He looked back at his wife and continued with a wry smile. "If a Mythical Being can appear, then honestly, anything can happen."
His wife gave a sad nod before telling him to take care of their daughters. With that, Jost stepped out of the barrier and disappeared, reappearing high in the sky. He was not far from the capital, yet close enough to see the remnants of the kingdom Vexion had destroyed. Only a handful of buildings remained intact.
His aura spread outward as he observed both the mercenaries below and the fleeing silhouette in the distance. Raising a hand, he effortlessly pulled Kai, Lee, and Sheva from Vexion's grasp, leaving them suspended in midair.
Jost possessed mastery over both water and earth. At first glance, his abilities appeared simple, allowing him to create and manipulate rivers, water, stone, and earth at will. However, the simplicity of the skill was deceptive. He could create raging torrents capable of tearing apart entire battlefields, summon gigantic tsunamis given enough time, and shape massive structures of stone and rock from nothing. The speed at which he manipulated these elements was equally terrifying, while his ability to harden and reinforce them transformed even ordinary stone into abnormally deadly weapons.
Unless one possessed power on the level of a Legendary skill holder above Level 23, overwhelming his abilities through speed or raw strength alone was nearly impossible.
The greatest testament to Jost's power was his very existence.
In a world where people wielded bizarre abilities such as spatial manipulation, illusion, abyssal powers, and countless other supernatural skills, Jost had climbed to Level 25 of the Legendary Tier with only water and earth. Through centuries of battle and cultivation, he had earned the title of True Sage.
He raised his hand toward the fleeing silhouette.
Mana surged.
A massive boulder materialized in the sky.
The speed by which it manifested compared to the size of it as well was another testament to his power
It was so enormous that it resembled a mountain more than a stone, easily rivaling a hundred-story building in size. The mercenaries below were far too weak to understand the true scale of the events unfolding around them. Most didn't even know Mythical Beings existed and remained completely unaware of the terrifying clash occurring far beyond the empire's borders.
They did, however, feel the surge of power that accompanied the appearance of the colossal boulder overhead.
Their faces paled.
Yet before panic could truly set in, the boulder shot past them and disappeared into the distance at incredible speed.
The mercenaries collectively breathed a sigh of relief.
That relief lasted only moments before two beautiful dark elf women in their early twenties arrived.
Then another battle began.
Jost watched the massive projectile fly toward Vexion with mild curiosity. To him, it was merely a probing attack meant to gauge her reaction.
To Vexion, it was anything but.
Fear gripped her heart.
Her skills were already unstable under the pressure of Jost's aura. The speed of the incoming boulder was barely visible to her eyes. The fact that something so massive could move that quickly was simply absurd.
She attempted to create mirages, but they flickered in and out of existence.
Her skills were being suppressed by a greater force.
Even her Push and Pull abilities felt sluggish. It was as though the boulder itself refused to submit to her influence. She tried to push herself forward while forcing the projectile away, but the effort achieved almost nothing.
She was in deep shit.
The boulder dominated her vision.
Huge.
No, enormous.
A mountain flying through the sky.
Her heart pounded violently in her chest as she grew paler with every passing second.
Then suddenly...
.......….
A few moments before Jost left the capital to attack, Dante sat within the folds of the second and third layers of space, watching the battle between the Mythical Beings, Josten and Polian.
He felt only one thing.
Pure bewilderment.
Then pure happiness.
Not because of the magnificence of the fight itself. The battle was incredible, of course, and the techniques displayed were astonishing. Rather, he was happy because the fight only possessed greater destructive power than Legendary-tier skills.
Dante had always worried about one thing since arriving in this world.
Scale.
How powerful were skills exactly? Were they so powerful that they could reduce worlds to nothing? Were Mythical Beings some kind of planetary or galaxy-level monsters?
He didn't want to live in a world like that.
Imagine sitting at home and some fucking Mythical Being sneezed your entire planet out of existence.
How unfair would that be?
One of the reasons he had wanted to witness a battle between Mythical Beings was to understand the scale of their power.
What he saw relieved him.
In fact, it made him ecstatic.
Another reason was that he wanted to understand how Mythical Beings actually improved. He couldn't get answers from either his father or mother, and he had no idea why.
For a long time, he had feared that the reason he wasn't making progress with his Mythical skills was because he lacked knowledge of some fundamental truth of the world.
He had assumed it would be some dumb vague novel bullshit.
Something like "comprehending laws" or "communicating with the heavens".
Instead, what he witnessed was simply better skill usage.
The way the two Mythical Beings optimized and applied their abilities was genuinely impressive. It was still beyond what Dante could currently achieve, but it wasn't so far beyond him that he couldn't understand some parts.
