The Southern Continental Battlefield was a stark contrast to the refined elegance of Vallenport which Tavalor had just left earlier. It was mostly desert, rolling plains of sand that stretched toward distant mountains. The entire place smelled like sand. A kind of arid and crisp odour.

  And like blood.

  Tavalor stood on a small rise, Little Shadow perched on his shoulder as they looked over the battlefield. Halfway between the opposing forces. Gemworld’s forces, humans and elves on one side. Beasts and the insect like Chitari on the other side.

  The ground was littered with the aftermath of war. Broken weapons, torn banners and bodies. So many bodies. The Gemworld forces were in retreat, staggering backwards in a hurry in what remained of their formations as two enemy forces pressed their advantages.

  To one side, the Chitari—insect-like creatures the size of horses, their exoskeletons gleaming with a sickly iridescence as they chittered and clicked their way forward. To the other, the Beast Lords and their feral armies from the north—a collection of monster sized beasts a motley cobbled together crew.

  So many beasts. So many Chitari. Tavalor thought. He assessed the situation with detached interest. No wonder they lost.

  In the distance, the female elf Captain Lyrawyn—her silver armour stained with blood and her long hair matted with sweat and dirt—caught sight of him. Her eyes widened in alarm as she recognised a someone wandering into danger.

  'Hey, wait!' Captain Lyrawyn shouted, her voice cracking with exhaustion. 'Don't go there. Run away!' she screamed towards the solitary figure.

  Oh, the Elf from earlier. Tavalor observed out of the corner of his eye. It was the elf he had trapped earlier at his manor.

  With a thought a shadow covered him up, obscuring his features—an effect of [Intimidation] that made it difficult to focus directly on him.

  Tavalor chose to ignore her pointless warning. He continued forward, his movements unhurried and deliberately casual as he walked directly into the open space between the two armies. Before him lay the advancing hordes of beasts and Chitari; behind him, the battered remnants of the Gemworld forces.

  The divide was stark and clear.

  Among the retreating soldiers, whispers broke out as they noticed this strange development.

  'Who is this dude?'

  'He's a dead man.'

  'He's an itinerant cultivator. A nobody.'

  'He's a goner. Nobody can rescue him.'

  The Chitari and the beasts drew closer and closer. Their mandibles clicked in anticipation; claws flexed, ready to tear him to shreds.

  From Tavalor's shoulder, Little Shadow stirred. The creature had grown since its hatching, now the size of a small cat, its form rippling with barely contained power. Sensing the danger, it decided to attack first. A beam of dark, purplish-black light spread from its form, expanding rapidly as it streaked towards the advancing hordes.

  The light was blinding, causing everyone watching to shield their eyes. Then came the explosion—a sound so vast it seemed to swallow all other noise. The ground shook violently, as if the world itself might tear apart at the seams.

  What's going on?' voices cried out from both sides.

  When the light finally cleared, what remained was devastation. A vast crater stretched where the beam had passed, turning beasts and Chitari alike to ash. The destruction extended as far as the eye could see, carving a swath of total annihilation through the enemy forces. In the distance, a three-peaked mountain had become two-peaked, split cleanly down the middle.

  Horror, shock, and awe rippled through the survivors on both sides.

  'Who is this? Who could this be?'

  'So the guy wasn't being fake tough.'

  'What stage was this guy? [A-Class]?'

  'No, it maybe be the [S-Class] from Vallenport.'

  'Lord Shadow...'

  Captain Lyrawyn stared at the scene, her mind racing back to a memory—a nobleman's garden she had stumbled into during her last mission to Vallenport. Something had seemed strange about him, but she had been in too much of a hurry to investigate further.

  A huge roar cut through the stunned silence, followed by a whistling sound that made the air tremble.

  'Human. You dare kill in front of me. You are finished.'

  It was the Great Whale, an apex [A-Class] beast with ridiculous defence capabilities. Historical accounts noted that all famous battles with the Great Whale required teams of [A-Class] warriors rotating day and night just to force the creature into a stalemate, or doing everything in their power to wound it enough to drive it away.

  What could one man do against it.

  'He's huge,' Tavalor thought, genuinely impressed despite himself. This was the biggest creature he had personally seen. Old Tavalor had memories of titans and ancient mythological creatures, but for the present Tavalor, this was the first truly massive opponent.

  'He looks kinda ugly though,' Tavalor observed. The giant whale wore gaudy jewellery—a golden chain around what passed for its neck, a crown perched awkwardly on its head, and bracelets clamped around its flippers.

