Chapter 744 : Storm

East Coast of Pritt, Tivian.

After three long years of preparation, the World Expo had finally opened under the gaze of all. Guided by the main venue, the various branch venues scattered across Tivian—established to help manage the flood of visitors—had also begun their programs. Although the events at the branch venues lacked the grandeur of those at the main venue, their carefully prepared shows were still quite remarkable, offering enough splendor to dazzle visitors from across the nation.

If one were to ask which branch venue in Tivian had offered the most surprising performance, it would certainly be the second branch venue located in Tivian’s eastern district. The reason? None other than the unexpected appearance of Tivian’s famous dance star, Adèle Briouze, who was originally slated to perform only at the main venue but had instead graced this secondary venue with her presence.

In the branch venue set up within a park in the eastern district, a temporary stage stood on a broad plaza. On it, a graceful and alluring woman in red was dancing nimbly and elegantly. Below the stage, audiences from various Pritt cities erupted in thunderous applause and cheers. The crowd’s enthusiasm was high—most of them felt incredibly fortunate to be witnessing for free the performance of a Tivian superstar they had only read about in newspapers. However, a small portion of them harbored faint confusion.

Among the crowd and atop the rooftops around the park, several gloomy gazes were locked onto the dancing Adèle. One of these belonged to the Chief Guard of the Eight-Spired Nest, stationed near the edge of the crowd.

“Strange… this performance… something feels off…”

The Chief Guard muttered, frowning as he watched Adèle dance. He had studied many recordings and dream-etched memories of Adèle’s performances and had watched hundreds of hours of her dancing. While this Adèle was technically flawless, something about her lacked the unique charm he remembered. This subtle absence might not be noticeable to ordinary audiences, but to someone specially trained in Adèle recognition, it stood out like a sore thumb.

“Could she be an imposter? No… since the moment we relocated her, she’s been under constant surveillance. There hasn’t been any opportunity for a switch. But this dancing really is a little off from her usual style… what’s going on here? Is she trying to trick me?”

With a grim expression, the Chief Guard hesitated. Though he suspected something was wrong, he didn’t dare to break surveillance. He feared this “abnormality” in Adèle’s performance was a deliberate ruse—to fool him into relaxing his guard and abandoning surveillance so the real Adèle could escape.

With that concern in mind, the Chief Guard remained in place, unwilling to take the bait. Better to stay alert than fall into a trap.

Just as the Chief Guard and the other Eight-Spired members on site remained deep in thought, Adèle on stage completed her performance. Amid the roaring applause and cheers, she gracefully took her final bow. The Chief Guard began preparing to follow her backstage when a sudden sting pricked his ear—and then a faint whisper sounded within it.

After hearing the whisper, his eyes slowly widened.

“What… over there? That’s impossible!”

Staring at the Adèle now stepping offstage, the Chief Guard murmured in disbelief. Then, gritting his teeth, he turned his gaze toward the sky above the main venue.

“Damn it… When was I fooled?!”

He cursed under his breath, glaring at the “Adèle” who had already retreated backstage. After a brief struggle, he chose not to follow. Instead, he immediately contacted nearby subordinates and companions, ordering a full withdrawal and hasty reinforcement of the main venue.

Meanwhile, in a secluded area backstage, “Adèle” let out a huge sigh of relief after sensing that the group of Eight-Spired operatives who had been watching her had mostly withdrawn. Her elegant posture collapsed in an instant, replaced with a carefree, slouching sprawl on the couch—legs splayed out in an ungraceful posture—and she even scratched her head with a jarring lack of composure.

“Finally… they’re gone, that damn bunch…”

This “Adèle” was in fact Gregor in disguise. Relaxing, he instinctively reached for a cigarette, but upon feeling the dress and curvaceous body he was now inhabiting, he shivered with discomfort and a wave of goosebumps rose on his skin.

“Ugh… I need to change out of this crap ASAP… I can’t take it anymore… Gotta find a spot away from the crowd, change, and get to the main venue immediately…”

He ran his hand along the red dress and his transformed body, feeling deeply uncomfortable. Ever since stepping onto the Blood Shade Path, this was the first time he had taken on a female form—and worn women’s clothing. Though transforming into a stunning beauty like Adèle gave him a slight thrill, the overall discomfort overwhelmed any enjoyment. All he wanted now was to return to his usual form and clothes.

