Chapter 536: Mercy

Chapter 536: Mercy

“Flame Tyrant First Form: Blazing Fang!” the man roared not wanting to give Max a chance at all.

A black flame dragon’s head erupted from his right fist, its jaws wide as it shot toward Max with blistering speed.

Max responded instantly, black fire swirling around his body as he lunged forward to meet it.

“Flame Tyrant Second Form: Molten Devourer!” Arriving before it, he growled, his forearms coated in burning scales of flame. He crossed his arms, catching the dragon head-on. The explosion rocked the arena—but Max twisted through the flames, closing the distance.

Their fists collided in midair.

“Third Form: Infernal Ripclaw!” the man barked, sweeping his hand sideways. Claws of fire shaped like a dragon’s talons burst from his knuckles.

Max ducked under the searing arc, his body twisting low.

And then—

“Fourth Form: Tyrant Fang Drive!” Max grunted. His knee, engulfed in spiraling black flame shaped like a dragon’s open jaw, crashed up into the man’s ribs.

The older warrior flew back but planted his foot mid-air, twisting mid-fall. He thrust his palm down.

“Fifth Form: Sovereign Flame Pillar!”

The entire floor beneath Max detonated upward in a column of spiraling fire, a pillar shaped like a roaring dragon winding around itself.

Max’s figure blurred, barely avoiding the rising explosion. His chest was scorched, his brows singed—but his eyes burned brighter.

He roared, charging forward, fists ablaze.

“Sixth Form: Tyrant Emperor Spiral!” he shouted.

A massive spiraling dragon wreathed his body, formed from countless coils of compressed black flame. He spun like a cyclone, fists blazing with flame, each punch hammering into the enemy with bone-cracking force.

But the old warrior grinned. “So you’ve learned them all. Good. Time for the complete form.”

“Complete Flame Tyrant Sequence: Wrath of the Abyssal Drake!” he shouted.

The ground trembled. From his body surged a massive dragon, coiling out of his fists, tail whipping the earth, mouth wide with fire.

Max’s own flames exploded outward in response.

“Flame Tyrant Final Form: Black Tyrant’s Judgment!”

A dragon of his own surged upward from his chest, shaped from raw comprehension and instinct. The two dragons met midair with a cataclysmic blast—shockwaves flattening the tiles, roaring firewaves charring the edges of the void.

They weren’t just throwing attacks—they were fighting as dragons.

Fists became claws. Legs twisted into slashing tails. Flame dragons roared from arms and shoulders, clashing, biting, exploding.

The elder punched Max into the ground.

Max retaliated with a leaping elbow cloaked in spiraling fire.

They collided again. Again. Again. Every strike screamed with ancient flame, every move a tribute to the inheritance carved into their bones.

And finally—

Max’s foot smashed through the enemy’s knee, twisting around into a flame-laced uppercut, followed by a finishing blow: both fists crashing down with all the weight of his will and fire behind them.

Boom!

The elder fell back, embedded into the shattered stone, his body steaming with vanishing flame.

Max stood above him, blood on his lips, fire smoldering around him, arms trembling. But he was still standing.

‘Flame Tyrant… if used together with the Dragon Scales Transformation, I’d be nearly invincible in close combat.’ Max thought to himself, still feeling the lingering heat of the battle coursing through his limbs like liquid fire. The fusion of the inheritance’s raw, brutal style with the refined defense and explosive power of his dragon form—it was terrifying.

‘Perfect,’ he mused.

As that thought echoed in his mind, the flickering world around him began to unravel. His figure shimmered, dimmed, and slowly faded away from the Tower of Resonance. The last ember of flame blinked out, and then—he was gone.

The next moment, Max appeared outside the tower’s entrance.

And what greeted him was silence.

Hundreds of geniuses stood frozen in place—eyes wide, mouths agape—each of them gawking between the glowing symbol above the door behind Max… and him. Some blinked in disbelief. Others rubbed their eyes, as if trying to clear a hallucination. Even the calmest among them looked visibly rattled.