  The Great Whale opened its enormous maw and spat out a huge beam of black water, powerful enough to level mountains.

  Little Shadow tensed, ready to counter-attack, but Tavalor restrained his companion with a subtle gesture. Instead, he stepped forward and threw a plain, seemingly ordinary punch.

  For the first time since his awakening, Tavalor unleashed 100 percent of his physical strength. [Ancient Scales] activated, his skin momentarily revealing a pattern of draconic protection beneath his human disguise.

  The power of the punch drew all eyes, its force creating a visible distortion in the air—a massive fist-shaped ripple that flew towards the Great Whale.

  BOOM!

  The shockwave destroyed the black water attack as if it were nothing more than morning mist, and continued onward, deepening the crater that Little Shadow had already created.

  When the fist-wind finally struck the Great Whale, the results were catastrophic. The creature's head exploded. Then the top half of its entire body followed, disintegrating into a bloody mist. The remaining clouds in the sky were blown away by the force of the explosion.

  Everyone who witnessed it stood paralysed with horror.

  'How? How?'

  An expert from the Beast Clan could only gulp in fear, unable to formulate words. The beasts, hierarchical creatures by nature, had viewed the Great Whale as a godlike, all-powerful figure. Seeing it destroyed by a single punch sent them into a collective panic.

  The Chitari experts were equally frightened, their mandibles clicking rapidly in distress signals.

  'Who are you?' one of the Chitari managed to ask.

  The soul of the Great Whale escaped from its ruined body. At the [A-Class] level, souls were beginning to develop a certain indestructibility, allowing them to persist even after physical death.

  'Human. Who are you?' asked the soul of the Great Whale, its voice a ghostly echo of its former power.

  Tavalor, already bored with talking, decided that if one punch hadn't killed it completely, he would simply punch again. Another fist-wind formed, this one even more destructive than the first. It tore through the battlefield, obliterating another third of the enemy army.

  He didn't stop. Punch after punch, each creating a fist-wind that devastated the landscape. The combined effect resembled a mushroom cloud, as if a nuclear detonation had occurred from nothing but physical strikes.

  The ground shook continuously. The Gemworld forces retreated further in fear of being caught in the devastation. The punches kept coming as Tavalor methodically worked to destroy the entire Chitari army and the beast army in one go.

  The Gemworld forces watched in shock as enemies of all power levels—[A-Class], [B-Class], [C-Class]—were turned to ash by the relentless fist-winds.

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  A minute and a half later, he had levelled the entire field. Where an army had stood, now there was only a wasteland of ash and craters.

  'So powerful,' whispered a Jade Court cultivator, eyes wide.

  'He's too strong.'

  'Who is this?'

  'Have we been rescued?'

  'Is this the power of an [S-Class]?'

  'Not just us, but the whole southern continent...'

  The cultivators looked at the shadowy figure with a mixture of fear and reverence.

  Tavalor knew that the battle on the ground was merely a prelude.

  The true important figures would be fighting in the sky. So long as he eliminated the [A-Class] warriors battling above, there would be no possibility of a comeback for the enemy forces.

  He floated upward effortlessly.

  In the sky, six [A-Class] warriors from the Gemworld faced off against six from the enemy alliance—three beast kings and three Chitari soldier ants. The stand-off paused as they sensed a disturbance below.

  'What happened down there? Where did the aura of the Great Whale vanish?' asked one of the beast kings, a giant bear with battle scars across its massive form.

  'Don't worry,' replied an [A-Class] soldier ant from the Chitari, its voice a grating buzz. 'He's got the strongest defence among us. He probably got carried away. I'm sure all the humans are dead.'

  For several centuries, the Chitari had been trapped underneath the barrier under Miragos. While trapped in what had been hell, three [A-Class] Chitari Soldier Ants had been born. Allying with the beasts had been enough for them to escape and claim territory.

  Although they had been scared away from the north by Tavalor's earlier intervention, they knew the south was easy pickings. Together, three [A-Class] beasts and the near [S-Class] Great Whale had formed a nearly unstoppable army.

  They also had a clever plan. Their retreat earlier had been feigned, causing the major forces to overcommit and allowing them to swiftly defeat them. And their plan had worked until now. The death of the Jade Court nobleman was proof of their strategy's success.

  [S-Class] warriors were basically like nuclear missiles—only deployed as a last resort. So true high-end battles were mostly fought by [A-Class] combatants. The death of every [A-Class] was a significant blow to either side.

  They had estimated that each major force had one [S-Class] who couldn't move from their territory. Among the major forces, there were maybe twelve [A-Class] warriors left. If they killed the six [A-Class] warriors at this battlefield, there would be only six left on the Gemworld side.

