After enduring a sequence of tedious procedures to claim his winnings, Ery finally walked out of the gates of the colosseum. Night had begun to descend upon Dawnstar City, the sky tinged with ember-orange light as the sun dipped behind the jagged skyline. Beside him, Tessa followed closely.
The deafening roar of tens of thousands of spectators had long faded. Most of the crowd had already dispersed into the city's arteries-flooding taverns, gambling halls, and street-side establishnts, all eager to relive the spectacle of blood and glory they had just witnessed. Music echoed from distant alleys, mingled with laughter, drunken cheers, and the clatter of spirit coins changing hands.
"With this kind of winning streak, we won't need to worry about our finances for a long while," Tessa said.
Ery strode calmly, his expression composed as he responded casually. "Still far from our end goal."
Tessa's excitent faltered slightly. She exhaled and nodded. "Yes... You're right. Unfortunately, now that Thrax's strength has been exposed, this thod will no longer work. The odds will never be this generous."
Her steps slowed. The confidence in her voice softened, replaced by a faint. hesitation. After a mont of silence, she spoke again.
"Actually... before I ca here... my grandfather spoke of fully supporting you..." Ery stopped walking.
She continued, lowering her gaze. "He was willing to commit... if you want... twenty billion spirit stones... we..."
Before she could finish, Ery raised a hand and interrupted firmly. "No."
Tessa looked up, startled.
"Your help is already more than enough," Ery said evenly. "We will acquire that amount ourselves."
There was no arrogance in his tone-only certainty.
Tessa studied him for a long mont. Then, slowly, her hesitation vanished. The familiar determination returned to her eyes. She straightened and began speaking rapidly, outlining several alternative plans-trades networks, underground exchanges, investnt routes.
But then she stopped mid-sentence.
Her brow furrowed.
"Why..." she muttered, glancing around, "has the road beco this quiet?"
The realization struck her a heartbeat later.
The sounds of the city-music, voices, footsteps-were gone.
Completely gone.
Tessa turned sharply toward Ery, her instincts screaming. But he remained calm, his gaze already fixed forward.
"Stay near ," he said.
In the next instant, the warm twilight dimd unnaturally. Shadows stretched and twisted, climbing the walls of nearby buildings like living things. The space around them darkened as if swallowed by a veil.
A formation had been activated.
The street warped, its boundaries dissolving into an enclosed domain. The buildings remained, but sothing was wrong-their edges blurred, the air thickened, and the world felt sealed.
"We need to break out-now!" Tessa uttered sharply.
Tessa spun in place, her gaze sweeping across the warped street as she tried to decipher the structure of the formation. Spiritual threads pulsed faintly in the air-layered, overlapping, deliberately obscured. Whoever had set this trap knew exactly what they were doing.
Before she could complete her analysis, Ery's hand snapped out and clamped tightly around her arm. He yanked her sideways.
At that sa instant, the shadow on the wall near her peeled like liquid darkness.
A figure burst forth-silent, lethal.
A dagger coated in abyssal energy lunged toward where Tessa had been a heartbeat earlier. The killing intent packed into that strike was overwhelming, heavy enough to suffocate the air itself. It was a power that exceeded the Magus Realm.
Tessa felt her scalp go numb.
If Ery had been even a fraction of a second slower, she would already be dead.
The assassin missed and did not hesitate. His form twisted mid-strike, dissolving back into the shadows as if he had never been there at all.
"Grand Magus assassins!" Tessa exclaid, panic surging through her voice. "How could-?!"
Ery did not answer.
He had not moved to retaliate.
His eyes were half-lidded, his expression unnervingly calm.
Divine Sense unfurled silently, expanding through the sealed space like an
invisible tide.
Three, he confird.
One presence lingered behind them-the dagger wielder, perfectly concealed, waiting for another opening.
Another hovered above, crouched atop a nearby rooftop, suppressing his aura with practiced precision. The outline of a long weapon-no, a spear-was barely discernible, its tip radiating dense cosmic fluctuations.
The third stood at a distance.
A woman.
She did not hide.
She stood openly within the formation's boundary, dark robes fluttering
despite the absence of wind. Her eyes glowed a deep, unnatural violet, runic light revolving slowly within her pupils. Layers of spell matrices overlapped around her like an invisible crown.
The spirit master who conjures the formation.
For a brief mont, genuine surprise flickered through him.
He was still disguised as a Magus-realm cultivator.
To deploy three Grand Magus-realm assassins against two apparent Magus...
That was not caution.
That was extermination.
"A definition of overkill," Ery murmured.
He raised his head slightly and spoke aloud, his tone casual, almost bored.
"What do you want?"
The woman did not respond.
Instead, she lifted one slender hand.
The ground trembled.
Dark chains erupted violently from beneath the stone pavent, forged from
condensed spell energy and engraved with suppression runes. They coiled around Ery and Tessa in an instant, locking down spiritual circulation and anchoring them to the formation itself.
Tessa gasped as her spirit energy stalled.
At the sa mont, the rooftop assassin moved.
He launched himself downward like a falling teor.
The spear in his hands ignited, cosmic energy spiraling tightly around its shaft.
