Chapter 551: Fusion Secret Technique

Ronin vaulted through the void, covering miles with every passing second, moving with a velocity that defied comprehension.

This staggering speed was born not only of his raw might and mastery over the world’s fundamental power, but also of his long years studying the mysteries of wind magic, which allowed him to dissolve seamlessly into the element itself.

It mirrored Rydal's Crimson Void Slash, a state of ultimate mastery wherein one discarded the mortal flesh to traverse the sky as pure, unadulterated wind.

Yet the path Ronin had carved out through his own solitary research was far more intricate and demanding than simply inheriting Rydal's teachings.

Though his quarry this time was Ceres, Ronin harbored absolute confidence in his victory, knowing his foe had only recently broken through to this new realm.

Even so, as a safeguard, he had brought Carlos, the legendary dragon who roosted amidst the clouds; with the beast's Frozen Embrace at his disposal, Ronin maintained a comfortable margin for error should the unexpected arise.

Elsewhere, the newly ascended Ceres was tearing through the heavens toward the Land of Exile, his spirit soaring with triumph; to ensure absolute security, he intended to bypass the City of Dawn, skirting the edge of the Blazing Canyon to enter the sea and rendezvous with Phoenix and the others.

"Once the Demon God descends anew, this entire plane shall bend to our will!"

Ceres’s dark golden eyes, usually as frigid as ancient ice, flared with a fanatic heat; the sole purpose of his existence was to usher the Demon God back into this world, and now, that grand design was on the precipice of fulfillment.

"What?"

Abruptly, Ceres felt a torrent of immensely powerful energy racing toward him at a terrifying velocity.

"Impossible. How can anything be faster than me?"

Ever since he attained the rank of Sage, Ceres had believed no living creature on this world could match his speed, a conviction only hardened now that he had ascended to Grand Sage, his power elevated to a completely different echelon.

"It is not Lion, nor is it Prius..."

Ceres’s eyes narrowed into slits: "It is him—that brat from the Astral Continent who slaughtered Thranduil!"

"Heh, let us see then, which of us is truly the swifter master of the wind!"

Suddenly, a roar like heaven-shattering thunder erupted across the sky as Ceres pushed his speed to its absolute limit; endless gales and wind elements coalesced, whipping up a cataclysmic tempest in the upper atmosphere that cast the entire canopy into pitch darkness.

"He is accelerating?"

Ronin detected the shift almost instantly, a slight smirk playing upon his lips, entirely unperturbed.

His objective was to intercept, not to pursue.

Therefore, no matter how fast Ceres flew, unless the creature abandoned its purpose and steered clear of the Land of Exile, it was destined to collide with Ronin.

Swoosh—

Swoosh—

The distance between the two closed with staggering, breathless velocity.

Minutes later, they finally collided above a chain of crimson mountains; if Ronin’s geographical instincts served, this was the Blazing Canyon, the very graveyard where Rydal’s Blazing Expeditionary Force had been annihilated.

Before a single blow was struck, the twin tempests generated by their sheer speed crashed into one another with violent fury, instantly plunging the world into darkness as a crimson sandstorm whipped across the earth, resembling the very end of days.

"Ronin, you dare intercept me with nothing but a common reptile at your side? Should I praise your admirable courage, or mock your ignorant arrogance?"

Ronin calmly measured the Storm Lord standing before him.

The entity possessed a remarkably elegant appearance; despite eyes so cold they sent shivers down the spine, the contrast against his breathtakingly beautiful visage lent him a strange, captivating allure.

Had such a being been a normal human, he would undoubtedly have been pursued by countless admirers.

"To rush toward the Land of Exile with such desperate haste, is it because your Demon God is about to shatter his seal?"

Ronin gripped the Flowing Flame Sword, his icy aura locking unyieldingly onto Ceres.

With a mere flicker of his form, he materialized directly in front of his foe, his longsword erupting with a brilliant, blinding radiance as he unleashed the Vacuum Strangulation technique right from the onset.

