But that didn’t matter.
A dark surge rose along JUDGENT as death affinity wrapped around the blade, thick and heavy, reacting violently to the nature of his target. The air itself seed to dim as he pulled it back.
Then he struck.
The scythe tore forward in a brutal arc, cutting deep into Conquest’s torso with far more force than before. The resistance gave way this ti, the blade sinking in as the impact launched the creature backward.
It flew.
Crashing hard into the distance, the ground breaking beneath it as dust and debris exploded outward. For a brief mont, it didn’t move, its massive form lying still where it landed.
Adam exhaled slowly, his stance lowering again as his eyes flicked between the remaining two.
But against all possibilities, Conquest’s fingers twitched.
Adam stared at the fallen wolf, shock flashing across his face. My death aura didn’t finish it? His grip tightened around his weapon, and he imdiately leapt back as Famine and War surged forward together, their strikes tearing through the air.
He landed in a crouch, eyes flicking between them as they moved to Conquest’s side. Their presence rose sharply, pressure thickening in the air. The ground humd with violent energy, and Adam felt the shift before he understood it.
The rift had always felt wrong, but now the truth clicked into place. This isn’t just a distorted rift. His eyes narrowed as realization settled. I’m standing inside a domain. The distortion wasn’t random; it was structured and deliberate.
The earlier signs had been subtle but obvious now. The Alliance investigators hadn’t recognized it because they weren’t looking for sothing this high-level. A domain like this was sothing only beings at the monarch level should wield.
Conquest’s twitching fingers confird it. Whatever kept these beasts alive was tied to this space itself. Adam exhaled slowly, steadying his pulse. If they were empowered by the domain, then fighting them without understanding it would only drag this out.
A grin tugged at his lips despite the situation. "Good. This is perfect," he muttered, voice low and steady. "I needed to test sothing anyway." His posture shifted, tension draining into sharp focus.
****
Far away in Gridlock, Redy watched Cornelia from across the room. Cornelia stood inside the swirling boundary of her domain, expression tight with strain. The energy around her pulsed erratically as she struggled to maintain its structure.
Domains followed a strict hierarchy: Harmonic Domain, Imperial Domain, and the rare Divine Domain. Redy knew of one higher level, but she had no intention of revealing it yet. Cornelia wasn’t ready to grasp that kind of power.
Her current goal was simpler, raising Cornelia’s Imperial Domain into a Divine Domain. Achieving it required territory, talent, ntal fortitude, and experience. Most would spend decades refining their domain before even attempting such an upgrade.
But Redy never followed traditional paths. She studied Cornelia’s movents, eyes sharp and calculating. If Cornelia was going to grow, then forcing the process was the only way forward, even if the thod was dangerous.
Redy’s plan was reckless by every conventional standard. What she asked Cornelia to do would make most monarchs scoff or react with outright hostility. Her suggestion wasn’t just unusual, it bordered on self-sabotage in the eyes of any experienced ruler.
To acquire a territory, a monarch had to expand influence, maintain stability, and gradually strengthen their domain. Redy, however, proposed the opposite: collapse existing territories on purpose. Self-imploding one’s territory went against every known principle of growth.
Cornelia had rejected the idea at first. Any sane monarch would. Destroying your own territory weakened your authority, drained power reserves, and required a long recovery period. It was a direct step backward, sothing only a fool would risk willingly.
Yet now, Cornelia wasn’t refusing anymore. Her eyes were steady, her breathing controlled. She was actually following Redy’s instructions. That shift wasn’t due to blind trust or recklessness. It ca from sothing Redy had shown her beforehand.
Redy had revealed her personal domain to Cornelia. It wasn’t complete, but the fact that it existed at all stunned her. Redy hadn’t even reached Monarch rank. She wasn’t even a Lord. Yet she already possessed a forming domain.
That single reveal changed everything. It proved Redy understood sothing most never discovered. It proved her approach wasn’t blind theory. It carried weight, even if the path was unconventional and dangerous.
Because of that, Cornelia accepted the risk. She began destabilizing her own territory piece by piece, breaking down what she had built. Each collapse felt like a wound, but she endured it, trusting the result would outweigh the damage.
And the reason Redy possessed a partial domain before reaching Monarch rank ca down to one thing, enlightennt.
Enlightennt was a rare resource martial artists unlocked once they reached the Master rank. The amount granted wasn’t equal for everyone. It depended entirely on cultivation talent, aning the higher one’s innate talent, the more enlightennt they received.
Those with stronger talent could build higher-tier techniques. A Supre Master with SSS-rank cultivation talent, for example, could use their entire enlightennt pool to create a supre-level technique. That required spending all fifty-four thousand enlightennt points at once.
But doing that wasn’t practical. Even if a supre technique was powerful, there was no guarantee others could use it. To fully gain the benefit, fifty-four thousand martial artists with matching SSS talent would need to learn the technique.
That was unrealistic. There simply weren’t that many people with SSS-rank cultivation talent. Without those users, the creator wouldn’t regain enough enlightennt to fund the remaining nine techniques needed to ascend from Master to Lord.
Because of that, most Supre Masters avoided creating supre techniques. Instead, they crafted lower-tier techniques that had broader appeal. A larger pool of users ant steady enlightennt returns, allowing them to complete the ten-technique requirent for advancent.
The strategy wasn’t about pride or power alone; it was about survival and progress. Creating techniques others could actually use ensured a stable return on enlightennt investnt, making steady advancent possible for those who lacked rare talent.
However, this standard path didn’t apply to everyone. There were exceptions, especially when it ca to two Supre Spirit wielders. Their cases broke the usual limits, and their growth didn’t follow normal rules at all.
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