Before entering the branch venue, Gregor had used a summoning ritual to bring his soul—originally stationed at the main venue—into the disguised body he now occupied. It had been Gregor himself dancing on stage. The reason he could replicate Adèle’s movements so precisely was thanks to a prayer to Akasha, who granted him the knowledge and experience needed.

In short, Dorothy had obtained Adèle’s dance experience and memories, and used them to inscribe a short excerpt of a Soul Codex for Gregor. This allowed him to quickly learn Adèle’s dance techniques. While he couldn't perfectly replicate her intangible charm, his imitation was otherwise flawless.

Now that the Eight-Spired members monitoring “Adèle” had left, it meant they had discovered the real Adèle was at the main venue. With their forces redeployed, Gregor also had to return there at once.

After all, that was the true main battlefield of this clash against the Eight-Spired Nest.

…

Dreamscape, the Forest.

In the boundless illusionary space of the Dreamscape, deep within its endless forests, a long-anticipated battle was now unfolding.

While the God of Dreams was still in the process of ascension, a confrontation had begun between the strongest leader of the Blackdream Hunting Pack and the invincible Dream Dragon. The question of who reigned as the most powerful being in the Dreamscape seemed close to being answered today. A battle that might be the final, most spectacular conflict of the past millennium in this realm was now underway—and its outcome would profoundly affect the future fate and direction of the Dreamscape.

At the massacre site where the Eight-Spired assault team had gathered, something felt off. Hovering among the towering trees of the Forest, Gu Mian flew in suspended vigilance, having arrived to aid his allies. His gaze locked onto the colossal figure up ahead, fury clearly burning in his expression.

“Dragon… after all our grudges, we finally… I never thought you would be able to—”

“ROAR!!”

Before Gu Mian could finish his sentence—barely even begun—his words were drowned by the earth-shaking roar of the mighty dragon. With a force as overwhelming as a tidal wave, the beast surged forward, bearing down on Gu Mian’s seemingly insignificant figure. Startled, Gu Mian furrowed his brow and snorted coldly. He beat his wings, dodging the dragon’s devastating charge with ghostlike agility.

The dragon roared again and lunged anew, but each attack was neatly evaded. Gu Mian relied on his small frame and extraordinary speed to weave past the onslaught like a phantom.

“Hmph. Going straight to blows, are we? Fine. I’ll oblige.”

With a frosty sneer, Gu Mian beat his wings again. This time, he shed a cloud of fine, invisible scale powder that drifted toward the dragon, forming a vast and unseen field of trap clouds in front of him.

This scale dust, highly potent against dream-forms, had an extremely strong hypnotic effect—capable of plunging dream-dwellers into an even deeper slumber, a second layer of dreaming in which they would be completely under Gu Mian’s control.

These scales were entirely formless, colorless, and odorless. Confident in their natural supremacy over dream-forms, Gu Mian believed that even a single touch would render the Dream Dragon incapacitated. All he needed was for the creature to foolishly charge at him again—it would instantly be caught in the trap cloud and fall.

Gu Mian understood well: this dragon was no Artcheli. Artcheli had disposable clones to scout for traps and probe attacks. This dragon, however, had only one body. A single mistake would mean the end—there was no margin for error.

That was Gu Mian’s expectation. But to his surprise, instead of charging recklessly like before, the dragon spread its massive wings and beat them furiously, summoning a violent gale through the Dreamscape that blew Gu Mian’s invisible trap cloud away.

After dispersing the scale dust, the dragon roared once again and came barreling forward.

“This dragon… can sense my scale dust?”

Startled by another narrow dodge, Gu Mian was genuinely surprised. His technique should have been a deadly ambush to any unprepared foe. How had the dragon sensed it ahead of time?

Even so, confusion was not enough to stall him. Gu Mian didn’t let up. Seeing his first tactic fail, he moved immediately to the next.

After narrowly avoiding yet another claw swipe, Gu Mian flew backward to gain distance. The patterns on his wings suddenly grew dazzling and surreal, pulsing with warped, undulating lines. From these mesmerizing, cryptic wings, he released waves of energy—waves that rapidly spread through the space, expanding ever outward toward the dragon.

