Chapter 844: Edge of Transcendence

Chapter 844: Chapter 844: Edge of Transcendence

The final assault began without mercy. The Divine Wind fleet advanced in a fan formation, with the three generals leading from their flagships, ready to crush resistance. However, as they entered engagement range above the valley, the generals froze: tens of thousands of enemy vessels awaited them in battle formation. And standing directly before that armada, hovering in the open sky with his robes billowing in the wind, Ethan observed them in silence.

"Crul, exterminate them," commanded Ethan mentally. "Leave the generals to me. I need to push myself to the limit in order to ascend."

[Understood, Master], the synthetic voice in his mind replied. [I will not allow anyone to interfere in your duel.]

Ethan began moving through the void, appearing and disappearing in flashes of violet mana as he lunged straight for the enemy vanguard.

In a split second, he closed the distance separating him from the three generals and hovered a few meters away. The three generals examined him with curiosity and a shadow of disbelief.

"So the intelligence report was accurate...", said one of the generals. "The champion of the Golden Dragon tournament is the one causing chaos, leading your army against us... I thought it was a joke, but it turns out you actually made it all the way here."

"Greetings, esteemed generals of the Divine Wind Empire," replied Ethan with a nod and an icy smirk. "My name is Ethan, and I must kindly ask you to step out of my way or be exterminated."

"You alone?" questioned the second general, letting out a short laugh. "You haven’t reached the Spiritual Core Realm, yet you dare speak so boldly? Or do you rely on the fleet behind you? You have impressive numbers, but that is all you have: numbers... It isn’t enough."

"Numbers?" Ethan countered, allowing an abyssal aura to leak from his chest. "You are right about that. I have numbers. I have millions with me, and you merely brought a few ships that will soon join my ranks."

"You talk far too big, brat," chimed in the third general. "But do you have what it takes to back up your words?"

"Why don’t we find out?" Ethan suggested, resting his hand on the hilt of the Black Chaos Sword.

"Very well," declared the lead general. "Let us see what you’re made of."

The three drew their armaments in an instant: the first unfolded a military fan of runic bronze; the second drew a light sword with a transparent blade; the third pulled no weapon at all, leaving his fists bare as dense mana coated his arms.

In that exact moment, the enemy dreadnoughts attempted to lock their heavy batteries onto Ethan, but thousands of ships from Ethan’s fleet engaged short-range jump drives, slamming head-on into the shields and hulls of the Divine Wind Empire.

Witnessing the collision, the fan-wielding general gritted his teeth.

"Damn it!" barked the general. "Your men are so desperate to die that they commit suicide like that..."

However, upon looking closely at the detonations, his face turned pale. Out of every ship that shattered into a thousand pieces, thousands of undead emerged unharmed from the flames, leaping in wild packs onto the decks and corridors of the enemy dreadnoughts.

"I see... they are undead, that’s why they have no fear," muttered the bare-fisted general, feeling a shiver run down his spine. "You are a necromancer... But no necromancer should be able to control this many undead... What on earth are you?"

Ethan formed an icy smirk as he drew the Black Chaos Sword, allowing a streak of abyssal smoke tinged with violet to envelop the air around him.

"Me?" Ethan said. "I’m just a brat, wasn’t that what you said?"

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Explosions echoed in a chain that shook the vault of heaven. The enemy army had not the slightest chance against the kamikaze tactics executed continuously by Ethan’s fleet. Battleship after battleship of the Divine Wind was rammed in critical joints, their shields collapsing under kinetic force while their decks were flooded with undead hungry for flesh and mana.

The three generals gritted their teeth, feeling a bead of sweat trace down their necks. They wanted to intervene, fly back toward their fleets and unleash wide-area techniques to halt the slaughter, but Ethan’s presence—hovering in mid-air like a god of death—kept them in hesitation. The spiritual pressure emanating from his body was so dense they knew turning their backs meant instant decapitation.

With no alternative left, the generals issued an emergency retreat order across their runic arrays.

The heavy vessels began to turn, but their massive bulk worked against them; they were not fast enough to pivot in such confined space. Many tried to ignite their dimensional jump drives to escape into hyperspace, but Crul calculated the vector of every distortion with precision.

Just as an enemy vessel tore open a spatial rift to make its jump, one of Ethan’s suicide ships slammed directly into the portal’s mouth, destabilizing the fabric of the void.

The result was horrific: spatial turbulence and void-blade shearing collapsed upon the trapped dreadnoughts in mid-transit, slicing through their bronze and runic-steel hulls like paper. The ships were ejected back into realspace torn to ribbons, engulfed in purple fire and ready to be finished off by the undead horde surging from the wreckage.

The entire pass had turned into a forge of annihilation, where the Divine Wind found no escape in the earth, nor in the sky, nor within the shadows of the void.

Ethan tilted his head slightly, closing his eyes for a moment to savor the waves of panic and death saturating the air. When he opened them again, his pupils burned with an abyssal glow.

"Do you hear that?" Ethan asked. "The sweet melody of your armies being annihilated?"

The three generals froze, feeling their blood run cold. As they looked around, reality struck them with cruelty: Ethan still held thousands of ships hovering in formation, while their armies had been reduced to nothingness in a matter of minutes. They hadn’t had time to react or deploy an effective strategy; the undead tide and suicide rams had consumed the Divine Wind armada with ferocity.

Now only the three of them remained, isolated in mid-air before a monster wearing the skin of a young warrior.

"What’s wrong?" Ethan mocked, taking a slow step through the void that made space vibrate beneath his boots. "Cat got your tongue? Come on, entertain me a little... my hunger is not yet satisfied."

"You are a sick, cursed lunatic!" roared the fan-wielding general, as his two companions flared their mana to the limit, realizing there was no longer any retreat and that they would have to fight for their lives.