Red light consumed me.
Not gently.
Violently.
Like reality itself had been torn apart and rebuilt around my body.
---
When I opened my eyes—
I was back.
That battlefield.
---
Smoke still billowed endlessly into the dark sky.
Massive craters scarred the land like wounds left behind by gods.
Magma rivers glowed through broken earth—
radiating unbearable heat into the air.
Fragments of shattered mountains floated in the distance.
And everywhere…
the remnants of my battle with Vorgrath still remained.
---
Lingering blue lightning crackled across broken stone.
Ancient demonic flames still burned in places where his attacks had landed.
Even now—
the battlefield itself remembered him.
---
I floated silently above the destruction.
Blue eyes calm.
Emotionless.
---
Honestly…
I felt nothing.
---
No anger.
No shame.
No frustration.
---
Only analysis.
---
This place no longer felt like the battlefield where I lost.
It felt like a lesson carved into reality itself.
---
Every crater.
Every scar.
Every lingering trace of energy—
contained answers.
---
The Fifth Floor:
🔥 FLOOR 5 — THE ILLUSION REALM
---
I had relived this battle more times than I could count.
Again.
And again.
And again.
---
Each attempt forcing me to watch my own weakness.
To study it.
To understand it.
---
Yet no matter how much I observed—
I still failed to fully grasp everything.
---
Vorgrath…
was beyond me.
---
Not simply stronger.
Not simply faster.
But complete.
---
His movements.
His control.
His understanding of battle.
Everything flowed together perfectly.
---
And compared to him—
I was still crude.
---
A weapon with power…
but no mastery.
---
Then—
A crimson screen appeared before me.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
" TOWER OF TRIAL "
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
> [ Third Stage Cleared Successfully ]
> Rewards Calculated…
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
REWARDS
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
◈ 5,000,000 Trial Points
◈ 100 Demi-God Cores
◈ 10 Demon God Cores
◈ Bonus Reward: +10% Welcome Return Bonus
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
CURRENT BALANCE
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
◈ 6,000,000 Points
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
---
A faint smile appeared on my face.
---
Just what I needed.
---
My physique training had become monstrous lately.
The amount of food my body consumed had increased to absurd levels.
If not for my family's wealth—
a normal kingdom would probably collapse trying to feed me.
---
Thinking about it…
the vacation had basically turned into a food competition between me and Azharyon.
---
A small chuckle escaped my lips.
---
That was in the past now.
---
BOOOOOOMMMMM!!!!!
---
A pillar of crimson light engulfed my body from below.
---
The battlefield vanished.
---
When my vision cleared—
I found myself standing within a volcanic landscape once more.
---
Lithovar.
---
The Second Floor environment.
---
Except this version felt far more oppressive.
---
The sky burned dark crimson.
Volcanic ash drifted endlessly through the air.
Mountains of black stone stretched across the horizon like the corpses of titans.
Magma rivers crawled through the land like glowing veins.
---
Heat distorted the air itself.
---
A red screen flickered before me.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
" TOWER OF TRIAL "
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
> Welcome Back, Challenger.
> Return Bonus Activated.
> All rewards increased by 10%.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
---
My eyes narrowed slightly.
---
"…Why?"
---
Why would the tower reward my return?
---
Was this place truly just a training ground?
Or something more?
---
The Tower of Trial…
did not feel fully connected to the System.
---
It felt older.
---
Far older.
---
"Welcome back… my cat."
---
Nyxarion's voice echoed inside my mind.
---
Mocking.
Amused.
Watching.
---
The memory remained painfully clear.
---
Yet the more I thought about him—
the less he felt like an enemy.
---
During our meeting inside the Library of the First Law…
he never truly showed hostility toward me.
---
Then why provoke me?
Why push me?
---
To awaken the beast within?
---
To confirm whether I was truly one of the Pure Ones?
---
No…
there had to be more.
---
Far more.
---
The imbalance between Neraphyx and Zeraphyx alone made no sense.
---
There were too many Pure Ones appearing in Neraphyx.
Far too many.
---
And Nyxarion…
was powerful enough to find them himself.
---
Then why involve me?
---
Unless…
---
My eyes narrowed.
---
Does he know?
---
Does he know what I truly am?
---
Not a false Pure One born from corrupted laws.
Not a cheap imitation created by a flaw in reality.
But—
the one true existence.
---
The Nameless Sovereign.
---
The Origin Beast.
The beginning of all things.
---
The thought nearly destabilized my focus.
---
Questions spiraled endlessly inside my mind.
Each answer only creating more mysteries.
---
I exhaled slowly.