Like the scale dust, this wave also carried a strong hypnotic effect. Designed specifically to ensnare dream-forms, it could induce a second-level sleep. Unlike the dust, however, these waves spread far more efficiently—rippling outward in a ring from a single point. In a short span, it could affect an enormous area. The larger the target, the harder it became to avoid. For something the size of a dragon, dodging was practically impossible—and gusts of wind had no effect on the wave. Even if the dragon sensed it coming, there was no effective way to counter it.

But just as Gu Mian spread his wings and released the silent, invisible wave, the dragon made no attempt to dodge. Instead, it thrust its head forward, opened its jaws, and spoke a deep, ancient word.

“FUS·RO—”

With a thunderous voice from another world, a massive shockwave burst from the dragon’s maw, distorting the very fabric of the Dreamscape as it swept outward.

Like Gu Mian’s sleep wave, the dragon’s shout was also a wave—but unlike the subtle and delicate pulses of Gu Mian’s magic, the dragon’s forceful shout was a brutal, raw surge of violence.

Just as ripples on water can interfere with one another, these two waves clashed. Gu Mian’s deep-sleep pulse, in this analogy, was like a dragonfly’s touch on the surface—fine, mesmerizing, and light. The dragon’s shout, however, was like a boulder hurled into the pond—less frequent but overwhelmingly powerful. The mighty shockwave instantly shattered the gentler ripples.

Thus, within the Dreamscape, as the two forces collided, Gu Mian’s hypnotic wave was utterly obliterated, and the remaining shockwave crashed toward him with unrelenting power.

Eyes wide with disbelief, Gu Mian had no time to react. Midair, with no footing to brace against, he was struck directly. The impact hurled him backward at breakneck speed. His body smashed into a towering tree—shattering straight through it. Then another. And only after slamming into the third tree did he finally come to a stop, leaving a huge dent and splintered cracks in the trunk.

Under that immense force, Gu Mian’s body was in terrible shape. His limbs bent at unnatural angles, as though broken. His wings were left torn and tattered.

“Ugh… What was… that…”

Pinned against the tree, Gu Mian staggered to rise, his face contorted in disbelief, clearly nursing internal injuries. But before he could fully recover, the furious dragon came roaring toward him again, claws like jagged scythes aimed straight for his battered frame.

Faced with this second, ferocious assault, Gu Mian could no longer rely on his speed to escape. In that instant, brilliant, multicolored light flickered across his body—then a swirling dreamgate-like glow enveloped him. In the blink of an eye, he vanished from the spot.

The dragon’s claw tore into the tree behind where he had been, landing with a thunderous crash—only to hit nothing but air.

After the attack missed, a swirl of rainbow light flashed high in the Dreamscape behind the dragon. Gu Mian’s body reappeared there—he had used a near-instantaneous Dreamscape teleport to reposition behind his enemy after losing the ability for fast maneuvers.

“Die!”

From behind, even as his body worked rapidly to repair itself, Gu Mian stretched out a hand, summoning an impossibly long, barbed tendril. With a powerful whip-like motion, he lashed it with vicious force toward the back of the dragon’s neck.

The whip lashed out—but as if the dragon had eyes in the back of its head, it instantly ducked, dodging the ambush. The tendril instead struck the giant tree that had previously blocked Gu Mian’s path—and cleanly sliced it in two. The tree collapsed with a thunderous rumble.

“Did it sense it?”

Watching the unfolding scene, Gu Mian couldn't help but wonder to himself. Just then, he noticed the dragon's thick, spiny tail whipping toward him. In a split-second decision, he once again activated a Dreamscape portal and teleported to another location.

This time, Gu Mian reappeared in mid-air below the dragon’s right side, intending to launch a sneak attack from a blind spot. But as soon as he materialized, before he could even fully steady himself, a massive claw swept toward him. The dragon’s enormous talon was already upon him by the time he emerged—Gu Mian barely dodged in a flash of alarm.

Faced with this, a surge of dread rose in Gu Mian’s chest. The dragon had clearly anticipated the destination of his teleport—it could perceive shifts in the Dreamscape’s spatial flow!

“What granted it such a terrifying ability!?”

As that question burned in his mind—and thinking back to how his scale dust and deep-sleep wave had both been seen through—an unsettling possibility dawned on Gu Mian.

“Arlovat! Is this your doing?!” he roared in anger.

But just then, another attack from the dragon came crashing down. Its other massive claw slammed toward him like a falling mountain. Gu Mian narrowly escaped once more by opening another dreamgate and leaping into the air above the dragon. At that moment, a black butterfly-shaped sigil on the dragon’s body gave off a faint dark glow.

