The battlefield held its breath.

Thousands of eyes turned toward the ruined sector where broken stone walls stood like ancient tombstones. The distant sounds of explosions and roars continued echoing across the horizon, but something else had begun to emerge from that desolate area.

A figure walked out of the rubble.

His dark hair fell across his face in tangled strands. His purple eyes burned with cold, unwavering light.

Victor walked.

His feet touched the blood soaked ground with each step. The mud and gore splashed around his boots, but he did not slow down. His hands remained clasped behind his back. His spine remained perfectly straight.

Around his body, countless swords of condensed light materialized endlessly. Each sword radiated terrifying pressure. Each sword hummed with the promise of death. They revolved around him like a planetary ring, casting golden reflections across the devastated landscape.

Behind him, the glowing swords followed like a loyal army awaiting command.

---

An Adept Rank monster resembling a lion covered in jagged bone armor roared from ahead. Its muscles bulged as it charged toward Victor with jaws wide open, drool dripping from countless fangs. Behind it, a dozen more Adept Rank monsters joined the assault.

Victor did not even slow his walking pace.

A single light sword detached from the formation around him. It shot forward silently.

Whoosh.

The sword passed through the lion monster’s skull as though bone were butter. Black blood exploded outward. The creature’s body convulsed midair before crashing onto the ground at Victor’s feet.

He stepped over the corpse without looking down.

Three more Adept Rank monsters lunged from the left. Five from the right. Victor kept walking.

Eight swords detached.

Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh.

Eight bodies collapsed into the mud. Black blood sprayed across Victor’s robes. He did not blink.

The monsters ahead finally stopped moving. They stared at the walking young man with something resembling fear in their glowing eyes. Their instincts screamed at them to retreat.

Victor continued walking.

---

Far across the battlefield, an Apprentice Rank mage knelt among the ruins. Her staff had shattered beside her. Blood poured from countless wounds across her arms and chest. Her vision blurred as an Adept Rank monster approached slowly, savoring her terror.

She closed her eyes.

"Someone... please help..."

A sword of pure light shot across the battlefield from hundreds of meters away. It moved like a golden comet.

The Adept monster above her froze mid step. Its head tilted slightly before separating cleanly from its neck. The body collapsed sideways. Black blood splashed across the mage’s face.

She opened her eyes slowly.

The monster lay dead beside her.

In the distance, a dark haired young man continued walking, not even glancing in her direction. His path was taking him toward the heart of the battlefield.

The mage’s lips trembled.

"Thank you..."

Tears mixed with blood on her cheeks.

---

Across the battlefield, an Adept Rank genius from the Royal Warrior Academy fought desperately against three Adept Rank monsters simultaneously. His sword had broken twice. His shield was nothing but scrap metal. Both arms screamed with agony every time he raised them.

"I cannot fall here," he growled.

He blocked a claw strike with his broken blade. The impact sent him sliding backward across the bloody earth. His boots dug deep trenches into the soil.

The three monsters advanced together.

Then two light swords appeared from nowhere, streaking across the battlefield with terrifying speed.

The first sword pierced through the left monster’s chest and exploded out its back. The second sword decapitated the right monster before the creature could even turn its head.

The middle monster froze. It looked toward the source of the swords.

A young man walked toward it from a hundred meters away. His robes were soaked in blood. His face was covered in crimson. But his purple eyes stared directly at the monster with absolute indifference.

The monster tried to run.

A third sword shot forward.

Thump.

Its body fell forward and slid across the ground, stopping at the feet of the walking young man. Victor stepped over it.

The Adept Rank genius stared at the three corpses around him. His hands shook uncontrollably.

He looked toward Victor’s retreating back.

"Who... who are you exactly?"

Victor did not answer. He kept walking.

---

This scene repeated across the entire battlefield.

Everywhere Victor walked, monsters died.

An Adept monster raised its claws to strike down a wounded awakener. A light sword shot across the battlefield and ended its existence.

