Chapter 376: Skarn’s Defeat

Chapter 376: Chapter 376: Skarn’s Defeat

Chapter 376: Skarn’s Defeat

"Domain Master Realm!"

Skarn’s eyes nearly popped out of his skull.

The aura radiating from Fridleif was no longer the familiar, stagnant peak of the Core Formation Realm.

It was a vast pressure that was in no way inferior to his own.

"How is this possible?!" Skarn shrieked, taking a staggering step back. "You were completely stuck! You didn’t have the comprehension to take that step!"

Fridleif gripped the hilt of his shattered saber, his battle intent burning like a roaring furnace.

"I didn’t," Fridleif admitted, a grateful light flashing in his eyes as he briefly glanced toward Rhain standing calmly in the distance. "But I was blessed to receive guidance from a true master. He showed me the path I was too blind to see!"

During the past month, while Rhain was rebuilding the foundation of the Crystalveil warriors, he had also cast his golden gaze upon Fridleif.

With just a few precise pointers regarding Fridleif’s flawed comprehension of his law, Rhain had shattered a bottleneck that had plagued the man for a decade.

"I don’t believe it!" Skarn roared, his face twisting with manic denial. "Even if you broke through, you are no match for me!"

BOOM—!!!

Without another word, the two newly ascended Domain Masters collided like two falling stars.

Fridleif’s saber and Skarn’s colossal axe met head-on, and the shockwave that erupted from the point of impact flattened the dirt in a three hundred foot radius.

Both men skidded backward, before charging at one another once more.

"Domain of the Crushing Earth!" Fridleif roared. A dull yellow radiance erupted from his body, and the ground beneath Skarn’s feet abruptly turned soft as swamp, trying to swallow him whole.

"Hmph! Such a crude, unfinished toy!" Skarn bellowed with laughter. "Bone Spike Domain!"

White radiance shot up from his body, and sharp spikes of hardened essence erupted from the ground, shattering Fridleif’s marsh and piercing toward his chest.

Neither of them had truly mastered their domains.

Both had stepped into the Domain Master Realm for barely a month, and the profound laws they had comprehended were still half-formed.

Their domains clashed, collapsed, reformed and collapsed again, wasting more essence than they conserved.

But even so, the destructive might on display was enough to make every warrior on the battlefield pale with terror.

Little by little, Skarn began to gain the upper hand.

He had broken through a month earlier, and in that month he had devoured the accumulated resources of the Bone Skull Tribe without restraint.

His essence reserves were greater. And his domain, though crude, was a fraction more stable.

"Fridleif! You are still half a step behind me!" Skarn laughed savagely, his axe carving a bloody gash across the chieftain’s shoulder. "And in a battle between Domain Masters, half a step is enough! Sooner or later, I will defeat you! And when that happens, I will crush your skull beneath my boot!"

Fridleif did not answer. But deep in his heart, he knew Skarn spoke the truth.

Both of them were burning their essence recklessly, neither willing to retreat.

If this continued, there would be no winner in a short time.

They would fight until both their dantians ran dry, and in the end, the most likely outcome was that the two of them would kill each other right here on this battlefield.

But the same could not be said for the rest of the battlefield.

"Hold the line! Thrust!"

A unified roar echoed from the Crystalveil shield wall.

Under Rhain and Lyra’s ruthless month-long training, the Crystalveil warriors had shed their crude habits.

Their strikes were lethal, efficient, and perfectly coordinated.

The Bone Skull army’s formation was collapsing. Corpses littered the canyon entrance in heaps, and the surviving warriors were fleeing back toward their own lines in utter rout.

Meanwhile, Karsten and his mercenaries had turned the narrow gorge into a meat grinder. Bone Skull warriors were screaming in agony as they fell into concealed pit-spikes laced with Devil-Root sap, or were crushed flat by perfectly timed rockslides.

The Bone Skull army, which had marched into the valley expecting a swift slaughter, was being systematically dismantled.

It was simply a one-sided massacre.

Skarn saw it. A flash of panic crossed his yellow eyes as he realized his army was collapsing.

He fought even more ruthlessly, trading injuries for injuries, hoping to end the battle swiftly.

Rhain stood calmly atop a high ridge, his dark grey eyes analyzing the chaotic battlefield below.

His gaze locked onto the two warring Domain Masters.

’If they keep fighting like this, Fridleif will die along with Skarn.’ Rhain calculated instantly.