Ceres’s heart seized; he instantly released a torrent of formidable wind magic to construct a defense while throwing himself backward, generating a dense, suffocating shield of minuscule wind blades that blanketed the space before him.

Sword light and astral gales devoured each other like colliding stars, continuously radiating ripples of world-ending devastation into the surroundings.

Where the residual shockwaves struck the peaks of the Blazing Canyon below, mountains were instantly sheared flat; where they touched the earth, the ground tore open in gaping chasms!

"A mere human, yet you presume to obstruct the descent of my Lord?"

Ceres snorted coldly, his silhouette dissolving into an ethereal, shifting phantom that flickered amidst the tempest, as though he had woven his very being into the fabric of the sky.

"Annihilation Arc!"

A crisp, chilling voice echoed between heaven and earth, and in a flash, eighteen arcane formation arrays manifested in a full three-hundred-and-sixty-degree perimeter around Ronin, reflecting his image like a hall of mirrors.

Simultaneously, a beam of light infused with the pure power of annihilation shot from one array, striking another, instantly splitting from one beam into two as they ricocheted toward the next mirror!

In the span of a heartbeat, the Annihilation Arcs multiplied into eight, then sixteen, then thirty-two...

An absolute thicket of blinding arcs materialized in the blink of an eye, locking onto Ronin before converging upon him with lethal intent.

Alarm bells rang furiously within Ronin's mind; he sensed the very breath of mortality in this impending strike.

This Annihilation Arc was clearly the original prototype of the Wind Messenger's Binding Array used by Thranduil and his kin, though the disparity in sheer destructive power between the two was as vast as the distance between clouds and mud.

"A formidable technique, however..."

Ronin swung his blade, and the space immediately surrounding him warped violently, enveloping his figure.

As the incoming arcs entered this distorted space, the distance they had to travel seemed to stretch into infinity, causing their velocity to plunge drastically.

They twisted and turned within the warped continuum until, with a subtle manipulation of Ronin’s will, they were woven together into a thick, luminous rope of energy, which then reversed its trajectory and flew back toward its caster.

Spatial Inversion was an ability Ronin had unlocked only after his ascension to Grand Sage; it allowed him to distort the fabric of space, redirecting an enemy's assault back at them with amplified ferocity.

It was a magnificent technique, though its toll was exceptionally severe; even with his combat aura and magic reserves at their absolute peak, Ronin could employ it a mere two times.

Only when his mastery over the spatial laws matured further would the cost begin to diminish.

The Annihilation Arcs surged forward like a majestic, unstoppable tide, wrapping Ceres in the suffocating aura of death; the titanic column of light made his scalp tingle with absolute dread!

"No!"

He roared in fury, his beautiful visage vanishing as his form expanded, transforming in the blink of an eye into a monstrous behemoth seven to eight hundred meters long, straddling the sky!

"A... Wind Serpent?"

Ronin had not anticipated that his opponent was a transformed magical beast, whose true baseline form was a twin-winged serpent of the gales.

Though a Wind Serpent bore a superficial resemblance to a dragon, its wings were comparatively short and stunted, while its torso was excessively elongated, marking a significant structural departure from true dragonkin.

Though Ceres had reverted to his original form to manifest his ultimate defensive posture, the reinforced Annihilation Arc possessed too devastating a fury; it tore straight through his massive bulk, blasting a massive chunk of flesh from his flank.

Fortunately for him, his colossal size allowed his vital organs to escape the brunt of the blast, mitigating what could have been a fatal strike.

Had he not reverted to his true form instantly, he likely would have been blown into several severed pieces.

Though surviving the assault spared his life, elemental energy was now hemorrhaging continuously from the wound, defying any immediate attempts at regeneration.

"You... shall die!"

Ceres’s voice carried an ocean of rage and indignant humiliation as his gargantuan form writhed violently in the air, his wings thrashing to summon an even more ferocious tempest, as if trying to rend the sky into tatters.

"The one who dies is you!"

Ronin understood perfectly well the terrifying nature of the Wind Serpent before him, and he refused to relax his vigilance for even a fraction of a second.

