy.
It’s the source of everything in Elyria."
Michael closed his eyes and focused.
Surprisingly, he felt it.
It was invisible to the naked eye, yet clear when he concentrated.
He opened his eyes in shock and looked at Aina.
"You sensed it?" Kaida suddenly spoke, her voice filled with stunned surprise.
Aina froze mid-sentence, her mouth slightly open.
"Did you really sense it?" she asked.
"Yeah… is that a problem?" Michael asked, noticing the change in their tone.
"You… you really sensed it?" Aina repeated, stuttering slightly.
Around them, a few nearby people who overheard turned to look.
Sensing spirit qi on the first try was not normal.
Most people needed days, sometimes weeks.
Michael was speechless.
What was wrong with these two?
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187.
The explosion swallowed the battlefield.For several seconds, nobody could see anything.Dust and shattered stone filled the valley, while the protective barriers around the arena flickered dangerously beneath the force of the collision.Then something changed.The darkness came first.It spread from the centre of the battlefield in complete silence, swallowing the dust, the broken ground and even the light around it.One of the older cultivators slowly stood."What is that?"Nobody answered.The darkness continued expanding until the entire valley seemed to have fallen into night.Even the sky above them appeared dim.Inside that darkness, Micheal stood alone.His golden sword had disappeared.His entire body was surrounded by black shadows that moved like living creatures, wrapping around his arms, legs and shoulders before slowly spreading across the battlefield.But there was something else.Something far more terrifying.The aura coming from Micheal had changed.It was no longer
186.
The dark aura surrounding Jack suddenly became heavier.It rolled across the battlefield like smoke, crawling over his arms and shoulders before gathering around his body in thick strands.Micheal watched carefully.Whatever Jack had been holding back was finally coming out.The spectators felt it too.The conversations around the arena gradually died until the entire valley became almost completely silent.Jack lowered his body slightly.Then he disappeared.Micheal's eyes sharpened.He swung his sword.CLANG!Jack's fist collided with the flat of the golden blade, and the force of the impact pushed Micheal several metres backward.Before Micheal could stabilize himself, Jack was already there again.A second punch came toward his chest.Micheal twisted aside.The fist missed him by a narrow margin, but the pressure behind it still tore through his clothes and left a shallow wound across his side.Micheal immediately retaliated.His golden sword swept horizontally toward Jack's neck.
185.
The decision to move the fight outside Central City had been made almost immediately.There was simply no arena inside the city capable of withstanding a battle between two high-tier Platinum cultivators.Even the largest stadiums in Central City had their limits, and nobody wanted to discover what would happen if Micheal and Jack decided to stop holding back in the middle of a populated area.So a special battlefield was prepared several hundred kilometres outside the city.It was an enormous artificial valley surrounded by mountains, with layers of reinforced barriers installed around the perimeter. The ground itself had been strengthened using materials capable of resisting attacks from Platinum-level cultivators, while several observation platforms had been constructed high above the battlefield for spectators.Even then, nobody could guarantee that the barriers would survive.Three days later, the valley was packed.People had travelled from different regions of Elyria just to wi
184. HIGH TIER.
A year was a long time.Long enough for people to forget how weak Green Winners had once been.The guild that had once struggled to survive against established organizations had become something entirely different.Its headquarters had expanded several times, new training grounds had been built around the original compound, and the guild's name had become familiar throughout the higher ranks of Elyria.Green Winners no longer needed to introduce themselves.Other guilds already knew who they were.They had fought and had won.And whenever another guild underestimated them, they usually regretted it.During that year, Green Winners had swallowed up several smaller guilds and even forced one of the established high-ranking guilds to retreat after a series of brutal clashes.Their numbers and resources had grown.Most importantly, their strongest members had grown.There were now several Gold-level cultivators within the guild, something that would have been almost impossible to imagine
183. ONE YEAR.
The Platinum demon took another step toward Micheal.The shattered street groaned beneath its weight as countless smaller demons continued pouring out of the cracks surrounding the city. Every passing second made the battlefield more chaotic. Missiles streaked across the night sky, helicopters circled overhead, and the sound of collapsing buildings mixed with the desperate cries of civilians still trapped beneath the rubble.Micheal tightened his grip on his sword.He had fought many difficult battles inside Elyria, but this was different.Every mistake here carried a real price.There was no resurrection.No second chance.The Platinum demon slowly raised its hand.Before it could move...A voice drifted calmly across the battlefield."That's enough." The voice wasn't loud.Yet somehow...Everyone heard it.The Platinum demon froze.Ryuu stopped in the middle of his swing.Even the roaring monsters instinctively turned toward the same direction.Nathan stood quietly on the roof of a d
182. BATTLE ON EARTH.
The smile on the demon's face had barely faded when the street beneath everyone's feet exploded.BOOM!Chunks of asphalt were hurled dozens of metres into the air as one crack became ten, then a hundred, spreading through the entire intersection like a spider's web.The earth shook violently.And then a series of explosions followed. Sewer covers shot into the sky, smashing through windows and crashing into nearby buildings.A deep growl echoed from below, it wasn't one voice.It was hundreds.The next moment, black claws burst through the fractured streets.One after another, creatures began climbing out of the darkness beneath the city.Some resembled enormous wolves covered in black scales, others walked on two legs with crimson skin and curved horns.Several had four arms, each ending in razor-sharp claws.Their eyes glowed with the same cold golden light.Nobody even dared to move. Even the soldiers who had arrived with heavy weapons could only stare.This wasn't an attack.It
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