A huge gate slowly began to appear with loud echoes.

‘What is this?’ Drake gasped, awe-struck. Within a few seconds, a massive pair of metal gates appeared from thin air and stood before them.

“What… what just happened?” Drake finally managed to find the words to ask the question in his head. Sylvia smiled and responded with her normal, calm tone.

“Light magic. It was used to create an illusion here to hide this gate. It is pretty difficult to detect it ordinarily, however, I was able to detect some distortions in our surroundings through my pixies and realised we were seeing an illusion.”

“I… I see,” Drake replied hesitantly. He had no idea that light magic could do that, but it made sense now that he thought about it. Light magic, controlling light, to conjure an illusion? That wasn’t very unbelievable, right?

In any case, Drake felt glad to have Sylvia by his side. He might have never found this place if he was on his own, or even with Blaze.

Once they finished talking, they started to walk towards the gate. Suddenly, they felt the ground quaking. Drake and Sylvia instinctively jumped back. By the time they landed, Sylvia already had her bow ready, and Drake had poured mana into his gloves, ready to strike at a moment’s notice.

As they watched, the ground in front of the gates developed cracks.

Boom!

A large arm explosively tore through the cracks from underground.

Once again, Drake was dumbfounded.

The arm began touching the ground at different points as if trying to find a good place to hold onto. It seemed to like a particular spot and placed its whole palm on that spot. Then, it pushed, and the ground exploded.

BOOM!

Drake and Sylvia turned their heads to avoid the flying dust and debris from entering their eyes. When they turned back, they saw a towering figure, almost ten feet tall, standing in front of the gates. It had the lower body of a snake and the upper body of a human. Each of its two arms carried a large, curved sword, which looked like a katana.

The figure looked down on them imposingly, while radiating a pseudo commander class aura.

“What… is that thing?” asked Drake. He had never seen anything like it before.

“I think… it’s a naga demon,” replied Sylvia.

“A naga?”

“Yes, they’re a type of demon formed from a creature found in the eastern desert.”

“Then why is one here? Inside an inheritance grounds, on the other side of the continent?”

However, the naga didn’t give them any time to think. It raised its arm and slammed its huge sword down.

Shadow steps!

Wind walk!

The two activated their martial techniques and jumped out of the way just in time as the huge sword came crashing down. The attack contained such force that the sword buried itself several feet into the ground.

“Decimate!”

Sylvia used the opportunity to shoot her most powerful arrow at the demon. The naga sensed the power in the arrow and didn’t want to take it head-on. It tried to retrieve its sword but it was stuck. When the arrow came close, the naga decided to abandon its sword and disappeared.

Boom!

The powerful arrow crashed into the ground and generated a huge explosion. The naga appeared in the air, barely having dodged the attack. Suddenly, alarm bells began ringing in its head.

“Solar barrage!”

Drake appeared behind the naga and summoned dozens of fireballs before shooting them from point-blank range. However, the demon was extremely fast. It rotated and brought its other sword forward to block the attack. However, the force of the repeated collisions still sent the naga crashing to the ground.

“Rain!”

Sylvia shot a fire arrow into the sky which quickly multiplied into twenty. Before the naga could get up, the arrows began raining down on it.

“ROARRRR!”

The naga roared while releasing its massive aura. Huge winds gathered all around it which began deflecting the arrows, making them fall harmlessly.

During this time, Drake also landed on his feet and stood before Sylvia. As they watched, the naga got up and took the sword which was previously buried in the ground, before turning to face them. A cold glint flashed through its eyes.

While Drake and Sylvia started fighting the naga, Corvus and the others were fighting the dark mages.

The lone cultivators fought the three dark mages accompanying Theo and the grand mage. Alistair, as the second strongest in their group, faced off against Theo on his own. Normally, Theo would be stronger than him, however, due to his injuries from the battle with Blaze and Drake, he was now weakened, allowing Alistair to match him in battle. Finally, Corvus was fighting the dark grand mage on his own.

And he was not having a good time.

Corvus had killed almost twenty vulture spirits already, however, the dark grand mage easily replaced them. Moreover, the rank three rhino beetles kept shooting storm spears at him. Corvus was not able to effectively hold them all off on his own, so, some of the vulture spirits travelled to the other battlegrounds and covered it with their toxic gas as well. While the dark mages already had a cure for the gas, they didn’t, and it affected their group’s strength greatly.

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Looking around, Corvus realised that their party was quickly falling into a disadvantage. If he didn’t do something soon, then they’d be in huge trouble. Corvus sighed and looked at the several dozen vulture spirits surrounding him. Similarly to Drake, his armour was also a rank three artifact and it could summon light, wind, and earth elemental shields. These were now holding back the vultures.

However, he couldn’t just be on the defensive forever.

Corvus relaxed and took a deep breath, before changing his stance. He stood with his feet shoulder width apart and poured mana into his swords. The one on his right burst with flames while the sword on his left became covered with shadow. Then, he removed his shields.

Immediately, the rank two vulture spirits screeched in joy and rushed at him in masse. However, Corvus wasn’t worried. He opened his eyes and raised his arms to the side.

“Twin sword arts – whirlwind!”

Corvus pivoted on his heel and rotated. The vulture closest to him was instantly sliced in half and dissipated into mana. Corvus then continued rotating rapidly while holding his swords on either side. With his peak steel body cultivation, he was moving so fast that his body became a blur and his speed summoned winds. From a distance, it looked like he really had transformed into a whirlwind – a deadly one.

With his swords using the fire and shadow elements, the whirlwind was a mix of blazing flames and dark shadows. Any vulture that came close was sliced into a hundred pieces before it could even react. Seeing this, the vulture spirits shrieked and retreated. However, Corvus wouldn’t let them go so easily.

