Chapter 552: Sublimation

The fall of Theris allowed Ronin to complete the final achievement on his Achievement Panel—King of Slaughter.

This single feat granted him two hundred thousand attribute points. With his mage level now at (46,055/225,000), these points were more than enough to propel him into the next stage.

"In terms of power, the Nightmare King, a demon god, stands above the Grand Sage. So is the next rank beyond Grand Sage... divine?"

As Ronin pondered, he spent 178,945 attribute points to fill the progress bar completely.

Just as he closed his eyes and stilled his mind, awaiting the descent of cosmic will, he felt a sudden pull—an invisible force drawing him into an unfathomable space.

This realm was vast and boundless, its surroundings shimmering like stars scattered across the universe, illuminating the void with dreamlike brilliance.

Ronin felt as though he floated within a radiant galaxy, his gaze drawn irresistibly toward a massive, luminous orb before him.

He recognized it—the same orb he had seen when ascending to legend status. Every legendary being was touched by its light, branded with the Mark of the Plane.

"The Heart of the Plane."

The brilliance of the Plane’s Heart reflected in Ronin’s eyes. Even now, as a Grand Sage, standing before this entity stirred something deep within—a sense of awe, of communion.

And as he whispered those words, ripples stirred across the surface of the Heart.

Though it uttered no sound, Ronin heard a call—an invitation to draw nearer.

He stepped forward.

Brilliant light enveloped him entirely. His form dissolved, absorbed into the Heart itself, vanishing from sight.

Time ceased to have meaning. An eternity passed, or perhaps only a breath.

Within that span, knowledge flooded his mind—memories not his own. The evolution of the plane. Events long buried in history.

Ronin became a silent observer, watching scenes unfold like visions from another life.

"Huh? What is this?"

He saw a meteor streaking across dimensions, purified by the Heart’s radiance before landing within Wushan Fortress.

"This… is my soul."

He witnessed his own arrival into this world—and realized then that his Attribute Panel, his Achievement Panel, all stemmed from the baptism of the Plane’s Heart.

Such abilities could be seen as a unique bloodline power—akin to a dragon’s inherited memories, or Theris the Wind Serpent’s innate mastery over wind elements.

Thump, thump. Thump, thump.

Suddenly, Ronin heard the beating of his heart.

He looked down and saw his soul resonating with the Plane’s Heart. A strange energy flowed from the orb, wrapping around his spirit, reshaping his physical form.

In the blink of an eye, he was no longer a bodiless soul—he had a new body.

At once, he sensed the change.

An unprecedented sense of control surged through him. With a mere turn of his palm, mountains crumbled and rivers reversed their flow.

Even the space within a kilometer bent to his will—compressed, stretched, rewritten.

"Domain of Dominion!"

His eyes blazed. Within this domain, he was a god who ruled all.

None but an equal could stand against him!

Beyond this power, the Plane’s Heart bestowed upon him fragments of profound truths—seeds of *Aoyi*. To study *Aoyi* was the path by which Plane Dominators strengthened themselves.

What was *Aoyi*?

Ronin already understood. Carlos’ Twisted Flame Spirit, the Embrace of Absolute Cold—these were forms of *Aoyi*. Even his own creation, "Anti-Nothingness," belonged to this realm.

In essence, *Aoyi* was a transcendent ability—one that elevated raw power into something greater.

After absorbing the full extent of his transformation, Ronin turned his gaze once more to his Attribute Panel.

The Achievement Panel had vanished. Only the Attribute Panel and Check-In Panel remained.

Yet even the Attribute Panel had changed:

【Level】: Plane Dominator (0/+∞)

【Attribute Points】: 23,400

【Energy Essences】: 401,925

At this stage, there was no longer a distinction between knight and mage—all unified under the title "Plane Dominator."

And this tier had no defined upper limit.

"Positive infinity..."

Ronin paused, stunned. He hadn’t expected such a designation.

Curious, he invested all remaining attribute points, then waited, sensing for any shift.

"The enhancement in body and soul is barely perceptible—so faint one might miss it entirely."

"But... my Domain of Dominion expanded by a meter or two. And my comprehension of *Aoyi*... has deepened slightly?"

The effects of stat allocation were no longer dramatic. Yet the good news was that understanding of *Aoyi* could grow through personal insight—no longer solely dependent on points.

After thorough examination, Ronin withdrew from the Heart’s space and reappeared above the Flaming Gorge.

By now, the aftermath of battle had settled. Except for the ravaged landscape below—reshaped by titanic forces—everything else seemed calm.

"Master..."

