Emperor's Reckoning

*Pant *Pant

Madoku put her hand over her chest and felt her heart racing against her expectations. Her forehead was sweating profusely despite the fact that her surrounding had turned into glimmering ice. Her eyes darted to the frozen grass below before between her panting breath, she stomped her foot down.

The grass break like it was made of glass just from the force of a weak stomp. She barely struggled at all and her breath started to create smoke. The chilling atmosphere had turned even the caster's skin pale but she took a gulp before briefly closing her eyes.

The forest had turned into winter because of her magic. With the floating eye had disappeared, she couldn't count the exact casualties that she had done. However, there is only one person that matters from the devastating attack.

"Is he still here?"

She opened her eyes but the white forest was silent with nothing but a breeze of natural wind kissing her entire figure. Her hands slightly tightened as her eyes glanced around her surrounding. She was heightening her five senses and would pick up the smallest movement or sound but so far, only a whistle of snow filled the atmosphere.

Meanwhile in the  Mortal World.

"Guha!"

"Wha!"

"Blanket! Blanket!"

The gate to the plane in which the Crown winners fought spewed out cultivators upon cultivators like they were a puke from bad food. The onlookers immediately surrounded them to get a better look but the leaderboards were lightning names after names like it had won a lottery. 

In the North City, Tusak who had battled an uneven fight was bandaging his chest before seeing the vomit from the spiraling vortex. All of the cultivators that were eliminated had their hair turned blueish ash and their skin had turned pale. Their mouths lost their colors and their teeth were jittering nonstop. They hugged their own body to receive the warmth that their body needed but it was clearly was not enough.

Tusak smiled, "So the king fisherman finally showed itself right after I was eliminated. I thought he would take out Kaiju, but I guess the rest of them got dragged out too."

The martial artist didn't even tell his story yet to the curious onlookers that were begging like a child on a Christmas, and now, a great sum of people from the Crown winners was kicked out simultaneously. 

"Is this Heaven's Son doing?"

"Kaiju Loh is going at it with full power!"

The onlookers couldn't help but speculate their idol to do the multiple knock-outs. However, one of the jittering Crown winners spoke.

"N-No..."

"Huh?"

"It-it wasn't Ka... Ka... Kaiju."

The onlookers slightly furrowed their eyebrows. Though their heart wanted to scorn them, they knew they could easily rip their head off without hesitation. Only elders of some powerful clan dare to say something.

"What happened in there?" asked one elder whose cultivation was ungaugable even by Tusak. It was obvious that he was either the patriarch or some powerful elder from a clan from the getup he wore. 

"Ah, Master," Tusak immediately stood up even with his bandage on. Even though the pain started to play drums against his receptors, his discipline and training had surpassed such physical pain. 

The onlookers immediately turned their gaze away from the chilling Crown winners that were still struggling to move, to the person Tusak called master. The teacher of Wind Fist himself had shown his figure in public. A golden chance to some, a beacon of news to the rest.

The elder nodded before he turned his glance against his rib. The bandage didn't make him concern but Tusak immediately bowed once again and apologized, "I'm sorry, Master."

"No, don't be sorry. There is nothing to be ashamed of. Without ever losing, how can you grow?" The elder laughed while playing with his long white beard that reached to his chest. Though his face looked weary with time, there was no telling the limit of his strength. Though his figure was not as muscular as his student's, the aura exuding from him was enough to forget about doing any harm.

"What a master."

"Truly a role model."

The asskissers didn't waste any time to shower him with praises even though the hope of having the elder to notice them was smaller than noticing an ant in an empty white room. 

"I fought Heaven's Son, master."

Tusak didn't waste any time before bombing the atmosphere with his few words. All attention immediately diverted to his conversation without delay. 

"I see, what do you think of him?" asked the elder with a smile.

"He is powerful indeed, even when I use full power to battle him, he stood as an equal. Sadly, I made a little blunder due to my excitement which caused me," Tusak smiled wryly as everyone nodded against his deformed chest.

"However, the fight didn't end on a satisfactory note for him because he only hit me cleanly once while I gave him a couple of cold shower to his shoulder hahaha."

"Hahaha," on the contrary to his wise looks, the elder actually laughed, "As long as you give your best, nothing to worry about."

Tusak smiled before he muttered, "However, master, there are two interesting individuals that I luckily met over there."

The elder and the rest of the onlookers creased their eyebrows, "Two?"

"There was this girl, silver-haired. Sadly, I only came after the battle between her and Garuda's Daughter."

"Ah? Little Ayumu?"

Tusak nodded, "Yes."

"Hmm, I must say she must have become a fine grown young lass now. It's sad to hear about her father."

"She is, true like her father, in fact, she is noble both in and out."

"En, good for her. So, what is this about the silver-haired woman?"

"One of her attacks brought about shifting landmasses inside the plane. A pure catastrophe effect ensued and everything trembled. A black dragon raised from below scrapping the skies above."

"Hmm, sounds like a powerful lass."

"She is true, except for the fact that her cultivation is below even that of Soul Realm."

"What?!"

The elder immediately lost his cool the moment he heard the words from his student's mouth, "Impossible,.... not."

He knew his student wouldn't lie about something so bizarre. What kind of cultivator could even win the Crown with such low cultivation, even when the latter came from the lesser world.

"Ayumu won the duel, but the latter didn't get the vortex to call her out."

"Hmm..."

The elder hummed and contemplated but no one knew what he was thinking at the moment. Tusak didn't stop his story before he turned up a smile.

"And then, I meet him."

The elder creased his eyebrows, "Him? Ah, you mean the other one."

Tusak shook his head, "Not just the other one, but the one. It's funny how these two actually knew each other. Young Emperor, Lyon... Torga."

The elder raised his eyebrows before he chuckled, "Young Emperor you say? Hahaha, what an interesting fella. That kind of nickname would surely do no good inside right?"

"I don't know about that, but he had the cultivation of peak Divine Realm. Considered to be the lowest amongst the Crown winners present. However, he is also the one that has the talent to rival—"

"Heaven's Son? C'mon Tusak, I might be old but you gotta stop with this joke."

"No master, his talent didn't rival Kaiju, his talent rivaled, The Empress."

The elder was speechless with his mouth went agape. Every word he had stuck on his throat before Tusak continued, "He was the one that made the huge ashen bell, Bell of Heaven, to be in such a state. The Monster from The West."

"Perfect resonance?"

Tusak nodded, "When I meet him, it was the four of us, Kaiju, Me, Ayumu, and the unconscious silver-haired girl. Not even when Heaven's Son put out his pressure that the guy flinched. Every time I gauge his cultivation level it resulted in the same every time, however, every instinct in my body clashed with my will to fight him and this feeling didn't come out when I fought Kaiju."

"That guy is truly a monster," Tusak muttered as he glanced against the vortex.

The elder looked at his students with his eyebrows furrowed. (Tusak, do you even realize that you are sweating? Does the guy rivaling that of The Empress actually scare you even with his low cultivation?).

------------------

Meanwhile back in the forest that had turned into winter.

Below the bed of snow a blueish hand raised from the ground before his entire body that was buried rose. His white garb was a bit torn while bruises and cuts adorned his figure. His mouth twitched before he punched the ground with a fist full of swirling mana.

*BOOM!

The snow blew up high to the sky in which Madoku and Lyon's group caught with their eyes.

"I see, so you are still here after all, Kaiju," muttered Madoku.