Space scread as the weapon descended, its trajectory precise-aid
directly at Ery's heart.
Tessa's pupils constricted.
Ery did not dodge.
He did not even raise his guard.
"I suppose," he muttered calmly, "I have to force words out of you."
His eyes flared open.
Gold flooded his irises.
Spectral Gaze-ignite.
The chains binding him shattered instantly, exploding into fragnts of dark
mist. The descending spearman was held mid-air as overwhelming pressure
crushed down upon him.
Ti stretched.
One breath.
That was all Ery needed.
His hand reached outward.
Light answered.
A brilliant radiance erupted before him as a sword materialized. Jewels embedded along the hilt ignited one by one, golden runes blazing to life across
the blade.
Excalibur.
The sacred sword humd violently as its seal loosened.
The spear struck.
Clang-!
The collision sent a shockwave rippling through the confined space, cracking
nearby walls and scattering dust into the air. The spearman's eyes widened in
absolute disbelief.
His full-power strike-
Blocked effortlessly.
He did not even have ti to gasp.
Ery stepped forward and swung.
A single, clean arc of light flashed through the air,
SPLATTT!!!
Blood sprayed outward as the spearman's body separated cleanly at the waist.
The upper half slid from the lower, lifeless before it hit the ground.
Instant death.
Silence followed.
The remaining two assassins recoiled in shock.
"Retreat!" the woman shouted sharply, her composure finally cracking.
She turned to flee- but the ground beneath her feet darkened, and in the next instant, twilight roots erupted violently from the stone pavent. They twisted like living serpents, coiling around her ankles and calves with crushing force, anchoring her firmly to the formation itself.
Her escape was cut off.
The dagger assassin reacted faster.
His form flickered, blinking upward into the air as he fled at full speed. In a heartbeat, he was already dozens of ters away, accelerating toward the edge of the sealed domain.
Ery turned his head slightly.
"Who told you... that you could leave?"
He raised his arm.
Space warped.
The fleeing assassin scread as an invisible force dragged him backward, tearing him from his escape and slamming him back into range.
"NOO-!!!"
Excalibur flashed again.
Another arc of radiant light.
SPLAAATTT!
The assassin was cleaved cleanly in two, blood spraying across the floor in a violent crimson arc. His body fell lifelessly to the ground, but his soul did not perish so easily.
A flicker of distorted light erupted from the corpse as the assassin activated a unique soul-escape technique. His soul tore free, twisting violently as it fled toward the void beyond Ery's grasp.
Ery watched it go.
He muttered a word before he let the escaping soul vanish.
Then he turned.
The restrained female grand magus struggled violently, terror overtaking her expression.
Ery approached her unhurriedly, his footsteps asured, Excalibur still radiating faint astral light in his hand.
"Now," he said evenly, "you are going to tell who you are-and who sent you."
"I won't tell you anything!" she scread, her voice trembling with desperation. Her aura surged violently.
Without hesitation, she burned her life essence, crimson light igniting beneath her skin as she began forming a self-destructive spell. Runic patterns carved themselves into the air, a spell that could erase herself, while hurting anyone nearby.
Tessa gasped.
But Ery was already moving.
His finger touches the woman's forehead, and a crushing spirit attack slamd into the woman's consciousness, freezing her spell formation mid-cast.
She was a spirit master-one whose strength might have been comparable to Mo Yan, the hunchback slave master. However, Ery was no longer the sa person. His recent breakthrough in soul power had fundantally changed him, and its effects were now fully manifesting.
A massive Six-Floor Soul pagoda descended.
Each tier was etched with sealing sigils, radiating overwhelming suppression. The pagoda crashed down upon her spiritual core like a divine hamr.
Her eyes bled instantly.
Her scream was choked into silence.
A restraining seal materialized on her forehead, glowing faintly as her resistance was completely crushed. In the next instant, her body dissolved into motes of light as Ery pulled directly into the prison within his domain.
The formation trembled.
Cracks spread across the sealed space like shattered glass.
Then-
It collapsed.
Reality snapped back into place.
In the blink of an eye, Ery and Tessa stood once more on the open streets of Dawnstar City. Citizens passed by in clusters, laughing and arguing, utterly unaware that three Grand Magus-level assassins had been slain at this very spot monts ago.
No blood.
No bodies.
Only silence.
Tessa stood frozen.
She had encountered many Grand Magi before, and she understood what it ant to face even one of them. Yet Ery had executed three of them with absolute dominance-without injury, without hesitation.
She had heard the rumors of Ery's breakthrough into the Second Cosmos.
She had believed them.
But she had never imagined strength on this level.
Ery sheathed Excalibur.
The sword's radiance dimd, retreating into a calm, obedient hum. A faint expression of satisfaction crossed his face.
Excalibur was one of the first artifacts he had fully refined using his newly perfected [Astral Link]. The sword no longer resisted his will as it once had.
He could now safely unleash nearly eighty percent of the sword's true power. He drew a deep breath, steadily calming the turbulent energy within his body.
Then he turned to Tessa.
"Let's head back," he uttered calmly. "We have a celebration to attend."
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