The creature was unlike anything they had ever seen. It was absolutely enormous, standing at over 50 meters tall. When it spread out its wings, it was even wider than that.

Its body was covered in dense black scales, but they were accented by beautiful, pearly white feathers that crowned the top of its head, the tufts of its ankles, and its tail.

When it roared, the three layers together made the laws of the world shake and collapse. The cadence was so overwhelming that ships in the skies, capable of withstanding solar and spatial storms in the depths of space, found themselves being ripped apart at their seams.

A crown of darkness hung above each of its three heads, flickering with black, violet, and silver, and their aura was so dense that space cracked and threatened to collapse around it.

"Demon Beast!" The bronzed God of the Mystery Master Alliance felt his eyes bulging out of his sockets when he looked down. His distraction forced him to take on several attacks from Leopold before he barely managed to stabilize himself.

However, this loss didn’t shake his level of shock at all. If anything, it only grew deeper.

This was impossible. It was definitely impossible.

Demon Beasts were impossibly rare, but all the tales of them told of them being unapproachable, undefeatable, true monsters of their tier and even several tiers above.

Even if a 3rd Circle Spirit Beast managed to become a Demon Beast, the power they would exhibit would dwarf even 6th and potentially 7th Circle Talents. It was just an impossible path to fathom and understand properly.

However, it could still be summarized in a single word: Strong.

What couldn’t be summarized was how Ryker managed to have a Demon Beast as a contract while still living. None of this made any sense whatsoever.

Ignoring the process it would take to become a Werebeast and then a Demon Beast afterward, it should be impossible to control such a creature at all.

ROAR! ROAR! ROAR!

Rippling waves spread out and the bronze-skinned God felt his body almost collapse beneath the pressure. The Spirit Energy in the surroundings grew chaotic and even the Tribulation Clouds high above almost collapsed beneath Phoenix’s roar alone.

Phoenix’s claw rose high into the air, the body of Cyrus being so small in comparison that just a single claw hadn’t just got through his body, but it had even destroyed everything beneath his waist.

With a careless toss, the body flew into the air and all three heads snapped at once, ripping him into three gory pieces and crunching him to bone dust and pulped flesh as though he hadn’t been wearing reinforced armor at all.

The two 6th Circle bird beasts suddenly reacted as though they had lost their minds. Their master had just died in front of them far too fast for them to do even a single thing.

They shot downward, moving with a blazing diving speed. However, at that moment, Fire Phoenix burped. He didn’t even breathe fire, and yet black flames seemed to spontaneously manifest before his maw.

The world shuddered as the two Mythic Spirit Beasts caught on fire.

Their shrieks filled the skies as they continued their plunge, crashing into the ground below without even the chance to attack a single time.

There was a dense silence that fell over the entire back. The rushing blood and the aura of Phoenix alone was enough to suffocate them all.

ROAR!

At that moment, Queen roared herself and suddenly had a breakthrough in cultivation, soaring to the 5th Enlightenment Realm. There was a hint of frustration in her eyes as she felt that she was losing to Phoenix, but her aura seemed enough to shock the world as well.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Claps of thunder rang through the skies and Ryker looked up. It seemed that it was about time now. Queen seemed to have been throwing a little tantrum, but in reality, she was letting him know that his grandmother's tempering was over. It was time for the true Tribulation to descend.

Ryker's grammy slowly opened her eyes. She had regained a great deal of her youth, looking like a gorgeous woman in her early forties. There was an elegance and grace about her as he stood to her feet, giving the cute Queen a small scratch on her chin.

Queen wiggled about, feeling a bit giddy before she remembered she had a job to do and rushed back toward Ryker.

Ryker gave his grandmother a look and gave her a smile of reassurance. His meaning was clear. Rest easy… no one here would be able to get past him.

Not a single soul.

ROAR! ROAR! ROAR!

Queen shrank down and draped herself across Ryker’s neck as Phoenix looked into the skies and shot up.

The earth beneath them shattered and a bright smile spread across Ryker’s face.

Finally. This was the moment he had dreamed of all his life.

He had always said that his first contract would be a flying beast… not a normal one too weak, frail and small to ride, but a majestic one… One that could allow him to look down on his enemies from on high, to soar between the stars, and to even reach out and pluck them should he so choose.

FA!

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Phoenix’s wings spread so wide that they seemed to blot out the skies.

Standing on the middle Earth Phoenix’s head, Ryker looked down from above with a gaze more deep and profound than anything they had ever seen before.

ROAR! ROAR! ROAR!

Phoenix felt the feedback loop of Ryker’s emotions and reacted in kind, their might bearing down onto the world.

Fire Phoenix rose his head into the skies and lines of crimson heat began to crawl up his throat.

Molten Fireball.

BANG!

The air exploded as all the moisture evaporated in an instant.

The Molten Fireball was too fast, streaking across the skies like a heated brass ball before it crashed into a ship teetering on the edge of life and death.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Wind Phoenix howled in the air and a wild circulation of clouds appeared above their heads.

Tempest Lord.

The wind seemed to bow to their every wish and whim. The ships began to crash into one another, failing in a hail toward the ground below.

Earth Phoenix’s eyes glowed with a bronze-gold majesty and the earth’s surface rumbled.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Spikes as tall as mountains rose from the ground below, spearing through battleships that hung in the air as though they were mere ornaments.

Ryker didn’t spare even those that had yet to do anything. He had warned them once… and that one warning was all they would get. If they thought they could just sit on the sidelines and wait for the perfect moment to act… they were sorely mistaken.

Ryker’s cold and indifferent gaze watched everything, but from time to time his gaze would land on the tree in the middle of it all. Until now, it still hadn’t moved a single inch and it left him confused.

Was this really Cyrus’ Spirit Beast? Why did it have no reaction to his death, then?

