"Third Elder, it’s this guy—Max!" Frank cried out suddenly, scrambling forward and pointing a trembling finger straight at Max. His eyes were wild, face pale with a mix of fear and hope that perhaps by offering up Max, he’d spare himself the old woman’s wrath.
The Third Elder’s head snapped toward Max, her expression darkening into an inferno of murderous intent. "You... You deserve to die!" she hissed, her voice icy and crackling with killing intent.
Before Max could even react, before he could even so much as flinch, an invisible force slamd into him with the force of a mountain.
BOOM!
The world exploded in pain as he was hurled backward like a teor, his body smashing through several trees in rapid succession, each trunk splintering into wooden shrapnel as his form tore through them. He crashed to the ground with a bone-jarring impact, blood erupting from his mouth in a violent spray as he skidded across the earth, carving a deep trench in the soil.
Despite the agony radiating through his chest, Max lifted his head slowly, wiping the crimson streaks from his chin with the back of a shaking hand. His eyes, pinkish-red and glinting with a manic gleam, locked onto the Third Elder. And then, despite the blood dripping from his lips, he began to laugh.
"Hahahaha..." His laughter echoed through the battered clearing, raspy and edged with madness. "You can’t save her."
As he uttered those cold words, his lips barely moving, he whispered in his mind: Devour.
The mont the silent command left his thoughts, a sudden black light flickered over June’s already charred body. Almost instantly, tongues of black flas burst into existence, enveloping her form in a swirling vortex of sinister fire.
"Huh?! Black flas?! How did she start burning in black flas?!" The Third Elder gasped in utter shock, her eyes widening as the eerie flas hissed and roared, devouring everything in their path.
She scread a skill and thrust her palms forward, unleashing waves of brilliant erald mana to extinguish the black blaze. But as her mana poured out, it t the black flas and dissolved uselessly like water splashed onto red-hot tal.
A look of horror dawned on her ancient face as she realized that no matter how much power she channeled, it simply passed through the black flas without so much as a flicker of effect. Her magic, potent enough to shatter mountains, might as well have been a breeze trying to snuff out a star.
"No... NO!" the Third Elder scread, her voice cracking as she tried again and again to save June, her trembling hands clawing helplessly at the intangible inferno. But the flas devoured everything in their path with quiet, unstoppable hunger.
And then, almost as quickly as they’d appeared, the black flas began to subside, shrinking inward like dark silk winding back into invisible threads. In their place, where June’s broken and burned body had been cradled monts before, there was nothing—no flesh, no bone, no ash even—only a faint swirl of scorched air dissipating into the breeze. June had vanished utterly, consud and erased from existence.
The Third Elder staggered backward, her arms dropping to her sides, her face as pale as the moon as she stared at her empty hands, fingers still curled as if trying to hold onto sothing that was no longer there. Her lips parted, but no sound ca out, her eyes brimming with a cocktail of horror and disbelief.
She stood rooted to the spot, her entire fra trembling as if her body no longer knew how to hold itself upright, her jade-green eyes wide and vacant with shock. It was as though her soul had been ripped from her chest, leaving behind only a hollow shell that stared blankly at the empty air where June had once been.
She simply could not comprehend how the student she had nurtured with all her love, whom she’d grood to ascend to the very heights of genius, had just been reduced to nothing but drifting cinders, erased so utterly from existence that not even ashes remained to mourn. Her lips parted slightly, but no sound erged, her breath trapped in her lungs as disbelief and agony waged war inside her.
anwhile, Max—blood still crusted at the corner of his mouth, his chest heaving with exertion and pain—threw back his head and laughed, a sound that rolled out of him like thunder cracking through a storm.
"Hahaha! I told you all. You can’t save her!" His eyes glowed pinkish-red, wild and glinting with cruel satisfaction, while his snow-white hair fluttered around his face like a silken halo, at odds with the savage madness radiating from his aura. "Since the mont she wanted to kill , her fate was dood to a brutal death." His voice dropped lower, words edged with venomous certainty.
The Third Elder seed to snap back to life at his words, her blank stare shattering into an expression of blazing fury so intense that veins stood out like cords along her neck and temples, her jade eyes now awash in the deep crimson of bloodlust.
"I will kill you!" she scread, her voice vibrating with a murderous wrath so potent it made the air itself hum, her body trembling like a blade drawn tight in a bowstring.
Max cocked his head to the side, and despite the deep bruises staining his skin and the labored rhythm of his breath, he flashed a brilliant, mocking grin. "Oh, did I forget to ntion...? Nobody in this world can kill ." His tone was sweet as honey, but his eyes were diamond-hard, glittering with an arrogance so profound it seed carved into his very bones.
"DIE!" roared the Third Elder, her voice a hurricane of power as she whipped one slender, wrinkled hand forward. A razor-thin arc of shimring energy erupted from her palm, slashing forward through the air like a blade forged of pure moonlight. The sheer force of it bent trees aside as it hurtled toward Max, tearing a shrieking path through the clearing.
But just as the luminous blade was about to strike him, Max’s figure flickered like a candle fla and vanished completely.
BANG!
The Third Elder’s attack smashed into the forest behind where Max had been standing, detonating with explosive force. Hundreds of ancient trees were shredded in an instant, trunks disintegrating into splinters and leaves igniting into a swirling storm of sparks.
A massive trench, charred black and still smoking, carved itself deep into the earth as the shockwave thundered outward, shaking the canopy high overhead. But there was no sign of Max in the aftermath—only a void of emptiness where he had stood.
"Who is he?!" the Third Elder hissed, spinning around, her hair lashing like silver serpents as her jade-green eyes scanned the forest, her expression twisted into one of near-madness. "Find him! I want every piece of information about that kid—where he’s from, what faction he belongs to, who taught him. I want it ALL!" she barked, her voice echoing off the ravaged trees like the tolling of a war drum.
"Yes, Elder!" Frank blurted quickly, snapping to attention as sweat trickled down his temples. His eyes darted around, seeking scapegoats or clues, and he spun on his heel to face Gayle and Rose, who were still frozen in stunned silence.
They were the ones who had brought Max to the Hourglass Restaurant, the ones closest to knowing anything about this terrifying young man who had just toppled a Heaven Grade genius and vanished under the nose of one of the Middle Domain’s most powerful elders.
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