Seizing the window while the beast attempted to mend its fractured body, he launched a merciless, overwhelming offensive.

Yet, once a magical beast reverted to its primal form, certain innate capabilities were vastly enhanced; at this moment, a dense defensive barrier coated the creature's scales, forged from the world power of the Elemental Ocean and reinforced underneath by intricate runes of Nightmare Malice, rendering ordinary techniques entirely useless.

"If that is the case..."

Ronin cast his gaze toward the heavens above, where Carlos finally unveiled his majestic silhouette.

The dragon understood at once. A torrent of scorching breath, like a flood cascading from the heavens, surged toward Luoning—but under his control, it brought no harm. Instead, empowered by the legendary ability "Twisted Flame Spirit," the breath twisted space itself and carried immense pulling force.

At the same time, Luoning’s aura continued to rise. The advanced form of *Blazing Void Slash*, now evolved into *Infernal Flame Demon Cut*, coalesced upon the blade of Flowing Flame.

This was Ridal’s technique, yet Luoning had refined his inner energy, fused it with the power of Flowing Flame and Carlos, and absorbed the strength of the world itself—ultimately forging a unique and devastating secret art.

A scent of annihilation blanketed heaven and earth; even the skies and land seemed to tremble in unrest.

Seres’ eyes flickered with fear. “This is… a Dragon Knight secret technique?”

His wings drew inward, his massive body writhing as he wrapped his upper half into the storm.

At that moment, dark essence emerged from the tempest. A colossal demonic god phantom rose above the gale, hands lifting a vast black sphere radiating endless death.

“Insignificant mortals dare challenge the majesty of a demon god?!”

A hoarse voice pierced through space, chilling the soul—not Seres’, but that of the Nightmare King.

“Heh… so you can’t hold back any longer,” Luoning said with a smile. “Your appearance proves this interception was worth it.”

His eyes flared wide. The combined secret art reached its peak intensity, forming a towering pillar of flame shaped like a sword, piercing the sky.

“Die!”

With a thunderous cry, the sword-image tore across the heavens, like a comet striking earth, unstoppable in its descent toward Seres.

This strike bore not only Luoning’s greatest strength, but also his comprehension of space, and the inherited power gained after Carlos ascended to legend—its might so overwhelming that even the strongest would tremble.

Boom!

The sword-image first collided with the dark sphere thrust forward by the demon god phantom. In that instant, heaven and earth seemed torn asunder—half fire, half shadow. Infinite waves of energy rippled outward like ocean tides, warping the surrounding space.

On the ground, mountains turned to dust, rivers vaporized in an instant, trees and beasts shattered like brittle glass, vanishing into smoke.

Luoning’s slash exceeded all imagination!

It shattered the dark sphere, ripped through Seres’ defensive storm, and slammed into his enormous body.

“No! This cannot be!”

Seres shrieked in agony, his form writhing in torment as flames consumed him. Every muscle, every cell burned and collapsed under unbearable pain.

Elemental power drained rapidly. His seven- or eight-hundred-meter-long body could no longer endure the assault—it began to crumble.

“Demon God, save me!”

Desperate cries echoed, but no god descended.

Under relentless energy bombardment, Seres finally fractured piece by piece, falling from the sky like scattered wreckage.

The Storm Lord who had ruled the Griefwind Plains for years—the new Storm Demon King of the demonic race—had finally fallen this day.

Yet after his death, an unsettling darkness rose from his remains, gathering into a thick cloud.

“The power of Nightmare?”

Luoning frowned, raising his hand to summon the world’s energy, attempting to obliterate the cloud.

But the energy was strange—resisting destruction, it sank beneath the earth, vanishing in the blink of an eye.

Clearly not destroyed—escaped.

Unease surged within Luoning. He sensed that even with Seres dead, the Nightmare King’s growth could not yet be fully stopped.

“But I have grown stronger too!”

Having slain a Grand Sage, Luoning now possessed the qualification to break through.

“What lies beyond the Grand Sage?”

Excitement stirred within him. (End of Chapter)