The immense, azure crescent of sword-light blotted out the rising sun, violently tearing through the atmosphere and generating a deafening, localized sonic boom that shattered the quiet morning.
A world-ending rumble echoed across the landscape as the Zenith Blade connected with solid rock, slicing through the millions of tons of granite and earth as effortlessly as a hot knife passing through warm butter.
RUMBLE! CRACK!
The next second, the entire top half of the towering mountain shuddered, detached, and violently sheared in two!
One Sword Severs the Peak!
The resulting scene was as apocalyptic as a natural disaster.
Right before Kaelen's eyes, the massive, severed summit of the mountain slowly slid off its base, sending millions of tons of pulverized rock and boulders crashing into the valley below in a catastrophic avalanche. A towering cloud of dust plumed hundreds of feet into the air.
"Holy... okay. Not bad. Not bad at all. The yield on that strike is definitely rivaling a tactical nuke."
Kaelen lowered his hand, staring at his palm, still feeling the profound, terrifying Sword Intent lingering on his skin. He couldn't help but exhale a long sigh of sheer awe.
No wonder conventional military weapons are considered totally obsolete against Ascendant Grandmasters.
With the destructive yield of a single swing, an Ascendant could casually swat a barrage of incoming cruise missiles out of the sky.
And if one swing isn't enough to solve the problem...
I'll just swing twice!
I can output this kind of devastation at just the Awakened Tier! What kind of god-like absurdity will I unlock when I actually reach the Ascendant Tier?!
At this thought, Kaelen's motivation to continue his slacker-grind skyrocketed.
Once my cultivation truly peaks, I'll probably be able to split the atmosphere and cut a new moon in half.
This High-Fantasy world is completely unhinged!
Just as Kaelen was lost in his megalomaniacal daydreaming...
ZING!
His Aetheric Perception suddenly spiked. He sensed several massive, high-density Aether signatures rapidly accelerating toward his exact coordinates from the direction of the city.
They were moving at supersonic speeds, far beyond the physical limits of any Mortal Tier adept.
Did the sonic boom draw the big shots out of bed?
Kaelen's brow furrowed tightly. He had absolutely zero desire to socialize with the city's elite right now.
Too many variables. Too many questions. Completely ruins the slacker aesthetic.
With a single thought, Kaelen activated the Seven-Star Void Step. His body blurred into an afterimage, folded into the ambient Aether, and he vanished from the cliff face without a trace.
The freezing morning wind swept violently through the ruined valley, howling through the massive, unnatural chasm where the mountain peak used to be.
Barely ten seconds after Kaelen's departure...
SWOOSH!
Four distinct figures plummeted from the sky, landing heavily on a rocky outcropping hovering directly above the severed peak.
They consisted of two middle-aged men radiating intense authority, an elderly man in a traditional silk combat tunic, and a terrified teenage girl clutching the elder's sleeve.
The residual Sword Intent lingering inside the freshly cut chasm was still furiously surging, forming a localized field of pure, aggressive killing intent that violently repelled them, forcing the four figures to observe the destruction from a safe distance.
The sight before them was utterly paralyzing. The lingering aura felt like a monstrous, suffocating tsunami pressing against their throats. The two middle-aged men found their hands trembling uncontrollably.
"One sword strike... severed the entire peak? Since when did Neo-Veridia house a Sword Dao monstrosity of this caliber?!"
The more scholarly-looking of the two men muttered, his face completely drained of blood, struggling to maintain his composure against the crushing pressure.
"It doesn't make sense. The Aetheric density of this residual attack is clearly at the Ascendant Grandmaster level... but I personally oversee the city's aerial shield grids. It's mathematically impossible for an entity of this magnitude to have bypassed our sensors without triggering a Class-1 alarm."
The second middle-aged man narrowed his eagle-like eyes, analyzing the sheared rock face. He was dressed in a pristine, heavily armored Enforcer uniform, the golden stars on his epaulets marking him as the supreme authority of the city's defense forces.
"Could it be a shapeshifting demonic entity from the Wastelands? Hasn't that 'Sanguine Fiend' been butchering our citizens lately?"
"Highly unlikely," the scholarly man shook his head. "A demon capable of this output wouldn't need to sneak around draining blood in alleys. And if an Ascendant-level demon wanted to hide, why would it announce its presence by giving a mountain a haircut?"
The two titans of the city debated intensely but came up completely blank. Finding no logical answers, they respectfully turned to the elderly man in the tunic.
"Dean Li, your cultivation and senses are the most profound among us. Did you catch even a glimpse of the perpetrator when you arrived?"
"I did not. I burned my Aether core to arrive here as fast as humanly possible, but the entity who executed this strike was terrifyingly fast. I only caught the faintest ripple of spatial distortion where he vanished..." the old man replied, stroking his white beard with a heavy, deeply troubled sigh.