With the buff granted by Saria's grandpa black cat, the dragon—Dorothy in draconic form—clearly perceived the direction of Gu Mian’s teleportation once more. She twisted her neck upward and locked eyes with the moth-winged foe just as he appeared above.

Gu Mian’s large wings had finished mending and now unfurled in full—radiant, mesmerizing, and noble in their glow. It looked like he was about to release another deep-sleep wave!

“FUS·RO…”

Seeing him prepare the attack, the dragon opened its mouth, initiating the ancient draconic shout again. But Gu Mian was ready. Just as the dragon finished uttering the “RO,” Gu Mian teleported—timing it precisely.

This was a calculated move.

Gu Mian’s plan was to bait the dragon into using its shout by faking a deep-sleep wave. He’d already experienced that mysterious shout once and had learned: the shockwave only followed after the shout was completed. So, if he waited until the dragon finished the “RO,” then teleported during the gap before the impact, he could both avoid the attack and counter with a sneak assault.

This was, in effect, a classic feint. The dragon had no option but to use the shout to defend against the wave. Gu Mian would trigger the wave, force the dragon’s hand, then dodge at the right moment. He didn’t believe any creature could unleash such a powerful shout twice within a single second.

So when the dragon reached the “RO,” Gu Mian launched his sneak attack from directly below.

His dazzling wings pulsed as hypnotic waves surged upward toward the dragon—this was his shot, during the “cooldown” of the dragon’s shout.

But to his utter shock, the dragon did not release a shockwave after “RO.” Instead, it suddenly shut its mouth, holding the shout back, then turned its head sharply downward—glaring directly at Gu Mian as he unleashed his attack. And then, it opened its mouth wide once again.

This time, Gu Mian heard something he had never heard before: the third syllable of the ancient roar—one that, according to legend, could bring down castle walls, shatter fortresses, and reshape the very land.

“DAH!”

BOOM!!!!

A deafening blast—greater than thunder, as if the heavens were collapsing—shook the entire forest, resounding across the Dreamscape. At the instant the ancient, primal rune was shouted, a brutal and boundless force was unleashed—elemental, massive, and unrelenting, erupting in a shockwave more visceral than any before.

Overwhelmed by terror, Gu Mian looked up helplessly as the roaring force descended from above like a collapsing mountain. He could’ve teleported away—if he weren’t mid-cast. But in this moment, he was locked in a casting state and unable to activate his dreamgate to escape…

This time, Dorothy had baited Gu Mian instead.

Gu Mian had misread the attack—he thought the earlier shout had been the dragon's full power. He had jumped the gun, teleporting too early. But he never imagined the shout had a third phase.

That horrifying realization flashed through his mind, and then—

CRASH!

The immense shockwave slammed into him like Mount Tai falling from the sky. He was smashed into the ground, burying him under titanic force. A deafening explosion erupted, sending dust and shattered earth flying skyward. The ground split apart, tremors radiated outward, and the towering trees with unstable root systems began to collapse like dominos.

And it didn’t end there.

The shockwave that struck the ground continued outward, rapidly expanding, affecting the broader region of the Dreamscape. Trees and grass were swept up like leaves in a storm. The violent gust reached even the distant Eight-Spired assault team who had been retreating from the battlefield.

Led by the Priest of Spider Eyes, the team was hit by the shockwave’s aftershock—even from afar. Their fragile dream-forms were instantly flung into giant trees, smashed to pieces, and scattered into clouds of spiritual light. The Priest of Spider Eyes himself was sent flying—his waist struck a branch with a sickening crack. His body was torn in two mid-air before the pieces smashed into the ground and dissolved into spiritual particles.

Though they had fled quickly, the Priest of Spider Eyes and his squad still shared the fate of their fallen comrades—death in the Dreamscape.

With this, all four priests of the Eight-Spired Nest—Fangs, Venom, Web, and Spider Eyes—as well as the Witch Regent, had now perished. Only the Grand Witch Regent remained. The leadership of the Eight-Spired Nest had been wiped out.

…

East of Tivian, far eastern seas of Pritt.

While countless tourists from Tivian and around the world enjoyed a day of clear skies and the grandeur of the World Expo opening ceremony, they had no idea that far out at sea, someone was fighting fiercely for the good weather they now took for granted.