Carlos appeared as a tiny dragon, fluttering before him. Now, he resembled nothing so much as a devoted disciple, humbled by the overwhelming pressure emanating from Ronin.

Logically, dragons—especially naturally-born legends—should possess bloodline dominance over humans.

But now, the hierarchy had inverted. Deep within his soul, Carlos sensed Ronin’s supremacy.

"How long has passed?" Ronin asked.

"About half an hour, Master."

Carlos replied, "The total war has begun."

Ronin nodded. His spiritual awareness spread outward like a tide, revealing every detail within its reach.

Now, his perception spanned unimaginable distances—even reaching the westernmost reaches of the continent, Gistana Principality. Only a sliver of the plane lay beyond his grasp.

Through his senses, he saw human and demonic armies clashing along both banks of the Taimuraya River. He spotted McKen, Berola, Iben—fighting fiercely, cutting down enemies.

Yet each fallen foe released a wisp of faint nightmare energy, seeping into the earth beneath.

Before, Ronin could not track them. Now, he saw clearly—those threads of energy flowing into the seal of the Exiled Lands.

The Nightmare King’s return was imminent.

At the Exiled Lands, sages and grand sages from both sides were already locked in chaotic combat.

Nearly twenty supreme beings clashed in battle, their power stirring the ocean into frenzy. Waves hundreds of meters high crashed endlessly.

Especially the water-element sages—they summoned seawater into the sky, wielding the ocean’s might to crush their foes.

Though no victor had emerged, two human sages had already perished. The rest, outnumbered, struggled to hold their ground.

Lyon Sears, a half-step Grand Sage, had unleashed the terrifying weapon *Silent Annihilation Rainbow Light*, yet gained no advantage over Salonas—only exhausting himself in the process.

Meanwhile, Phoenix had revealed his true form: a dark dragon smaller than Theris the Wind Serpent, yet radiating power many times greater.

Using *Shadow Passage*, a unique spatial ability, he dominated Pruis, Rudar, and the sage named Basel, pressing them relentlessly.

"Die! Just die!"

"I will have your lives as a sacrifice to appease the fallen Cyres!"

Incarnated as a colossal dragon, Phenix roared, his razor-sharp talons tearing downward as searing flames warped the surrounding space, enveloping Bazel.

The binding force left his foe with no room to retreat, forcing him to wager everything on a single, desperate struggle for survival.

Hurled back from the fray by the shockwave, Prius and Rydar rushed forward in a frantic panic to rescue their comrade.

Boom!

The forces clashed in a violent collision, sending Prius and the other two flying backward as blood erupted from their lips, their battle armor shattering to reveal the marred, blood-streaked skin of their Sage bodies.

In stark contrast, Phenix was merely jolted back a hundred meters, bearing no significant harm.

"I will use your blood and your lives to avenge the sacrifice of Cyres!"

Phenix unhinged his monstrous maw, spewing torrents of flame to vent his incandescent rage.

Cyres had been the linchpin for the resurrection of the Lord of Nightmarish Blight, yet no one anticipated Ronin would intercept and slay him halfway through.

"Did Ronin... truly sacrifice himself?" Prius spoke, the words wrenching past his lips.

Though Cyres's demise exhilarated them, Ronin's sudden disappearance cast a heavy, disheartening pall over their spirits.

Rydar furrowed his brow deeply; though he too could not perceive Ronin's aura, the profound bond within his soul assured him that his lord still drew breath.

"Hold fast! His Majesty lives, and he will come to reinforce us!"

"Lives?"

Phenix burst into a booming laugh. "Do you honestly still sense a single breath of his life?"

As he spoke, his dragon claws curled around empty air, violently churning the draconic power within his veins, blending it with the force of the world and the nightmarish blight to forge a colossal hammer of flame that blotted out the sun.

"Take your naive delusions with you to hell and meet him there!"

Boom!

The monumental hammer crashed down with terrifying force, and though it remained hundreds of meters above the ocean, its overwhelming pressure caused the waters below to cave inward.

The faces of Rydar, Prius, and Bazel drained of color; this power was far too tempestuous, magnitudes greater than any ability their foe had displayed moments before.

Evasion was impossible; they could only summon their most formidable techniques to withstand the blow.

Yet even their combined strike could only sap a fraction of the momentum from the onslaught as the fiery hammer descended with inexorable might.

"Too strong!"

A bitter expression crossed Prius's face; though both were Grand Sages, the chasm between himself and Phenix was simply vast, to say nothing of Rydar and Bazel, who were merely Sages.