"An entity actually managed to evade your Aetheric lock?!"
"How is that even possible?!"
The two middle-aged men stared at the Dean in sheer horror, finding his statement far more terrifying than the severed mountain.
"It is the truth. The Grandmaster who reshaped this landscape was here and gone in a fraction of a heartbeat. Not only is his mastery of the Sword Dao utterly peerless, but his movement arts defy logic," the Dean stated, his voice tight.
He gazed at the impossibly smooth cut across the granite and sighed heavily. "I do not know if this supreme being is a friend of humanity or a harbinger of destruction. But I fear the peaceful days of Neo-Veridia have officially come to an end..."
Following the Dean's grim pronouncement, a suffocating silence fell over the group.
The morning wind howled, but their hearts were trapped in a turbulent storm of anxiety. The god who had swung the sword was gone, but the severed mountain weighed on their chests like a physical anchor.
Whether this being was an eccentric ally or an apocalyptic threat was entirely unknown.
The teenage girl standing beside the Dean stared silently into the abyss of the cut, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. The atmospheric pressure from the lingering Sword Intent was so violently oppressive she could barely draw breath. It was only thanks to the Dean actively shielding her with his own Aether that her internal organs weren't ruptured by the proximity.
She had heard every word exchanged between the three most powerful men in the city, and the realization only deepened her absolute terror.
After all...
The elderly man protecting her was Dean Li—the supreme head of the Neo-Veridia Aether Academy and the strongest combatant in the metropolis!
And the two middle-aged men were equally legendary.
One was the Chief Commander of the Aether Enforcer Bureau, the man single-handedly responsible for defending millions of lives from Beast Tides.
The scholarly man was Chief Director Silas, the absolute ruler of the Astral Library and a master of countless forbidden arts.
The fact that these three Awakened Tier titans—the absolute apex predators of the city—were visibly terrified by the aftermath of this strike... it truly cemented the god-like horror of whoever had swung the blade!
"Alright. Standing here trembling in the cold won't give us any more answers," the Enforcer Commander finally spoke, waving his armored hand to break the tension. "I will deploy a heavily armed perimeter around this entire mountain range within the hour. No unauthorized personnel will be permitted within five miles of this site."
"Wait, Commander. If you would indulge me, I have a small, personal request."
Seeing a rare opportunity, Dean Li quickly stepped forward.
"Please, Dean Li, there is no need for such formalities between us. Name it," the Commander replied respectfully.
"It is nothing too burdensome. It is simply that the residual Sword Intent lingering in this chasm is impossibly profound. It contains the fundamental truths of the universe. If the elite sword-path students from my Academy could meditate near this site, it could trigger a generational breakthrough in their cultivation."
The Dean spoke slowly, his eyes gleaming with academic greed. "I pray you might make a classified exception for my top disciples, Commander."
"Consider it done, Dean Li. I will personally arrange their clearance codes."
...
[Meanwhile...]
While the absolute highest echelons of the city's power structure were having a collective existential crisis...
Kaelen, the catastrophic anomaly responsible for all of it, had already quietly slipped back into his dilapidated, outer-ring apartment and was making a cup of instant coffee.
Standing in his tiny kitchen, he replayed the high-definition simulation of the strike in his Mindscape, immediately realizing a massive, glaring flaw in his ultimate attack.
The destructive yield of that zenith strike was glorious, but the Aetheric fuel consumption was completely unsustainable.
Kaelen raised his hand, lightly mimicking the motion of the swing, analyzing the internal diagnostic of his Aether core.
The sheer volume of Aetherial Energy violently ripped from his body to fuel that single, peak-severing crescent had been staggering. It had nearly drained him dry in one second.
It was a strike designed to instantly vaporize an invading army, yes. But this dimension was absurdly dangerous.
There's absolutely no guarantee that after I successfully vaporize a boss monster, some ancient, reclusive demon won't pop out of a portal immediately after!
If my Aether tank is completely empty after one swing, I'll be nothing more than a highly durable punching bag!
I have to patch this massive vulnerability immediately.
Looks like it's time to upgrade my engine. I need to practice an Astral Conduit Art.
His mind raced, quickly formulating a new plan of attack.
From his obsessive reading, he knew that the defining trait of an Awakened Tier expert wasn't just external Aether Projection. It was the ability to cultivate an 'Astral Conduit Art'—a specialized breathing and circulation technique designed to actively, aggressively siphon raw Astral Flux from the atmosphere to rapidly replenish one's reserves.
The ability to actively channel the universe to reload your weapons... that was what separated the Grandmasters from the mortals!
I remember seeing two highly obscure, foundational Conduit manuals collecting dust in Sector 1. Coincidentally, their theoretical flaws are completely complementary.
They should be the perfect raw materials for me to forge my own, infinite-mana Aether engine!