Three Adept monsters surrounded a trapped squad. Three light swords streaked through the air and silenced them forever.

A massive horde of hundreds of monsters charged toward a collapsing defensive line. Dozens of light swords rained down like divine punishment and left nothing but corpses behind.

Victor never stopped walking. He never raised his hands. He never spoke a single word.

The swords simply shot from his position. The monsters simply died.

And humanity simply watched in stunned, tearful silence.

---

The live broadcast continued transmitting across the entire world.

Every television. Every communication crystal. Every scrying pool. Everyone saw what was happening.

In underground bunkers, civilians huddled together while watching the floating screens before them. Mothers covered their children’s eyes but could not look away themselves. Fathers gripped their wives’ hands until knuckles turned white.

Tears streamed down countless faces.

"That young man... he is fighting alone..."

"Is he... is he human?"

An old woman watching from a shelter in the eastern federation collapsed to her knees. Her wrinkled hands pressed against the screen.

"He is just a child," she whispered. "Why is a child fighting alone?"

Beside her, a young girl no older than twelve stared at the screen with wide eyes.

"Grandma... is he going to die?"

The old woman could not answer. She could only cry.

---

On the battlefield, Victor spat blood.

His body was breaking.

The light swords wavered slightly before stabilizing again. Blood leaked from his nose and dripped down his chin. His ears bled. His eyes bled. Every pore of his body seemed to weep crimson.

But the swords never stopped.

Space cracked around each sword as they flew. Those tiny fractures in reality amplified the spell power tremendously. Each sword struck with five times its original force. The combination of light element and spatial tears created destruction beyond normal comprehension.

Normally, an Apprentice Rank mage could never sustain such power. But Victor was not normal. His physical body had reached absurd levels of durability. His mana circuits, though screaming in agony, refused to shatter.

Even many Adept Rank awakeners lacked his bodily resilience. That was the only reason he could forcibly comprehend higher ranked magic without instantly crippling himself.

But even that resilience had limits.

He had comprehended two Adept Rank spells while still at the Apprentice Realm. The sword rain spell carried the power of a true Adept mage, provided his body could sustain the pressure. And his body could. Barely.

But only this spell was Adept Rank. The other spells in his grimoire remained at lower tiers. If he had mastered an Adept Rank spell from his own grimoire, all his elemental spells would have similar combat prowess. That was the difference between him and a true genius of higher realms.

Yet none of that mattered now. He needed to kill. He needed to protect.

He could feel himself approaching his limits rapidly.

Yet he did not stop. He could not stop.

Because if he stopped, everyone behind him would die.

---

The Elite monsters across the battlefield finally recognized the true threat.

Until now, only Adept Rank monsters had engaged Victor. They had died by the hundreds. But the Elite monsters, one realm above Adept, had been occupied with crushing humanity’s strongest defenders.

Now they turned their attention toward the walking young man.

One of them roared loudly. The sound echoed across the entire region. It was a call to arms. A recognition of a common enemy.

Thousands of Elite monsters stopped attacking the human forces. They turned their heads simultaneously. Thousands of glowing eyes locked onto the blood soaked figure walking through the corpse strewn mud.

Then they charged.

All of them.

Thousands of Elite Rank monsters surged toward Victor like a tidal wave of claws, fangs, and destruction. The ground shook beneath their collective charge. The air itself screamed as they approached. Dust and debris rose in a massive cloud behind them.

Each Elite monster was strong enough to slaughter entire squads of Adept awakeners alone. Together, they could level mountains.

Humans below stared in horror.

"No..."

"He cannot fight all of them alone!"

"Someone help him!"

But nobody could move. The pressure from thousands of Elite monsters paralyzed even the strongest remaining awakeners. Their legs refused to obey. Their hands trembled too violently to hold weapons.

Victor looked up at the charging horde.

His bloody lips curved upward slightly.

A cold smile.