Jason’s lips parted slightly, completely speechless, while Lucia Grimes, who usually stood proud and untouchable, looked at Max with a rare flicker of something that almost resembled… alarm.

She wasn’t looking at Max exactly—her gaze kept darting to what was floating right above the black stone doors behind him.

Max, sensing something odd, slowly turned his head.

And then he saw it.

Glowing in pure crimson-gold light above the entrance, carved by the Tower itself, were three numbers:

99.99%

Max blinked. For a moment, he felt… stunned. Not because he hadn’t expected a high number—he had defeated the owner of the inheritance within, after all. He had walked through the inferno and claimed the legacy as his own. He had expected to see a full 100%.

But not this.

Not 99.99%.

So close.

So impossibly close that it almost felt like a joke from the universe. Like something—or someone—was reminding him: not yet.

Not quite.

Max stared for a moment longer. And then—he smirked.

“Tch. Stingy tower,” he muttered under his breath.

Then he turned away from the glowing numbers, back to the crowd of geniuses who still hadn’t moved. They parted in silence, watching him as if he were something unreal.

And Max?

He simply walked past them all, his eyes calm, his presence roaring louder than any flame.

And then, Max stood before her—Lucia Grimes, proud daughter of one of the Seven Main Families of the Black Dragon Palace—with a calm, self-assured smirk playing at the corner of his lips.

He met her eyes without hesitation, letting the weight of his victory linger in the silence between them before speaking in a quiet but commanding voice.

“Now apologize to me,” Max said smoothly, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

He knew it was childish, immature even. But he didn’t care. Some things needed to be said. Some pride needed to be bent.

Lucia had tried to dominate him with her bloodline and when that didn’t work, she wanted to use force to make him admit about his bloodline—and yet here she was, staring at someone who had just crushed her performance in the Tower of Resonance and walked out with a mark so close to perfection that no one, not even her, could laugh it off.

And so this… this wasn’t cruelty. This was mercy. He wasn’t asking her to kneel. He wasn’t asking for vengeance. He was just asking her to acknowledge reality.

“Oh…” Jason drawled with a crooked grin, eyes flicking between them like he’d been handed front-row seats to a rare performance. “This is gonna be good.”

Lucia didn’t respond.

Not at first.

Her head was down, her fists clenched so tightly her knuckles turned white. Her shoulders trembled—not violently, but in that taut, suffocating way that meant something inside her was breaking.

Whether it was fury, humiliation, or the unbearable sting of her own pride collapsing beneath her, no one could tell. But she was shaking. A girl who once stood like a sovereign now looked like a statue forced to bow.

Max didn’t blink. He didn’t budge.

“Come on,” he said, voice quiet but firm. “Do it. I don’t have all day.”

Lucia’s jaw twitched.

Then, slowly—agonizingly slowly—she raised her head, eyes burning with a thousand unsaid words. Her lips trembled, her pride writhed like a wounded beast, but she forced herself to speak.

“…I apologize,” she said, her voice just above a whisper.

The air around them stilled.

But Max didn’t move. His eyes remained locked on hers.

“Louder,” he said. “And mean it.”

Lucia’s nostrils flared. Her breath came in sharp, short bursts. But then, clenching her fists tighter than ever, she took a shaky breath, lifted her chin, and met his gaze.

“…I’m sorry,” she said louder this time. “I was wrong.”

Max let the silence stretch for a moment, savoring the weight of it—not out of spite, but because moments like this didn’t come often. Then, with a slight nod, he smiled again—wider this time.

“Good,” he said, turning away as the crowd remained frozen in shock.

And just like that, Max walked off… leaving behind not just a stunned silence, but the unmistakable mark of dominance.

However before he was completely gone, a voice full of rage and fury came from behind him.

“I will make you pay for this one day.”

It was Lucia. She stood with her eyes red, full of rage.

Your gift is the motivation for my creation. Give me more motivation!