  Six [A-Class] on Gemworld's side. Six on the beasts and Chitari side. A stalemate, with the Beast Lord as the nuclear option. That would be enough to force them to give up territory to the Chitari.

  The six Gemworld [A-Class] warriors stood in a half-circle facing the three Beasts and three Chitari. It was a classic showdown.

  Of the six from Gemworld, there were two elves, two from the Western Empire, one from the Jade Court, and one from Imperium Solara.

  One of them stepped forward—an old elven man. Elves didn't normally age, becoming old only near death. This elderly elven man was stooped, with white hair and one missing eye. His body was covered in jagged cuts and scars, giving him a horrifying appearance.

  To cover the retreat of his comrades, he had sacrificed his eye. He was exhausted and looked weak, but his voice remained strong and deep as he spoke.

  'How dare you beasts join forces with the invaders.' The expression on his face was cold, fearless. His edge hadn't dulled despite his injuries.

  'If you hadn't held beast-slaying tournaments every year and hunted our kind for our flesh and fur, maybe it wouldn't have been so easy to reach an agreement,' replied one of the beasts, its voice a rumbling growl.

  A purple Chitari soldier ant stepped forward, its mandibles clicking rhythmically. 'If you want to blame anyone, blame yourself. If you hadn't left us alive, you wouldn't be here. Everything should be pulled out by the roots and the leaves.'

  'Now you will pay ten thousand times for what you have done.'

  The younger elf in the group behind the elven elder communicated with the older elf through [Soul Transmission]. An ancient elven technique. 'What do we do?'

  The old elf replied the same way. 'Take them and flee. I'll hold them back. Bring the others back and leave.'

  'If we all die here, then the southern continent will be finished. I'm old now,' the elder elf transmitted. Then, speaking aloud and looking determinedly at the enemies, he continued, 'You are all young. You are the future. You will be the hope of the Gemworld. We will root them out.'

  'Elder,' the young elf began, but was cut off.

  'Hurry up and leave.'

  The old elf stepped forward, his eyes gleaming with determination. 'I shall see you in the Elder Halls, Feng,' he said, referring to the [A-Class] from the Jade Court who had been murdered earlier.

  The others understood his intention to sacrifice himself. Each made a noble gesture according to their respective cultures—bowing, saluting, clasping hands over hearts.

  'Think you can run? No chance. Stop them!' the purple ant ordered. The other three Chitari immediately split off to chase down the retreating warriors.

  The elder elf looked at the purple ant, sizing up the leader. 'I have an ultimate move. I will perform this move today.'

  The elf's energy increased exponentially as a large magic circle formed in the sky. He was overdrawing his energy, pulling from his life force. Huge light appeared, connecting the sky and earth.

  A giant tree manifested in the sky—the sacred symbol of elven magic. The elder elf stepped forward and punched. The tree in the sky mirrored his gesture.

  'Oh no,' said the purple ant. He had underestimated the elf. He realised that he would have to take the attack head-on. He punched out hastily in response.

  Suddenly everything paused. The attack. The ant. The elven elder.

  Then everything clicked back a step. Like time wound back a few seconds.

  It was as if nothing had happened.

  'Oh no. What's going on?' the elder elf said, confused by the sudden interruption.

  Tavalor walked past him casually. 'Save it for an emergency.'

  Tavalor appeared as a shadowy figure. Almost featureless, a silhouette against the brightness of the sky. The outline of a tall, lean man with two small horns protruding from his head was all that could be discerned.

  'Who are you?' asked the elder elf, squinting to make out the newcomer's features.

  Tavalor looked around, counting the figures present. 'This is everyone, right?'

  The purple ant's antennae twitched nervously. 'I didn't realise there was another expert among you all. Was this your backup plan?'

  The ant's body language betrayed extreme vigilance, sensing something was terribly wrong.

  Tavalor felt too lazy to reply to what he considered a dead creature already. He simply punched.

  The resulting fist-wind was less flashy than the elf's elaborate spell, but its destructive power was incomparable.

  'How dare you puny—' the purple ant began, but the fist-wind destroyed it completely, obliterating both body and soul. All that was left was ashes floating in the wind.

  Everyone froze again, shocked into silence.

  The elder elf could see more detail than all of the others there. And the details he saw frightened him. Even if he burned ten times his life energy, his attack wouldn't be as powerful as that single punch. And the punch was only physical force, with no magical embellishment. Could the rumours be true? the elf wondered.

  Tavalor, meanwhile, was simply bored.