He could at least learn from it.
Smiling, Dante paid even closer attention.
He was slightly disappointed that the system wasn't strong enough to gather detailed information. Defensive optimization was one thing, but offensive optimization, gathering info from stronger opponents was another entirely. The system could only provide surface-level observations rather than verified information.
Still, Dante could make a few educated guesses.
From what he observed, Polian seemed capable of storing a strange energy that functioned similarly to mana. He could contain it within his body or manipulate it freely outside of it. The energy could condense into nearly impenetrable shields or transform into deadly weapons.
However, Polian appeared to specialize in using the energy to reinforce himself.
He had pain resistance , ridiculous amounts of pure increases in his physical strength speed , durability and endurance. His body was essentially a weapon a terrifying one at that. So much so that Josten didn't even want to bother with blocking a strike and rather preferred to dodge.
He was also clearly a hand-to-hand combat specialist. Dante scratched his cheek. 'The skill sounds kinda generic... impressive as hell, but generic.' Then he immediately snorted. 'Coming from the guy who uses spatial manipulation.'
Josten, on the other hand, was a swordsman who combined wind and lightning to become an absolute nightmare to fight, Even for Dante he had trouble keeping up with his speed. He literally couldn't really see much just blurs and small outlines on occasion. The battle had begun relatively evenly, but as Dante continued watching, he became increasingly convinced that Josten held roughly a seventy percent chance of winning.
High above the clouds, the two Mythical Beings faced one another. Polian stared at Josten with a mixture of annoyance and caution. 'He's improving. His mastery and optimization are becoming ridiculous. 'Josten gripped his sword. A split second later, he swung and the blade collided with a wall of green energy, but despite successfully blocking the strike, Polian was still blasted backward.
Immediately, Polian recalled the energy into his body and launched a powerful punch toward the concentrated winds surrounding Josten's blade. Josten merely grunted and a bolt of violet lightning descended from above and struck Polian directly, charring the arms he had used to block.
Josten followed up instantly his body merged with the wind as he closed the distance, sword flashing once more.
Polian ignored the pain instead planting his foot, he unleashed a powerful kick that forced Josten to alter his strike and block instead. The moment Josten defended, Polian twisted his body.
Like a dancer spinning across a stage, Josten's sword flowed with the motion, sweeping horizontally toward Polian's neck.
Polian hastily leaned back.
Unable to fully dodge while off balance, he forced his energy outward to intercept the attack while stabilizing himself.
The winds carried him backward as he split the energy into two separate streams. While doing so weakened its individual effectiveness, it allowed him to better adapt to Josten's relentless barrage.
While Dante enjoyed the show, the system suddenly interrupted.
[Master, Vexion may be in trouble. Through your shared senses, I can feel distress signals coming from her mind.]
Dante blinked.
"Hmm? Oh shit. The True Sage must've finally made a move."
Taking two steps through space, Dante immediately located Vexion.
His expression darkened noticing how Her skills were unstable. Behind her at a rapid yet slower speed , something that looked completely slow considering the battle he was watching a few seconds ago an enormous boulder was hurtling toward her.
Turning slightly, Dante found the source the only True Sage present, Jost.
The emperor stood with one hand extended, watching Vexion with a look of confusion. Dante chuckled. Then he looked back at the boulder.
Using his telekinetic energy, he pulled the projectile into the folds of space. The massive stone vanished from the normal world and appeared between the layers of space where Dante stood.
He raised a finger and a yellow light formed at its tip. Twenty percent charge followed up in powerful condensed amount of energy condensed further into a beam no larger than a tennis ball.
The attack drained a considerable amount of mana but Dante didn't care. And so the beam shot forward and the enormous boulder exploded instantly. Countless smaller fragments scattered apart. Dante then allowed the fragments to return to normal space resulting in rains of stone that descended upon distant ruins and damaged buildings and with that what little remained of the kingdom was crushed.
The destruction spread further.
Another portion of the Josten Empire disappeared from the map.
One kingdom had effectively been erased and half of another was ruined. Only a handful remained largely intact. And even those continued to suffer from the distant clash of Mythical Beings. Of course, none of that mattered to Dante. In fact, it was exactly what he wanted. With a satisfied smile, he nodded to himself. To him whether people died because of Vexion, the mercenaries, Jost, or even himself meant absolutely nothing to him.
Death was death. As long as it benefited him, he didn't care who caused it. Dante took a single step.
Space folded and an instant later, he appeared directly behind Jost.
His calm voice sounded completely out of place amidst the chaos consuming the empire.
"Yo."