The sky above the endless Ufrifan desert was bleeding, but the atmosphere inside the massive, displaced crater had plummeted unnaturally.
Julian stood at the epicenter of the depression, his metamorphosis complete. He was no longer the elegant, tailor-suited S-Rank Commander. He was a towering, demonic nightmare of jagged, pitch-black ice and elongated, razor-sharp talons.
Hide stood perfectly balanced on the jagged icy rim of the crater, his dark metal crown resting heavily upon his forehead. Through his True Sight, Hide watched in grim, suffocating silence as the raw mana output radiating from Julian's body violently expanded.
It didn't just double; it effortlessly tripled. The crushing density of the corrupted energy was staggering, twisting the very fabric of the air around them.
It was the undeniable, apocalyptic pressure of a Higher Calamity Lord. A B-Rank monster.