Around this monumental opening ceremony, countless battles had flared up in secret and in the open. The fiercest was unfolding within the Dreamscape—but the conflict on these remote seas was no less intense. In fact, it might soon surpass the former in sheer ferocity.

Above the raging ocean waves, the sky was strange—half of it choked with dark clouds, while the other half remained a brilliant blue. Beneath this eerie sky, two colossal storms clashed violently, tearing through air and sea alike. Their collision disrupted sea currents below and shredded the stability of the clouds above.

Wearing the uniform of a high-ranking Pritt naval officer, Spring Despenser, the current Admiral of the Pritt Navy, soared through the skies at high speed, riding the gales. As he sped through the air, his eyes—reflecting eight sharp spines—remained locked on a petite knight clad in armor, who was also riding the storm with great velocity. He raised his sword and continuously fired massive, razor-sharp wind blades. The petite knight, however, manipulated the surrounding air currents to divert the incoming attacks, deflecting each blade down into the sea below.

In the intervals between attacks, the petite knight would swing her spear, directing compressed air like a heavy hammer to strike at Spring. Spring, in turn, mimicked her tactics—redirecting the incoming strikes just as she did his wind blades. The two thus fell into a tense stalemate.

These two powerful Beyonders, both masters of the storm, clashed above the sea, stirring the surrounding airflow into an uncontrollable frenzy. The waves below surged to terrifying heights, the sea boiling with ceaseless crashes of water and wind. The Pritt naval fleet, previously sailing steadily upon the waters, now suffered greatly.

Tossed about by the raging waves, the massive warships of the Pritt fleet—under Spring’s command—rose and fell violently. Even ships weighing tens of thousands of tons rocked without pause, rendering the sailors aboard unable to stabilize or aim any of the cannons in support of their admiral’s aerial battle.

Under normal circumstances, Pritt’s navy was staffed with numerous officers of the Black Earth and White Ash ranks from Storm Path, who used their powers and the ships’ mystical devices to keep vessels balanced. But after more than a week of expelling rainclouds over Tivian, these Aeromancers had all but exhausted their spirituality. They no longer had the strength to maintain combat readiness.

The long-running cloud-expulsion operation—carried out for Tivian and nearly half of Pritt’s eastern coastline—had consumed a vast amount of mystical power. Even Crimson-rank storm officers couldn’t sustain it alone. Much of the operation’s spirituality came not from individuals but from a collective network: the officers of the White Ash and Black Earth ranks, and spiritual reserves stored aboard the ships. These officers had conducted a complex ritual enabling Admiral Spring to channel and amplify their strength for long-term weather manipulation. But now, their energy was nearly depleted, and they could offer him no support in battle.

With their spirituality exhausted, the fleet could no longer assist in the Crimson-rank aerial battle above. As the storm intensified and with no direct orders from Spring, several prudent high-ranking officers began issuing commands to retreat, using the remaining mystical resources to steer the ships away from the battlefield to avoid further risk.

Meanwhile, high in the sky, Spring continued battling the mysterious knight who had suddenly appeared. As both wielded their command of wind in countless forms, they maneuvered through the air at astonishing speeds. Their combat was a relentless dance—diving and soaring—guiding storms between sea and sky, their clashing turbulence creating violent eddies across the battlefield.

“Admiral Spring! As the supreme commander of the Pritt Navy, don’t you realize what you’re doing is endangering your nation? Please… wake up! Don’t become a puppet of an evil god…”

In a close encounter, the petite knight cried out with a voice like that of a young girl. But her plea stirred no emotion in Spring. His face remained cold and unmoved, revealing that the Eight-Spired sigil in his eyes marked him as a pawn of the God of Schemes.

Realizing her words were in vain, the knight could only continue the battle.

During a sharp dive from high altitude, the knight dropped to sea level faster than Spring. With a sweep of her spear, she channeled the force of a massive wave and the wind to amplify it—sending it surging like a wall of water straight toward Spring.

Spring immediately halted his descent and fired an enormous air cannon. The blast struck the incoming wave, shattering it into a cloud of mist with a thunderous crash that blanketed his field of vision. As he used wind to disperse the mist, he discovered that the knight had vanished.

Just then, intense air currents suddenly twisted up from the sea, drawing in water to form seven or eight massive waterspouts. These towering vortexes coiled and lashed toward Spring from all directions. Unfazed, he swung his sword, unleashing air cannons to shatter each waterspout one by one.