He moved swiftly. The whirlwind travelled along the battlefield shredding the vulture spirits into pieces one after another. Within a few seconds, almost half of them were dead.

The dark grand mage panicked and ordered all of his vulture spirits to retreat. He then ordered his rhino beetles to focus their attention on Corvus and attack him faster with arc blast. The rhino beetles raised their horns and balls of lightning began to form over their tips. It only took a fraction of a second for the ball to finish forming. Then, they shot towards Corvus.

Corvus stopped spinning and faced the incoming arc blast with a smile.

Sword dash!

Corvus activated his movement technique and disappeared, before appearing several feet away. He kept disappearing and reappearing, getting closer to the rhino beetles each time, while simultaneously dodging the lightning balls.

“Go!”

Seeing Corvus under pressure, the dark mage ordered ten vulture spirits to shoot towards him. Corvus ignored them and continued focusing on getting closer to the rhino beetles while dodging the lightning balls. The vulture spirits were a few metres away when Corvus suddenly stopped and turned to face them.

He raised his swords to form a cross before slashing them both diagonally.

“Twin sword arts: octane blast!”

Eight blades were released from his sword and flew towards the vultures. Half of them were burning with fire, and the other half were enveloped in shadows.

The blades reached the vultures in the blink of an eye. They were too close and the blades moved too fast for them to dodge. All ten of the vultures’ eyes widened as their vision filled with a fiery shadow, before becoming completely dark. The blades cut through the vultures, causing all of them to dissipate into mana.

With a smirk, Corvus turned back, activated sword dash, and dodged several lightning balls that were inches away from his face. He quickly got closer to the beetles. As he did so, their attacks became faster.

“Tst,” Corvus cursed and poured mana into his robes. Two light shields appeared and floated before him. Given that they were summoned from a rank three artifact, they could take at least a few attacks from the rank three spirits.

And that was all he needed.

Using the shields as his defence, Corvus put all his energy into speed and approached the beetles rapidly. Within a few seconds, he was standing just several metres away from them.

At this moment, his shields were about to break, but Corvus didn’t care. He raised his swords above his head and made the blades touch. With a deep breath, he focused, and activated his martial technique again.

The fire and shadow elements around his swords exploded and combined into one, forming one giant sword above his head.

Two lightning balls crashed against his light shields which were already at their limits, causing them to shatter. Corvus suffered a mild backlash but he ignored the pain.

“Twin sword arts: eclipse blade!” he yelled. Corvus slashed his sword diagonally and a huge blade shot forward. Intense fire and shadow elements danced through the blade, making it vibrate with mana.

The rhino beetles were slow so there was no way for them to dodge this attack. The one in the centre stepped forward and turned, using its shell as a shield.

BOOOMMMM!!!

A huge explosion resounded as the blade crashed against the thick shell. The collision conjured powerful winds which swept up a large dust cloud that rose into the sky.

Hearing this, everyone else stopped their fighting and turned to focus on Corvus’ battle.

‘Did he… actually destroy it?’ Theo gasped. He couldn’t imagine the dark grand mage’s rhino beetle getting defeated so easily, but he had felt the power contained in the blade just now and it terrified him, even at this distance. It was several times more powerful than even the decimate arrow that Sylvia used.

‘Ahh, he really is too strong,’ sighed Alistair.

A few moments passed as the dust cloud cleared, revealing the rhino beetle.

Everyone gasped.

Several large cracks had appeared on its shell, but it was still alive.

‘It managed to survive that!?’ Corvus gasped.

On the other hand, the dark grand mage was stunned. Cracking his beetles' shells was no easy task. He had heard Corvus was the strongest disciple sent out by the Myriad Sword Palace, but he didn’t expect him to be this strong.

‘I don’t really have much time to waste here,’ he thought, remembering the secret inheritance.

Humph!

Corvus didn’t want to waste this opportunity and moved. He tensed his leg muscles and used them like a spring to jump high into the air. He poured mana into his swords, making them burn bright with fire and shadow, before pointing them down.

“Twin sword arts: shadow phoenix dive!”

Corvus dived towards the injured rhino beetle like a shooting star. The elements of his sword merged into one and exploded with mana, transforming the air around him into a world of fire and shadow.

This was a unique move that Corvus had developed on his own. His swords individually had runes for ‘shadow dive’ and ‘phoenix dive’ attacks. He managed to combine them with his twin swords arts to create ‘shadow phoenix dive’ – the most powerful attack he currently had in his arsenal. Back in his sect, he had used this move to break the defences of even some early stage grand mages and mystic body martial artists, and defeat them.

‘This is it,’ he thought.

However, the dark grand mage smirked.

Like the time when Blaze attacked, the two rhino beetles on the side stepped back, while the one in the centre raised its horns.

“Fractal strike!”

A huge amount of lightning mana gathered in its horn and burst out. Dozens of lightning bolts erupted from its horns, each splitting into dozens more, forming hundreds of lightning bolts that zapped the surrounding air and ground.

Alistair and the others saw this and gasped.

“NOOOO!” It was a trap!

However, it was too late.

Corvus couldn’t stop his momentum now. He watched the lightning world unfold before him and felt the mana contained within. A single one of the lightning bolts would be enough to instantly kill any steel body martial artist upon contact, and injure even undying body martial artists.

‘How is he so strong?’ thought Corvus, but he had no time to waste. He poured all the mana he could gather into his robes and summoned six shields to orbit around him. But he didn’t stop there. He kept pouring more mana into his robes to summon another layer of eight, and a third layer of ten shields!

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!

Corvus made contact with the lightning bolts and his shields shattered one after another. Each one made him suffer a backlash but he forced himself to ignore the pain.

Everyone watched dumbfounded as the world of fire and shadow cut through the myriad of lightning.

“Just… a little… more!”