The mont Max’s golden palm t the monstrous fist of the Ascendant, the battlefield seed to pause for the span of a single thunderous heartbeat. Blazing ripples of luminous energy erupted outward in concentric waves, lighting up the blood-drenched field like a sudden sunrise cutting through a storm.
For an instant, a brilliant sphere of golden radiance encased both Max and the towering creature, crackling and shimring as light and darkness warred at the point of impact. Then, with a deafening crack like the splitting of a mountain, the sphere burst apart, sending the Ascendant hurtling backward as though fired from a divine cannon.
Its massive form flew in a wide arc, limbs flailing, black ichor spraying from fresh cracks that spiderwebbed across its armored torso. The creature crashed into the ground in the Second Circle, plowing through soil and shattered stone, carving a deep trench in its wake until it finally slamd to a stop amid a shower of dirt and rubble, its roars echoing in a mixture of pain and outrage.
’My palm is strong... but it’s still lacking severely compared to Noah’s palm,’ Max mused, his brows furrowing even as golden light continued to fade from his scales and hands.
He could feel the echo of the impact thrumming through his bones, not painful but vibrating with residual power. He understood perfectly where the gap lay. It wasn’t re strength he lacked—it was the way of Buddha, that serene, all-encompassing spiritual resonance that Noah and the entire Bright Buddha Palace cultivated.
Noah’s palm strikes carried not just force, but a profound sense of tranquility and cosmic balance, a force that seed to harmonize the universe even as it destroyed.
Max, no matter how strong his raw physical or elental power, simply didn’t possess that spiritual enlightennt, and without it, his palm would always be a shadow of the original technique.
Still, the raw might of his blow had been enough to completely overwhelm the Ascendant, forcing it back into the Second Circle where it rightly belonged. But that didn’t an Max intended to remain behind in the First Circle slaughtering ordinary Nulls while the real threat brewed further ahead.
From the mont the Ascendants had first arrived, Max’s instincts had burned with the urge to push forward to the 2nd circle area. The only reason he’d stayed in the First Circle for so long was because he hadn’t yet found the opening to go through. Otherwise if he had entered the 2nd circle area just because he could, he would obviously be reprimanded by the elders of the Hunter Association to go back to the 1st circle.
Now, that chance lay wide open, carved into the battlefield by the force of his own palm strike.
Without another breath wasted, Max’s figure blurred into motion, blue lightning exploding around his form as his entire body flickered like a living bolt of storm-born light. His white hair stread behind him like a cot’s tail, dragon scales glinting with flickering gold as he rocketed across the boundary that separated the First Circle from the Second.
The mont Max’s boots landed upon the churned, blood-soaked soil of the Second Circle, a wave of intense pressure crashed over him, thicker than the oppressive heat radiating from the rivers of spilled blood running through this layer of the battlefield.
His Three Dinsional Body imdiately expanded outward like an invisible net, sweeping across the chaotic plain and recording every single fluctuation of energy, every movent, every scream of both human and monster.
The Second Circle was a realm entirely different from the First—a crucible where the truly terrifying powerhouses clashed without restraint. All around him, experts of the Sixth, Seventh, and even Eighth Level Champion Rank were locked in savage battles against monstrous Ascendants, their attacks flashing like thunderclaps of color through the choking crimson haze.
Giant pillars of elental power rose and fell with each breath of the conflict, blasting Nulls and warriors alike into heaps of mangled flesh. If one dared to observe carefully, they would realize that the Second Circle had beco a battlefield where Ascendant battles far outnumbered the struggles against lesser Nulls.
Here, true life-and-death duels raged, and the ground itself was littered with more corpses—both human and Ascendant—than any mortal eye could count. Limbs, shattered weapons, and fragnts of monstrous armor lay strewn amid steaming pools of blood, painting a grueso tapestry of carnage beneath the dark, roiling skies.
"How... how can you be so strong?!" gasped the Ascendant Max had flung into the Second Circle monts ago, its massive chest heaving as it finally forced itself upright. Its black-scaled torso was still marred by the deep, glowing imprint of Max’s fist, black blood seeping from cracks in its void armor as energy flickered unsteadily around its towering fra.
Max tilted his head slightly, his lips curling into a sneer so cold it could have frozen fire. "I’m not strong," he said mockingly, his voice smooth and edged like a drawn blade. "See, I’m just a level one Master Rank young man. It’s just that... you’re too weak."
His Three Dinsional Body never once left its vigilance, and as he delivered the cutting taunt, his attention flicked briefly to another part of the battlefield. Amid the chaos, he zeroed in on one particular figure whose presence shone like a dark sun.
That person’s entire body was shrouded in surging black flas, each fiery bloom swirling with malevolent intent as they battled an Ascendant of imnse size and strength.
Max’s eyes glinted sharply. ’Black Lotus Guild.’ That was the real reason he had forced his way into the Second Circle. The individual from the Black Lotus Guild was the key—he needed to push his own power to the next level.
"I will kill you!" roared the Ascendant, its voice a thunderous bellow that rattled the shards of rock and bone scattered across the ground. Driven to madness by Max’s taunts, the creature lunged forward, its claws unfurling like scythes dripping with void energy as it slashed through the air, the sheer montum sending a hurricane blast of wind screaming toward Max.
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