…

By this point, Nariel’s expression was as ugly as could be. Cyrus had ruined everything, but he never expected that he would die like that, nor did he think that Ryker was still holding out on such a trump card.

He didn’t even want to send out his protectors now. Wouldn’t he just be sending them to their deaths? Cyrus hadn’t been able to withstand a single blow. Although he had an 8th Circle Talent in his group as well, compared to Cyrus she was an inferior talent. It had to be remembered that Cyrus was not only an 8th Circle Talent, but an Innate Battle Genius on top of that, yet he got speed blitzed to death.

Nariel’s eyes suddenly widened. “Not good. EVADE!”

…

Ryker took his eyes off of the tree. Since it wasn’t going to make a move, he would just take his time to study it later. As for now…

He would end this farce.

“Accelerate.”

Wind Phoenix’s eyes and crown glowed fiercely.

BANG!

In one moment, there was an enormous creature in the skies, and in the next, it seemed to have vanished from all of their sights. In its wake, there was a booming shockwave of wind left, shattering the ground below despite having been hundreds of meters above it.

When Phoenix appeared again, they were already clamping onto Nariel’s ship. Their claws sunk into the tough hull as though it was made of aluminum, and with a single tug, panels that stretched for dozens of meters were ripped out.

Molten Fireball.

Phoenix’s throat glowed with flames and life. With a resounding pulse, a fireball was sent right into the body of the ship.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Nariel and his team were immediately thrown off, countless maids, servants, and crew members being charred to ash in a single instant.

Nariel rushed out from the most protected region of the ship, surrounded by his protective detail. His eyes were practically spitting flame, but the fear within them couldn’t be hidden.

This was a battleship. He simply couldn’t believe that a single First Ascended Beast could possibly have the strength to counter it. What were their Spiritual Patterns worth at this point?

‘I want him dead! I want him dead! I want him dead!’ Nariel roared in his mind, trying to scramble to safety.

He was suddenly picked up by one of his guards and a bird beast appeared beneath them. It was none other than his 8th Circle guard, a young woman with a stoic face and short, bob-cut hair.

She leapt off the side of the blazing ship, her gaze sharp.

With a WHOOSH! her bird beast swooped in from down below, catching the two of them. However, before they could make it far, a wall of black appeared in their path.

Phoenix’s wings opened up wide, blotting out the skies.

“RYKER VALORIAN!”

The booming voice of the bronze-skinned God fighting it out with his grandfather came from above. Cyrus’ death had seemed to only just finally set in and the fury of this God was boiling over.

Ryker completely ignored him, looking down at the young woman from below.

“Rynn.” Ryker said with an indifferent tone, cutting through the echoing bellow of the bronze-skinned God. “I told you long ago that following this retard was going to get you killed by my hand. You sure you want to continue down that path?”

Rynn’s expression flickered, but then she sneered.

“Was that before or after you sexually harassed me.”

Nariel was taken aback. This woman hardly spoke to him at all. Why was it that she sounded so… jealous? No, unwilling? No… wronged… yes, that’s what it sounded like. It sounded like she had been wronged and was throwing a small tantrum.

That wasn’t a tone that Nariel had ever heard before.

“Harassment? Is that what we’re calling it now?” Ryker asked.

“Shut up.” Rynn growled.

Ryker didn’t like getting tangled up with women that came with baggage… well, that “baggage” was usually referring to virginity and things of the like. So long as that trauma had been inflicted by someone else, he wouldn’t mind playing around. That was because he had been completely focused on regaining his ability to cultivate back then and didn’t want to deal with any side drama, not when he still hadn’t settled things with Jaana.

But Rynn was an exception. This wasn’t because she was so special or had a reserved place in his heart, nor was it because he found her to be particularly beautiful. Though, that she definitely was.

It was purely because he knew it would piss Nariel off.

The rules of the Spiritual Pattern Alliance stopped Nariel from using his guards for anything more than the active line of duty. Of course, such rules would always be bent and twisted, but that was only when the guard was of an inferior stock.

Rynn was an exceptionally rare guard and her loyalty pretty much decided Nariel’s life and death, so he didn’t dare to slight her… nor could he in the first place.

Well, he could with appropriate set up time, but again, he could never go so far.

Rynn was smart. She obviously knew of Ryker’s intentions, but had ended up falling for it anyway, mostly because she hadn’t minded it much back then.

She had more control than most, but her life would never be normal. Her first priority was always Nariel’s protection, and his death would also mean her own. She didn’t have a powerful family like Ryker’s to back her.

So she thought that a bit of fun was well within her right. She would likely never be able to have a usual life of husband, home, and family, so Ryker felt like the second best thing.

She also, along with everyone else, didn’t believe that Ryker would ever crawl out from the shadow, so she also didn’t believe that much would come of it. In order to distance herself further, just in case, she even made several wild accusations to cover her tracks… accusations that landed a lot heavier when Ryker was known as a degenerate man who frequented brothels.

However, this sudden rise changed the entire dynamic of everything, especially considering the fallout of that matter.

Obviously, Ryker had also read her life like a book. He had told her quite clearly who would come out on top in the end, but she hadn’t believed it.

“You have three seconds.” Ryker said indifferently.

“Just kill me then!”

“Do you believe that I won’t?”

Ryker’s words sent a chill through her. Suddenly, she felt a great amount of regret. She shouldn’t have said those words, done those things.

Unfortunately, it was impossible to go back now.

Queen suddenly let out a roar. At that moment, the Spirit Beast beneath Nariel and Rynn began to plummet from the skies.

Rynn’s expression changed and she tried to command it to pull up several times, but it just didn’t listen. No, it’s not that it wouldn’t, but that it couldn’t.

Ryker looked down from on high indifferently.