He didn’t wait any longer.

His essence was sealed by the laws of this trial world. He could not use his dark essence, nor could he deploy his Origin Domains of Darkness and Fire.

But he didn’t need to.

Swoosh—!

Even with his essence completely sealed by the laws of the realm, Rhain’s physical speed—fueled solely by the tyrannical might of the Abyssal Sovereign Physique—was incomprehensible.

Before Skarn could react, Rhain had materialized beside Fridleif.

"BOOM!"

Rhain threw a simple, bare-fisted punch. No martial art. No essence.

Skarn’s instincts screamed in terror as the dark-robed youth appeared out of thin air.

"DIE!" Skarn roared, abandoning Fridleif for a split second to swing his colossal bone-axe horizontally at Rhain to cleave him in two.

"BANG—!!!"

The collision sent a shockwave up Skarn’s arms. The eight-foot giant skidded back five steps, his arms numb.

His eyes widened in horror. What kind of monster possessed such physical power without a shred of essence?

"You..." He glared at Rhain. "Who are you?"

"Someone you should not have provoked," Rhain replied placidly, continuing to charge at Skarn without a shred of fear.

"Arrogant brat! DIE!"

Skarn’s rage exploded. He abandoned all thought of Fridleif, pouring every last drop of his essence into his colossal axe as he brought it crashing down toward Rhain’s head.

This was a full-powered strike from a Domain Master.

Rhain did not dodge.

His right fist, wreathed in nothing but the raw might of his flesh, shot upward to meet the descending axe.

CLANG—!!!

The sound that rang out was not the sound of flesh being cleaved. It was the deafening clang of metal against metal.

Skarn’s massive arms went numb. The recoil traveled up through his weapon and into his meridians, causing the blood in his chest to roil violently.

"GAAAH!" Skarn coughed up a mouthful of blood, his massive eight-foot frame lifted entirely off the ground and thrown several feet to the side.

Meanwhile, Rhain was also pushed back several steps, his fist was tore open and blood flowed freely, but Rhain didn’t care.

His eyes were dead locked on Skarn.

"You bastard!" Skarn roared, scrambling up and swinging his axe wildly at Rhain.

But before he could even reach Rhain, a figure blocked his attack.

It was Fridleif.

"Skarn, how dare you attack my benefactor before my eyes," Fridleif yelled as he swung his war saber.

With Rhain, and Fridleif joining hands, the battle changed instantly.

While Rhain restricted Skarn’s movements using overwhelming physical speed and precision strikes, Fridleif unleashed his full earthen Domain to completely suppress Skarn’s counterattacks.

Skarn was instantly overwhelmed, battered from all sides, his armor cracking and his body covered in blood.

But a Domain Master backed into a corner was a terrifying beast.

Skarn’s eyes turned bloodshot as he prepared to burn his life force for a destructive strike.

But it was exactly that moment Rhain was waiting for.

Rhain’s dark grey eyes flashed with a chilling light.

"Overlord’s Tyranny."

It was an innate ability that didn’t require any essence.

It needed only spiritual power, and the dreadful pressure of his Abyssal Sovereign Physique.

Although it was not as overbearing as the Monarch’s Soul-Sealing Bell, which could freeze even a late-stage Domain Master — but against a cultivator who had just ascended to the Domain Master realm and had yet to stabilize his soul, it was more than enough.

BOOM—!

An invisible mental pressure crashed directly into Skarn’s spiritual sea.

To the savage leader, it felt as if an ancient, primordial demon had just opened its maw right in front of his soul.

An irrational, paralyzing terror seized his mind.

For a fatal second, Skarn froze completely, his axe hovering uselessly in the air.

Fridleif, having been briefed by Rhain on this exact tactic during their secret training, did not hesitate.

"HYAAH!"

Fridleif swept his leg, shattering Skarn’s knee, and simultaneously brought the flat of his heavy saber crashing down upon the giant’s collarbone.

CRACK!

Skarn was brought violently to his knees, the earth cratering beneath him.

The colossal bone axe slipped from his numb fingers, clattering uselessly against the stones.

The entire battlefield immediately halted.

Weapons froze mid-swing. Both armies stared at the center where the Bone Skull Chieftain knelt, defeated.

Fridleif pressed the cold edge of his heavy saber firmly against Skarn’s throat.

"Skarn, you have lost!" Fridleif stood over Skarn, his chest heaving, and he declared loudly,