Had he been able to draw upon the protective array of the Exiled Lands, he might have stood a chance.

But the battlefield lay above the open sea, and he could not bring himself to hide alone within the formation while watching his allies be consumed piece by piece by the demons outside.

Just as the three channeled the world's energy to form a protective cocoon around themselves, the descending hammer of fire ground to a violent, shuddering halt.

Not only the hammer, but even the ferocious shockwaves seemed to vanish into nothingness in an instant.

What was this?

As the three stared in utter bewilderment, a solitary figure materialized before the colossal hammer.

"Your Majesty!" Rydar cried out, his voice trembling with emotion.

"Ronin?"

Prius, Bazel, and everyone else locked in the desperate struggle felt a collective tremor shake their souls.

Ronin had returned?

Yet, even as they strained their spiritual perception, they could detect absolutely no trace of his presence.

Ronin slowly raised his hand and flicked his index finger; in that breath, the fiery hammer fractured inch by inch, dissolving into a myriad of drifting sparks before vanishing entirely.

Phenix froze in stunned disbelief and rising suspicion; the gaze of the minuscule human before him was calm and nonchalant, yet it struck a chord of profound dread deep within his heart.

From this man, he felt the same suffocating aura he had once experienced in the presence of the Demon God itself.

"You..."

Pfft!

A streak of piercing light impaled Phenix directly through his reverse scale, boring through his skull and erupting from the crown of his head, its tempestuous energy instantly reducing his brain to ash.

In a single heartbeat, Phenix lost all perception, consciousness, and life, his massive draconic form plummeting from the sky and plunging into the sea, sending up titanic waves.

Dead... just like that?

The onlookers stood paralyzed, suspended between utter bewilderment and sheer terror.

This was Phenix—a being who had held a Grand Sage and two Sages in a suffocating, absolute vice—slain by Ronin as casually as turning a page.

Salonas’s throat tightened, the hairs on his skin standing on end as the scene before him battered his senses, making the very world feel like an illusion.

What manner of power was this?

Rumble~

A surging tide of nightmarish blight erupted from Phenix’s corpse, coalescing into a dark, swirling cloud that sought to slip beneath Ronin’s nose and into the seal of the Exiled Lands.

"Still seeking to gorge on energy?"

Ronin chuckled softly; before, he had been powerless to stop it, but things were different now.

With a mere shift of his intent, space and raw power were summoned in full, trapping the nightmarish blight within a localized void and grinding it down until nothing remained.

"Ignorant mortal, you have successfully aroused the wrath of the Lord of Nightmarish Blight!"

Ronin's actions had clearly incensed the dark master, causing the Exiled Lands to shudder violently as if the entire island were about to be torn asunder, while the ocean waters began to boil and roar, mimicking the prelude to a volcanic eruption.

Rumble~

The heavens and earth violently convulsed as a horrifying power erupted from the seal of the Exiled Lands, a column of pitch-black light locking the sky to the earth, its scattered residual energy alone enough to blot out the sun.

In an instant, the world was plunged into absolute darkness.

And within that darkness, a terrifying, gargantuan Demon God, bristling with an uncountable number of writhing tentacles, slowly drifted out from the pillar of light.

Its torso loomed larger than the entire island of the Exiled Lands, each tendril stretching across untold leagues, their slightest twitch capable of stirring tempests across the sky.

"The... the Demon God has descended!"

Prius's throat felt dry as bone; as a survivor of the war a millennium ago, the terror the Demon God instilled had long been branded into the depths of his soul.

The other Sages were witnessing this nightmare for the very first time, the sheer horror of the creature leaving them frozen and shivering with dread.

Even within the abyssal depths of the ocean, no such monstrosity had ever existed.

Of all those present, perhaps only Ronin remained unmoved; though the entity's power was immense, it did not eclipse his own by much.

In terms of the hierarchy of life, he now stood on equal footing with the Demon God, feeling no sense of oppression whatsoever.

If anything, the Lord of Nightmarish Blight—a creature countless times uglier than an octopus, its face crowded with dense, carbuncle-like pustules—merely left Ronin feeling deeply disgusted and uncomfortable.

In stark contrast to the human faction, the demons led by Salonas were consumed by a feverish ecstasy.

They retreated beneath the towering shadow of their master, kneeling devoutly within the empty air, chanting the sacred titles of the Demon God as their bodies trembled uncontrollably.

"I have witnessed your devotion, my believers!"

The terrifying power of the King of Nightmares descended upon them, amplifying the strength of Salonas and the others.

"Now, it is time for us to devour this world!" (End of Chapter)