But every time a waterspout was destroyed, it released more mist into the air, steadily reducing visibility. Spring couldn’t afford to expend energy on dispersing the mist with wide-area winds—he had to conserve his power for the pinpoint blasts needed to break the incoming waterspouts. Each shattered vortex added to the mist density, and the air around him grew ever thicker with water vapor.

Only the direction from which he had just fired remained clear. The storm shield surrounding Spring only cleared a small area around him—beyond that, the mist grew denser and denser. He planned to use large-scale wind techniques to clear the space once he had eliminated all of the waterspouts.

But by the time he struck down the final waterspout, visibility around him had dropped to nearly zero. The sound of crashing waves masked his hearing. For a moment, all of his senses were dulled.

Then—suddenly—the surface of the sea beneath him exploded.

From beneath the waves emerged the knight, who had dived with a large air bubble under cover of the surf. Her spear, wrapped in spiraling wind, pierced straight through Spring’s storm shield.

Using the fog and waves for cover, she had launched a flawless breakthrough. She shattered Spring’s barrier. Spring, seeing this, chose not to elementalize and dodge. Instead, he thrust his sword downward, releasing a powerful jet of wind to blast himself aside—just narrowly evading a fatal blow.

Still, the spear grazed his left side. The "Stone" armor over his skin was torn apart with ease, and fresh blood burst forth.

In Crimson-rank battles between elementalists of the same domain, both sides were usually extremely cautious about using elementalization. If one elementalized and the other didn’t, the elementalized party could become vulnerable—their new elemental form might be something the opponent could directly control.

For example, in a duel between two Heavenly Flame Saints, both wielded power over fire. If one of them turned into flame and the other had stronger control or spirituality, the transformed one could be forcibly seized and manipulated.

Thus, neither side dared to elementalize first—lest they turn into something the other could dominate.

Thus, in duels between Crimson-rank elementalists of the same element, both parties would strive to maintain their human form, staying beyond the opponent’s range of elemental control. Whoever elementalized first was at a disadvantage. The same applied to these two Storm Path Beyonders—this was precisely why Spring had chosen to take the young knight’s ambush head-on at the waist, rather than risk elementalizing to escape.

After being injured by the knight, Spring quickly soared back into the sky at high speed. He immediately consumed a piece of Chalice jerky and applied a Chalice sigil to stabilize his severe wounds. Then he looked down grimly at the knight below.

By now, after several rounds of combat, Spring had come to understand: although the girl was also a Storm Path Beyonder at the Crimson rank like himself, her actual combat strength surpassed his. She had held back the natural movement of clouds across an enormous portion of the sky while simultaneously fighting him—and even gained the upper hand. That alone proved her strength was firmly above his. If it were a one-on-one fight, he stood almost no chance.

However, Spring also knew this was never meant to be a fair one-on-one fight...

Taking advantage of Spring’s injury, the girl once again rode the storm, spear in hand, and darted toward him at high speed. But halfway through her charge, a sudden and unnatural turbulence stirred from another part of the sky. Sensing danger, she instinctively dodged—and a sharp, massive wind blade whooshed past her, crashing into the sea below.

Startled, she turned toward the direction from which the wind blade had come—and saw a young man suspended in the air.

He had golden hair slicked back, a handsome face devoid of emotion, wore a high-ranking Pritt military uniform, and in his eyes were eight sharp spines—identical to Spring’s.

The newcomer was Harold Despenser, Director of the Pritt Serenity Bureau! Just like Spring, he was a Crimson-rank high-ranking royal of Pritt—both now corrupted by the Spider Queen. His arrival here could mean only one thing: reinforcements.

“...Both of them… are high-ranking royals of the kingdom?” the knight murmured in dismay as she faced two Crimson-rank Pritt powerhouses. But Harold and Spring, both now under the Spider Queen’s control, offered her no reply. Without a word, they surged toward her, riding twin storms. She raised her spear to face them with solemn resolve.

In an instant, three raging storms collided between sea and sky, intertwining with tremendous force, churning the waves even more violently.

The one-on-one had turned into a two-on-one, and the pressure on the knight increased dramatically. Her dominance was gone. Now caught in a two-front battle, she was struggling.

