The whole surviving army seemed to burn with euphoria and willpower. Remira gathered everyone and made them board the flying ships. Darian jumped into one of them and, in that moment, noticed the strange looks everyone was giving him.

Those eyes were full of worship. He had always tried to look like a normal guy, even faking that he was being helped by everyone, all just so this wouldn't happen. But now, he had lost his image of being just like the rest.

With everyone ready, the flying ships blasted off at full speed.

In two hours, a colossal city appeared before them. That was the number one city of the Radiant King.

"Dohans is dead! His entire reign ended today!"

Remira's loud voice echoed in all directions, reaching that city.

"We didn't come here to negotiate. All of you, surrender, and you'll be judged fairly for your crimes. We'll give you one hour to open the city and give yourselves up. If you don't, we'll destroy everything and no one will make it out alive."

In all the dead king's cities, people had been forced to train and fight each other in brutal competition. Those who didn't reach the bare minimum were quickly killed—by their own people.

So, there wasn't a single person in that city who was truly weak.

Time passed, and no sign of change came from the city.

Everyone on the flying ships scoffed. This was already expected. These people would never believe that the invincible Radiant King was dead, and even if they did, they wouldn't accept surrendering without a fight.

Because… obviously, they had all learned to live arrogantly, doing terrible things. With power, they thought they could do whatever they wanted and never felt any pity for the weak.

When judged, they knew the result would at best be slavery or death as punishment. So, for them, it was better to die fighting.

As a result, after an hour, Darian grabbed his dagger.

He took a deep breath and activated his stellar physique...

Then unleashed the full power of chaos...

An unbelievable feeling rushed through his body and soul. His physique was way stronger than before, thanks to the balance of the seven stars.

At the same time, after advancing in realm and evolving his primordial core, the primordial power had become much more refined and fused perfectly with his physique.

He had nothing else left to use, but now he didn't need the system's elemental runes to help break the defensive inscription anymore.

The dagger's rune seal was activated, and then he struck.

**RUMBLE!!**

The city's entire defensive inscription collapsed with a massive boom.

The flying ships rushed forward, launching a merciless attack.

...

All the strongest ones or those at level nine had already died in the previous battle. So inside that city, and all the others, there were only lower-level people left—but in massive numbers.

They really thought they could win by sheer numbers... but the result was a clean massacre.

Everything the Radiant King had built or taught the people had to be destroyed. Nothing of him could remain, not even his name.

When Darian entered the city, he observed and felt the karma of its people, and quickly noticed that any good ones born among them had been purged right away. That's why so many had fled to the sect in the past. In other words, no one still living there deserved to be saved.

As a result, everyone died. But Darian didn't waste anything and absorbed all their cores.

After finishing with the first city, they went through all the others, taking maximum care not to leave anything behind.

In fifteen days, Darian had already absorbed millions of primordial cores. As a bonus, all the cities held nearly endless stockpiles of resources.

When he finished absorbing all the cores in the last city...

[Your supreme primordial core has reached maximum power.]

A green screen appeared, surprising him. It wasn't an alert saying he had advanced to the Celestial level, like he expected, just that he had reached the maximum.

[To reach the ultimate evolution of the primordial core, you must achieve balance in primordial power. Your current power was built on the foundation of primordial Yin. Now, you must also build the Yang side.]

"What? How?" Darian read it, confused and full of questions, but the system gave no explanation.

That explained why Dohans, even with everything imaginable at his disposal, never advanced to the Celestial core. It wasn't about resources.

Darian moved to a more isolated place while Remira and the rest of the army checked and gathered everything useful in the city.

He fell deep into thought.

"Build the Yang side..."

He muttered and waved his hand, using the Yang star in his body. He could only draw in and store primordial Yin and Yang within the star.

Then he tried a few tests, moving Yang out of the star. But it all ended in failure.

His core and all the power he had gained in this world, from the very beginning, were tilted toward the Yin side. His body didn't reject primordial Yang, but rather absorbed and burned it, turning it into Yin.

He kept testing until he had the idea of forcing it with his curse's ability...

"!"

Unlike what he expected, he instantly mastered all the primordial Yang.

"I… can I perfectly control both Yin and Yang now?!"

After his rebirth and the purification of body and soul, the Yin and Yang power of the two phoenixes had given him an extreme affinity with those elements. Before, he could only control the five natural elements and the three life energies. But now, pure Yin and Yang could be perfectly controlled and dominated.

Darian's eyes lit up. He had lost the inheritance and rebirth that came from the phoenixes, but he had gained a lot in return. And it came at the perfect time.

He began gathering primordial Yang from the environment into his soul, at a single point, like a black hole devouring everything.

The system's hint was clear: he had to build the Yang side. The only thing that came to mind was creating a Yang primordial core. But how was he supposed to do that?

Thinking back to the desert… when he had reached the required amount of points, the system moved the primordial power and injected it all into his soul until it formed the primordial core. Back then, he felt everything, and now he tried to repeat the process.

Dohans had been the opposite of Darian and had ascended through the Yang side. To evolve his core, he tried to create as many high-level people as possible. It wasn't hard to figure out what was in his twisted mind. He believed he might find a way to steal someone's core directly.

He encouraged his enemies to grow stronger, but he also created competition and chaos among his own allies, to have all kinds of test subjects. There were rumors that allies close to him had simply vanished. Most likely, he was using them in sadistic experiments.

He failed and needed countless experiments to learn. Eventually, he would have attacked the sect and the clans, capturing all the strongest and running endless tests with his power. That was his only hope, because he couldn't manipulate primordial Yin.

But Darian didn't have that problem anymore.

After several minutes...

[Prerequisites complete, starting creation of the Yang core]

Suddenly, the system activated, and Darian felt everything he had gathered being guided, just like the moment when he had gained the core before.

In just a few seconds...

[Primordial Yang Core — Radiant Sage Realm, complete]

Darian smiled with excitement. That was the first realm on the Yang side. In the first realm, people were supposed to be in the Savage World and had to depend on primordial eruptions to build power and evolve. But... in the Heavenly World, that power existed in abundance.

Without delay, he rushed to the treasure vault of that ruined city he was in. He grabbed everything there and isolated himself again.

Within minutes...

[Breakthrough complete!]

[Yang Core: Holy Saint]

When the green screen appeared, he immediately felt the second core pulse and his body heat up.

Then… his eyes widened as an insanely sharp pain hit him.

It was like his soul was being torn apart. And it wasn't a metaphor—when he focused, he realized that's exactly what was happening.

New veins spread across his soul. It was similar to when the Yin core in the second realm had appeared; these new veins intertwined with the old ones, coexisting inside his soul. But back then, it hadn't even been 0.1% as painful as this; something entirely different was happening.

Darian clenched his teeth and endured it. In little time, the pain stopped. But...

He could still feel heat running through his body… and in his right fist, it was like his hand was dipped in boiling water.

A new feeling took over him. It was as if a massive weight he had carried for a long time had just been lifted off his back.

When he focused… he saw inside his soul.

The Yang veins pulsed, and his soul, which had once been corrupted by dark power, was now covered in glowing white lines.

After a while, when the burning sensation finally began to fade… he saw something long lost resurface.

His heart pounded wildly. In his fist, the white ring appeared once again!

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