  The elder elf pinched himself, feeling pain. It was real. There really was an [S-Class] in Vallenport.Where did he come from?

  The remaining Chitari communicated among themselves using their hive mind.

  'What happened?' asked the second ant in shock.

  'The leader is dead,' replied the third ant in fear.

  'How can an [A-Class] die so easily?'

  'Who is this human?

  They were frightened beyond measure.

  'Call the Great Whale!' they shouted aloud to their beast allies in one voice.

  Both the beasts and the Chitari looked down and finally noticed the flattened earth and the bottom half of the Great Whale's corpse.

  Tavalor responded casually: 'No need to look. He's already dead.'

  With that, he punched again. The second ant disappeared in an explosion of chitin and ichor, its body disintegrating into fine particles that scattered on the wind.

  'This person is [S-Class]!' someone screamed.

  Tavalor punched a third time. The final ant was erased from existence, the explosion creating a pressure wave that flattened the clouds for kilometres in every direction.

  Only the beasts remained, and they immediately tried to flee. But they found themselves circling back, unable to escape. Tavalor had used [Intimidation] to keep them trapped in an invisible cage.

  The beasts howled in terror. Their careful plans, their numerical advantage, their perfect strategy—all meaningless in the face of this unexpected [S-Class] warrior. Where had he come from?

  Tavalor ignored their cries—the howling, the anger, the sadness, all their desperate pleas for mercy. He just continued punching.

  They started to beg.

  He punched.

  The last one fell to its knees.

  He punched.

  The wind blew away the last of their ashes, leaving nothing but silence.

  The Gemworld experts remained frozen in shock. They had fought for days, nearly lost in the end, and were finally saved by this [S-Class] who had appeared out of nowhere.

  'Thank you, senior,' the elder elf said, bowing deeply.

  In the cultivation world, strength commanded respect. Even though the elf felt he was older chronologically, he deferred to the clearly superior power before him.

  Tavalor didn't care about the acknowledgement.

  'I'll leave the clean-up to you guys. Don't bother me if it's not an emergency,' he said flatly.

  Tavalor just wanted to be left alone. That was his perpetual desire.

  'Yes,' said the elf, understanding completely.

  The others all nodded their agreement. They hadn't reached their positions by being foolish. They understood that if this stranger could kill enemies with a single punch, he could just as easily do the same to them.

  The Sky-breaker that Tavalor had commandeered from Miragos appeared at his silent summons. He hopped back onboard and rode off without another word.

  Several minutes after his departure, the elder elf finally spoke: 'That was frightening.'

  The elf had felt as if a mountain was pressing down on him—the effects of [Intimidation]. Even though Tavalor had kept it relatively weak, that pressure combined with his overwhelming strength had terrified them all.

  'Who was that?' asked the young elf, still shaken by the display of power beyond anything he had witnessed in his centuries of life.

  'He's the rumoured [S-Class] from Vallenport,' said the elder elf. 'The rumours are real.'

  'Should we dig around?' the young elf inquired, curiosity overcoming his fear.

  The elder elf shook his head emphatically. 'Didn't you hear what he said? If you bother him, we will simply be destroyed.' He caught a bit of ash floating in the wind and crushed it in his hand for emphasis.

  The elder elf then looked around the battlefield, before a hard look came over his one eye. Replacing his fear.

  'If anybody attacks the Jade Court, they'll be making an enemy of the elves,' the elder elf declared, his face hardening with resolve.

  'And of us, Imperium Solara,' added one of the other warriors.

  'And us, Western Empire,' echoed another.

  With this battle, the Jade Court was in a weak position. Rather than kick off another battle, the elven elder had chosen to see the bigger picture. To keep all of the forces intact.

  Even a weakened Jade Court was still a powerful force for Gemworld.

  With everything settled, they all flew down to deal with the aftermath of the battle.

  The war had been a disaster. So many had died to protect their realm.

  As they descended, they saw the true impact of Tavalor's intervention.

  'What happened?' asked the young elf, still struggling to comprehend the scale of destruction.

  They saw the giant line carved through the earth, the bottom half of the Great Whale, and fist imprints everywhere, surrounded by piles of ashes that had once been living beings.

  'The senior wiped out their armies as well as the Great Whale,' said the elder elf.

  As the old elf looked around there was stars in his eye. Even though he was [A-Class], a level most could only dream of reaching, he still yearned for greater strength—to be at the absolute peak of the Gemworld.

  Now he had seen with his own eyes the power of an [S-Class]. There was another peak after the peak he had just climbed—a summit so high it disappeared into the clouds of legend.