The black spirit beast rises obediently, trailing at your heels, and finally settles down docilely at the edge of the pool, its enormous body blocking the way, eyes fixed warily on Julian, looking every bit like a loyal guardian deity.
With a splash, you step into the golden blood pool. The moment the wild, violent dragon's essence blood touches your body, it turns astonishingly gentle, like a young swallow returning home, pouring wildly into every limb, every bone.
Chaos body. Source of all laws, ancestor of all physiques.
You sit cross-legged at the centre of the pool, close your eyes, and your body becomes a bottomless void, ravenously devouring the vast energy within the pool. The strength of your physical body surges upward at an incomprehensible speed.
On the other side of the valley, Julian sits dazed on the ground, his eyes vacant. Everything unfolding before him has utterly shattered his understanding of the world, crushing his mind entirely. His rebirth, his foreknowledge, in front of you they've become an absolute, complete joke.
"This can't be real. It has to be an illusion. Yes, an illusion." Julian, looking like a man possessed, clutches his head, screaming madly.
Every hope he'd painstakingly schemed for, every chance to turn the tables, has been mercilessly crushed by you in the most effortless, most brutal way possible.
Splat. He coughs up a wild spray of blood. The identity he was so proud of, the chosen one, shatters completely in this very moment.
"Julian, don't be like this." Chloe snaps back to herself, face full of worry.
"Get away!" Julian shoves her violently aside, his eyes blood red, face twisted with rage as he roars. "It's all your fault, the Reed family's. If you hadn't taken his flesh and bone in the first place, none of this would have happened today. It's all your fault."
Chloe freezes at the outburst, the colour completely draining from her face. She stares at the man before her, twisted with rage, lashing out at everyone but himself, feeling like she doesn't know him at all. Her gaze drifts unbidden toward the calm figure sitting in the distant blood pool.
A thought surfaces in her mind without warning. Maybe taking that bone all those months ago really was our mistake.
Just then, the entire secret realm begins to shake violently. An irresistible pull takes hold of you and everyone else. The next moment, the stars shift and the world turns.
Outside the Hidden Dragon Mountains, one figure after another is flung out from the spatial rift, each one battered and dishevelled.
Reed family grand elder Marcus, seeing the dazed, hollow-eyed Chloe and Julian with torn robes and a broken aura, is struck with alarm. "What? What happened here?"
Julian doesn't answer. He simply stares fixedly at the spatial rift as it prepares to close, his eyes filled with venomous hatred.
And just as the rift is about to vanish entirely, you step out of it, unhurried, at the very last moment.
Right now, your skin gleams like polished jade, treasured light flowing across it, your every breath resonating with heaven and earth itself. You simply stand there quietly, yet you become the focal point of everyone's attention. Utterly transformed.
Chloe looks at you, radiant with confidence, then glances at Julian beside her, his composure completely shattered. The contrast is stark. The seed of doubt planted in her heart finally breaks through the soil and sprouts.
"Ethan!" Julian, seeing you, can no longer hold back the boiling killing intent and jealousy inside him. He lets out a furious roar, drawing his spirit sword, Star Chaser, and turning into a streak of light, charging recklessly straight at you. A sword aimed to kill. "You will pay for this."
This single strike gathers every last drop of his spiritual power.
"Master Julian, stop!" Marcus and the others are struck with alarm, but it's already too late to intervene.
The blade's fierce edge is about to plunge straight into your forehead. And yet you don't even lift an eyelid. You simply extend two fingers lightly.
Ding.
A crisp, almost imperceptible sound somehow carries clearly through the chaotic noise, reaching every ear present.
Time seems to press into slow motion in this very instant. Under everyone's horrified stares, Julian's sword, infused with every ounce of his spiritual power, its sword chi surging fiercely, Star Chaser, comes to rest with exact precision against the two fingers that appear so pale and delicate.
There's no earth-shattering explosion of power. No terrifying surge of energy waves. That razor-sharp tip, capable of piercing metal and stone alike, simply stops there, not moving an inch.
"No, impossible." Julian's face twists in horror. The veins on both his arms bulge as he wrings out every last thread of spiritual power in his body, desperately trying to push the blade forward, even a fraction. Yet those two fingers remain like an ancient, insurmountable mountain god, rendering every last effort of his utterly futile.
You don't even spare him a glance. You simply twist the two fingers, pinning the blade's tip ever so slightly.
Crack.
An even crisper sound than before rings out. The sword Julian had been so proud of, Star Chaser, taken straight from the sword sovereign's cave, suddenly reveals a fine hairline crack across its blade. The crack then spreads instantly like a spider's web across the entire length of the blade.
Bang. The sword shatters on the spot, splintering into countless fragments that scatter in every direction.
Julian, as if struck by a heavy blow, staggers backward seven or eight steps, each step leaving a deep imprint on the hard ground beneath him, before he finally collapses backward onto the ground, blood spurting once more from his wound.
He stares blankly at his hand, now holding nothing but a bare, bladeless hilt, then glances at you, empty-handed, not even a wrinkle in your robes, and his mind goes completely blank.
His sword is destroyed. The trump card he counted on to turn everything around, simply gone.
A hollow, broken laugh rasps from Julian's throat. He tries to say something, only to find he can't string together a single complete sentence. Fear. A fear unlike anything he's ever felt floods through him like an icy tide, drowning out the last shred of his reason.
You finally lower your eyes, glancing at him casually. There's no mockery in that look, no contempt, only pure, absolute indifference. The way a person wastes no emotion on an ant crawling beneath their feet.
"Too noisy." You breathe out those two words lightly, then flick a finger.
An invisible burst of force, released last yet arriving first, strikes Julian's chest with pinpoint precision. Splat. Julian's body flies backward like a torn sack, slamming hard into a rock more than ten metres away, shattering the boulder into pieces, while he himself lies crumpled among the rubble, every bone in his body broken, unable to rise again.
"You never even had the right to make me throw a punch." The quiet words drift away on the wind.
Total, deathly silence falls over the crowd. Everyone is left utterly stunned by this scene, one that feels like nothing short of a miracle. Crushing weapons bare-handed. Wounding an Emperor Realm cultivator with a single flick of a finger. Is this really the kind of power a boy not even twenty years old should possess?
Damian Reed and the other Reed family elders feel their scalps prickle with unease. Their hands and feet turn cold. They stare at the figure standing at the centre of the arena, still as a hawk poised beneath the moon. What rises in their hearts is no longer shock, but deep awe and dread.
They finally understand. The Reed family may have truly produced an extraordinary powerhouse.
"Julian!" Chloe lets out a shriek, her face draining of colour as she rushes to Julian's side. But the moment she sees his wretched state, she can't help stepping half a pace back.
Julian's hair hangs in disarray, his body caked in blood, every trace of his former grace gone. His eyes are blood red, fixed on you with a savage, animal-like snarl. "You're a monster. What kind of sorcery did you use? Why? Why is this happening? I'm the chosen one. I'm the protagonist of this world."
He looks half mad, words spilling out incoherently. Not a shred of reason left.