Even so, despite falling into disadvantage, the knight didn’t collapse. Instead, she endured with gritted teeth, gradually shifting the battle toward a region of thick clouds. Her aim: to use the three-way Crimson-rank clash and the tremendous shockwaves generated to forcibly disperse the massive cumulonimbus she was originally trying to block.

Harold and Spring, however, quickly realized her intent. They disengaged from the direct skirmish and retreated in different directions.

Then, they stopped attacking her altogether.

Instead, both men extended their powers into the sky. Their individual currents merged into one, and they began forcefully driving the cloudmass toward Tivian—shoving it through the barrier the knight had set.

Harold and Spring had figured it out: there was no need to fight the knight head-on. All they needed to do was flee and focus on pushing the rainclouds forward. For Crimson-rank Aeromancers, full-power retreat required little spirituality, allowing them to channel most of their power into cloud propulsion. And the knight's solitary wind barrier couldn’t withstand two Crimson-rank push forces at once.

Seeing their new tactic, the knight found herself momentarily overwhelmed. If they refused to engage directly, there was little she could do. She tried to pursue one, only to be blocked by the other. It was impossible to reach either target in time.

This wouldn't work. She simply couldn't stop them from driving the clouds. Once they realized that victory didn’t require defeating her, she was placed in an impossible situation.

Faced with this, the knight's expression turned serious. She looked silently at the heavy clouds pressing forward overhead—then, without a word, turned and flew rapidly away.

She had abandoned the idea of directly confronting Harold and Spring or stopping the clouds herself. Instead, she raced toward the clear skies above the calm sea, far away from the other two.

Seeing her departure, Harold and Spring assumed she had given up. They didn’t pursue. Instead, they focused on advancing the rainclouds toward Tivian.

What they didn’t see was this—

Far from the battlefield, now flying above the sunlit waters of the sea, the knight came to a halt. She first looked down at the gentle sea below, then up at the blazing sun above.

After a short pause, she raised her spear skyward, pointed to the heavens, and quietly began to chant. Her spirituality and power radiated outward, spreading into the distance.

“By the will of the noble ‘True Heir King,’

In the name of sacred and ancient law,

In the name of Field,

I beseech the right to spread my power upon the sacred territorial seas of Pritt...”

Whispering softly, the knight initiated a ritual. Her spirituality and control expanded at great speed, radiating from her as the center, quickly enveloping the eastern territorial waters of Pritt’s main island.

Under the influence of an ancient power—one tied to the phrase “since time immemorial”—her spiritual presence reached far beyond herself, merging with the atmosphere and the wind.

She was beginning to control.

Although “control” might be too strong a word—such massive airflow across hundreds of kilometers was beyond what her current spiritual restraints could fully dominate—what she was truly doing was guiding it. Guiding the air currents toward a force that had always been there, that had always existed, and accelerating it.

Under the knight’s spiritual guidance, the vast eastern seas beyond Pritt’s main island slowly began to shift.

“…Huh? What’s going on?”

“The wind… the wind’s changing?”

Many kilometers away, sailors near Tivian’s harbor suddenly noticed the change in air currents. One of them looked up and toward the east—toward a place he could not possibly see: where the knight now stood.

It wasn’t just the coastal waters west of the girl knight, near Tivian’s docks, that felt the change. Across vast distances—in the north, south, and east—the winds that had once blown steadily across the seas began to shift. All began to converge from every direction toward a single distant point: the location of the girl knight.

These winds, drawn from all directions, spiraled around her in a vortex. They swirled at her side, climbing higher and higher into the sky, spinning faster and faster.

To the east of the girl knight, Harold and Spring, who had been pushing the clouds forward, also sensed something wrong. At first, the strong gusts—seemingly natural—were blowing eastward, toward Tivian, which reassured them. They allowed the clouds to ride the wind. But not long after, both Harold and Spring noticed something strange.

The wind wasn’t continuing eastward—it began to curve northward. It twisted gradually, steering toward a central point.

Sensing that something was amiss, Harold and Spring immediately attempted to redirect the clouds, steering them back on course. But the longer they struggled, the stronger this “natural wind” became—so strong that even their combined wind powers couldn’t control it anymore.

Faced with this strange phenomenon, both men showed clear confusion in their eyes. They couldn’t understand why such an overwhelming natural wind had suddenly appeared—or why it twisted in such an unnatural pattern.