---
Calm down.
---
Thinking too deeply without enough information was pointless.
---
I pushed the thoughts aside and focused on my surroundings.
---
Unlike the previous volcanic floor—
this magma contained no energy signature.
---
Only pure heat.
---
Interesting.
---
I expanded my senses carefully across the landscape.
Searching for my opponent.
---
Nothing.
---
Then—
I checked my cultivation.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
" MASTER STATUS "
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Technique: ◈ Primordial Azure Beast Scripture
Realm: ◈ Body Purification Realm
Stage: ◈ Great Perfection — Late Stage
Physique: ◈ Primordial Beast Constitution
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
---
A small smile appeared on my face.
---
Looks like the Ascension Tower truly changed me.
---
Not just mentally.
But spiritually as well.
---
My understanding had deepened.
My mind had sharpened.
Even my cultivation progressed naturally because of it.
---
Interesting.
---
Very interesting.
---
I stretched my arms slowly.
Blue lightning flickering lazily around my fingers.
---
"Let's see…"
"…how much difference it really made."
---
BOOOOOOMMMMM!!!!!
---
The sea of magma before me exploded violently.
---
Waves of molten rock surged hundreds of meters into the air.
---
Then—
something massive began rising from beneath it.
---
A gigantic silhouette.
---
Humanoid.
Yet monstrous.
---
The heat in the surroundings intensified instantly.
---
Heavy footsteps echoed through the volcanic land.
---
BOOM.
BOOM.
BOOM.
---
Each step shook the battlefield.
---
Then—
it emerged fully.
---
A towering humanoid bear.
---
Its body was covered in molten-black fur mixed with magma stone armor.
Cracks of crimson light glowed across its muscles like lava flowing beneath skin.
Its claws looked capable of ripping apart mountains.
Its breathing alone distorted the air.
---
Massive.
Ancient.
Predatory.
---
The creature slowly stepped out of the magma sea—
molten rock sliding off its body like blood.
---
Its height alone exceeded seven feet.
Its frame dwarfed ordinary warriors completely.
---
No…
calling this thing a warrior felt wrong.
---
It looked like a living calamity.
---
Its burning red eyes locked onto me.
---
Then it inhaled deeply.
---
Sniffing.
---
Like a predator identifying prey.
---
The pressure surrounding it intensified instantly.
---
Even the magma nearby became unstable.
---
Interesting.
---
Very interesting.
---
Its raw physical strength alone…
was terrifying.
---
If I didn't know better—
I would have mistaken it for some hybrid between a Titanborn and an Ironclaw Bear.
---
But this was Neraphyx.
A place where strength defined evolution itself.
---
Large creatures naturally became stronger.
Denser.
More monstrous.
---
The giant bear-man slowly straightened his posture.
---
Then—
a status screen appeared before me.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
" ENEMY ANALYSIS "
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Name: ◈ VARKHUL
Race: ◈ Umbrafang Ursar
Race Meaning: ◈ "Shadow-Fanged Demon Bears"
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Divine Classification: ◈ D-7 Star-Ruler
Threat Level: ◈ Catastrophic
Capability: ◈ Can Create or Destroy Stars
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Laws Controlled: ◈ Abyssal Flame ◈ Inferno Flame ◈ Magma ◈ Metal
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Titles: ◈ Empire of the Crimson Fang
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Combat Assessment: ◈ Extreme Physical Dominance ◈ High Regeneration ◈ Berserker-Type Combatant ◈ Heat Immunity ◈ Unknown Bloodline Abilities
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
---
Shock flashed through my heart briefly.
---
D-7 Star-Ruler.
---
That level…
was absurd.
---
I was only at the peak of the second stage.
Maybe close to breaking into the third if everything went perfectly.
---
Yet standing before me—
was a being capable of destroying stars.
---
Excitement slowly replaced the shock in my eyes.
---
My blood began boiling.
---
A rare talent of the Umbrafang Ursar race perhaps…
since bears normally weren't known for flame affinity.
---
Interesting.
---
Very interesting.
---
The giant bear-man stared down at me silently.
---
Then—
he smiled.
---
Sharp fangs slowly revealed themselves.
---
Predatory.
Cruel.
Hungry.
---
The magma sea behind him exploded violently—
responding to his aura.
---
And at that moment—
I realized something.
---
This wasn't a test of survival.
---
This was a hunt.
---
And Varkhul…
looked at me like prey.
---
Blue lightning slowly danced around my body.
---
A grin appeared on my face.
---
Then I stepped forward.
---
The volcanic battlefield trembled beneath my feet.
---
"Let the battle begin."