Darian's eyes lit up. With a heavy snort, all the fire runes poured out of his inventory. He glanced at Awel in the distance. At that moment, she also turned, instantly catching his intent, and shot toward him.

Halfway there, her metamorphosed body unraveled, turning into a small wind rune. As it neared, Darian raised his hand, transferring to her all the power from the ring on his forehead.

Awel's true body pulsed, glowing like a star. A terrifying power of wind surged from her, and Darian guided it smoothly. With a thought, the fire runes moved in sync.

*RUMBLE!*

The space in the skies fractured. It was like spiderweb cracks spreading in every direction.

Everyone in the desert felt it and instinctively turned toward a single point. Then, they saw a blade of fire and wind, only three meters wide. But… it blazed with such overwhelming power that everyone could see it clearly, and tremble.

"Whirlwind Flare!"

Suddenly, Darian roared, and the blade came down. The very space around it shattered as it fell.

Its target was just a simple shadow in the middle of the enemy army.

Out of nowhere, that figure's expression shifted. Unlike the other shadows, which acted like mindless zombies, this one lifted its gaze, realizing it had been discovered.

It was the millennial Abscess, which roared as the body it was using transformed, now cloaked in a black mantle.

Darian narrowed his eyes, surprised. That was the Darkness Law, but used in a way unlike anything he'd seen before. Still… he had expected something like this.

His eyes gleamed, and he clasped his hands in a quick motion. The ring on his forehead flared at full strength, now fused with a new technique.

"Divine Seal!"

He had gained this from the very first challenge ruins he ever cleared. And unsurprisingly, it was something perfect for him, matching the power of his ring. Combined… an abnormal ability was born.

In that instant, for a single second, the Abscess felt all of its power completely freeze.

"!"

It wasn't just its body that stopped. All of its power was sealed. Even…

...its connection to the other shadows, and with it, the ability to escape into another body.

And it happened at the exact moment the blade fell on it.

*SLASH!*

The blade tore straight through that body, cutting it clean in half. But it didn't stop there: it struck the ground and carved a massive fissure shaped like a blade, ripping deeper and deeper without end.

The new Whirlwind Flare was stable, like a physical blade, holding a terrifying cutting power. It was no longer a strike that could split into countless blades to hit multiple targets. Now it was focused, simple… but a thousand times more destructive.

As the severed body hit the ground, all the shadows in that army suddenly changed.

Before, they'd moved with strange unity, but now they stopped defending and started staggering around independently, chaotic and dumb.

Tir and Eleri noticed, and their eyes lit up with wild joy.

"THIS!!!" — Eleri shouted. The entity controlling the shadows was dead, no doubt about it.

At the same time, a green window popped up before Darian:

[Congratulations! Special Mission Complete!]

[Special Reward Received]

[Skill: Party Creation]

Darian read it, and a bright grin spread across his face.

Awel reappeared at his side. Darian turned to her and waved, fired up:

"It's done. Go, finish them all."

She smiled, drew her saber, and shot toward Tir and Eleri.

The shadows, now without a commander, were like headless bugs, staggering and fighting in disorder. The three of them summoned new elemental runes through the system and unleashed another chain attack.

It was way weaker than when they'd received the thousands of runes Darian had given them before, but still more than enough.

Meanwhile, Darian turned. A bit farther away, he saw the final moments of the few survivors among assassins and thieves.

It only took a few minutes for it all to be over.

After their victory, the nine thousand Heavenly Elemental Spirits shouted in euphoria. They had defeated an army three times their size without a single casualty.

Then, they all turned toward Darian. Their smiles grew even brighter when they noticed he was watching them in that moment of triumph.

"GO!"

Eldu, their commander, ordered the advance. All of them shot toward where the shadows were.

Within minutes, they joined the final clash. With the arrival of that army, the shadows were wiped out with ease.

Darian just watched from afar, proud. It had been worth it to gather those little ones and dedicate effort to raising them.

In less than half an hour, everything was over.

Darian took a deep breath, then turned back to the figure he was still holding by the hair. The man's eyes were wide open, able to see and feel everything… but with absolutely no control over his body.

"I don't like wasting words. You lost," Darian said calmly to the man. "Since you've got no mercy whatsoever, and you've killed and tortured so many it's not even countable, I won't drag this out. Goodbye."

The man's eyes bulged, as if desperately trying to beg for his life. But even that wasn't allowed.

A muffled sound echoed inside him.

But suddenly, Darian felt something and narrowed his eyes.

A terrifying white light surged from that body, freezing its dark power and preserving the man's life at the last instant.

A spatial force began covering him, as if something far away was trying to drag him out by force.

"Trying to save him? I'm not some idiot who lets enemies run away," Darian spat sarcastically, unleashing the ring's power at full force.

It was raw spatial power. Surely someone extremely, extremely powerful was trying to interfere, but being so far from the desert—and blocked by the system from getting closer—their power reached here greatly weakened.

Darian didn't even need to use the Divine Seal. The interference was instantly crushed.

Then...

From somewhere very distant, he felt a pair of eyes lock onto what was happening here. Right after, a cold voice echoed in his ears:

"Release him immediately."

"Hm? And why would I do that?" Darian answered flatly.

"Brat, that's my son. I'm the brother of the Radiant King! If you don't let him go right now...!"

*WHOOMPH!*

He didn't even finish. The man suddenly exploded in Darian's hand, turning into a bloody mist.

For a moment, that distant figure was just stunned, unable to process what had just happened.

"Y-you!"

"Not my fault. You yelled so loud you scared him into self-destructing. Nothing to do with me," Darian said, waving his hand. A breeze of wind cleaned the blood off his clothes as he wore an expression of pure disgust.

*BUZZ!*

Suddenly, a small white rune pulsed and floated before him.

"How dare you… you…" the voice spat each word laced with extreme hatred, "I'll personally make sure you live eternally… wishing for death every second, yet never finding it."

Darian snorted. That was the power he'd found inside the man's primordial core. He raised his hand to destroy it, but...

"!"

*Vupt!*

The rune shot at him with terrifying speed, disappearing into his body.

It invaded his primordial core, fusing with it instantly, before Darian could act.

"Hahahaha… the king himself has placed his curse on you. There's no place left for you to run or hide…"

The voice faded until it disappeared completely.

Darian's eyes narrowed as he tried to sense it inside him… but it gave off no fluctuation whatsoever. It was impossible to dominate or remove it.

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