Had they been high enough in the sky to look down upon the ocean east of Pritt, they would have seen the truth.

A massive cyclone was forming over the vast eastern seas of Pritt. This great spiraling force was drawing in surrounding cloud systems, sweeping them into an ever-expanding vortex. Even the cloud system they had once controlled was now being sucked into it.

Under the pull of this powerful cyclone, Harold and Spring could no longer resist. They could only watch helplessly as the broad cloud masses were steadily drawn away.

Under the cyclone’s canopy, storm winds howled, waves surged skyward, and torrential rains poured. As the vortex grew, the unstoppable storm spread until it reached directly above Harold and Spring.

Struggling in the storm, trying desperately to reclaim control of the cloudmass, Spring suddenly realized something. His eyes widened in shock as memories of past voyages near tropical seas came to mind.

“This is… a hurricane?!”

“How is that possible?! Hurricanes don’t happen in Pritt!”

Even corrupted by the Spider Queen, Spring couldn’t help but shout in disbelief. Everything before him—massive waves, screaming winds, the sheer scale—was unmistakably a hurricane. Yet it was the kind of weather utterly impossible in the Prittish seas. Such immense systems, spanning hundreds of kilometers, were beyond anything even multiple Crimson-rank Storm Path Beyonders could create. Their spirituality simply couldn’t support phenomena on this scale.

So what in the world was happening?!

At the center of that forming cyclone, amidst the violent storm clouds and rain, stood the girl knight—floating with her spear held high. The flag upon it flapped violently in the roaring wind.

“Just as my teacher said… With just a little guidance and push, something like this can truly take shape…”

“…Knowledge really is incredible…”

Staring at the towering waves before her, Anna muttered in awe.

What she was now creating was a small-scale hurricane, or more precisely—a typhoon. In nature, this was one of the most powerful and large-scale storm phenomena that could exist.

The energy required to sustain a typhoon was astronomical—even a group of Crimson-rank Beyonders combined couldn’t match it. That was why, as Anna finished shaping the typhoon’s embryonic vortex, Harold and Spring had lost all ability to resist. Their control over the clouds had crumbled.

Of course, such an immense and high-energy weather system wasn’t something Anna could conjure from scratch. What she had done was recognize a rare natural opportunity for a typhoon to form—then use her spirituality to subtly guide and trigger it across vast distances, maintaining a fragile degree of control at key inflection points.

Spring had said earlier that Pritt was a temperate nation—under normal conditions, the seas should be incapable of spawning typhoons. The key problem was temperature: the seawater simply wasn’t warm enough. Or at least… normally it wasn’t.

But the recent situation was far from normal.

To avoid having their sabotage efforts in the souvenir materials discovered too early, the Eight-Spired Nest and Blackdream had covertly manipulated Tivian's weather. They used the local army and navy, enslaving Aeromancers and Crimson-rank forces, to forcibly disperse clouds from Tivian and its surrounding regions. For over a week, the entire eastern sea of Pritt had been unnaturally clear.

Over seven straight days of aggressive cloud-clearing—combined with the fact that it was currently midsummer—meant that the sun had been scorching the ocean without obstruction. As a result, the water temperature in that region had risen abnormally high compared to other temperate areas, creating a low-pressure zone—an extremely rare condition in these seas that just barely made a typhoon possible.

And what Anna had done was guide that tiny probability into reality, then continuously accelerate it.

The theoretical foundation behind this maneuver came from Dorothy, who had taught Anna specialized knowledge to enhance her mastery of the Storm Path. For example: Atmospheric Dynamics.

What allowed Anna to affect such a massive area was her legal connection to Pritt’s national authority. What allowed her to actually pull it off was a level of rigorous, well-structured knowledge that transcended even the current age.

Knowledge like this—even the upper echelons of the Pritt Kingdom couldn’t fully grasp.

“Knowledge… is meant to harness power.”

Looking around at the raging storm, Anna whispered in sudden clarity. As the miniature typhoon system stabilized, the dense clouds above her gradually parted, forming a circular eye at the storm’s center. The winds around her began to fade, the rotating wall of clouds spiraling outward from her position. Sunlight streamed down through the eye, casting a divine glow on her armor.

Now… all Anna had to do was maintain the typhoon at sea, hold it in place for as long as she could—

And then, no Storm Path power in the world could ever again wrest control of the clouds from her hands.