Chapter 278: Chapter 53: Legend! Legend! (Part 1)

Stay?

The future was uncertain.

But Murphy had simply been standing aside the entire time, watching everything with a detached gaze.

He neither approved nor disapproved of Raymond’s decision, nor did he show any emotion about whether he would stay or leave.

His gaze slowly swept over the shrinking passage, the dense horde of monsters, the distant burning fortress, and the group of hesitant survivors. And then...

THUD!!!

Murphy moved.

He didn’t say a word. He simply took a single, ordinary step forward.

His right foot landed nonchalantly on the solid ground beneath him.

A terrifying boom—incredibly muffled, yet seeming to detonate directly in everyone’s chest—erupted suddenly!

It wasn’t the simple sound of a footstep. It was more like a mountain suddenly crashing down to earth!

Centered on where Murphy’s right foot had landed, the solid ground instantly caved in as if struck by an invisible sledgehammer, forming a shallow crater more than three meters in diameter!

Countless gruesome, spiderweb-like cracks, tens of centimeters deep, crazily spread outward with a great CRACKLE, instantly extending more than ten meters away!

An invisible shockwave blasted a mixture of gravel and dust, reeking of sulfur and rusted metal, into a gray-black ring of air that swept out in all directions!

Knight Armand, the highlander in the wolfskin, and others who were closer were sent staggering back several steps by the sudden, terrifying shockwave and tremor. Their faces were instantly overcome with utter disbelief and shock!

Ostun, who was a little farther away and nervously craning his neck, was so frightened he collapsed limply to the ground, his lips trembling and his eyes vacant.

For a moment, the entire mountain hollow seemed to tremble from that single, casual step.

Dead silence.

Even the faint sounds of distant battle and monstrous roars seemed to have been momentarily silenced by the earth-shattering event.

Everyone’s gaze was fixed on Murphy—on his figure, which shot forward toward Blackstone Fortress at a terrifying speed, like a crossbow arrow fired from a giant ballista.

"What... what is...?" The Iron Wall Imperial Guard Commander was the first to react. For the first time, a look of sheer horror appeared on his face, pale from blood loss. He stared at the devastation at Murphy’s feet as if he had seen a monster.

"The pulse of the earth? No... this is pure... power!" The highlander in the wolfskin’s eyes went wide. He had felt the weight of earth’s power before, but he had never witnessed such tyrannical, undisguised, terrifying destruction wrought by a single stomp of a physical body!

Knight Armand’s eyes, which had been somewhat unfocused from blood loss and exhaustion, suddenly sharpened, becoming as piercing as lightning.

He watched Murphy’s departing back, then looked at the shocking cracks in the ground. It was as if a bolt of lightning flashed through his mind, instantly connecting many overlooked details.

"So that’s how it is... So that’s how it is!" he muttered, his voice trembling with either shock or realization. "N-No wonder you didn’t need Starlight Healing to stabilize your realm and seek a breakthrough... Because your foundation was already far beyond the need for stabilization... Were you already trying to cross that threshold before you entered the Deep Red Wilderness? No... that’s not right..."

Knight Armand shook his head violently, his eyes shining even brighter as he voiced an unbelievable theory. "The Heart of the Fierce Sun! You wanted the Heart of the Fierce Sun! That frenzied, tyrannical potion that nearly drains one’s potential... That’s for... Legendary Knights... But for someone whose foundation is solid enough to withstand its impact, someone who needs a massive amount of energy for that final ignition and qualitative change, it’s no less than a precious Treasure Medicine!"

"D-Don’t tell me... you completed your final breakthrough... in the Deep Red Wilderness?" Armand’s voice rose with excitement and shock. "In that chaotic and malevolent energy environment? How is that possible!"

"A Legendary... Knight!" Ostun of the Golden Coast, still sprawled on the ground, shot his head up as if with a final burst of energy and cried out, his face a mixture of extreme fear and disbelief. "Lord Melfield... He... he’s broken through to the Legendary Realm!"

"He definitely hadn’t before we entered the passage!" said the older of the Storm Twin Blades Brothers, who had lost an arm, struggling to speak. His face was deathly pale, but his eyes were exceptionally sharp. "When he was ambushed outside Ximu Town, even though he was powerful enough to slay a Giant Scorching Beast, the characteristics of his Life Energy were definitely still within the scope of the Peak of Mortality!"

"Breaking through to the Legendary Realm in an Alternate Plane?" his younger brother added hoarsely, his dazed eyes filled with profound shock. "The energy of the Deep Red Wilderness is incompatible with our Main World, full of chaotic corruption... The success rate for a breakthrough there is less than one in a hundred. The slightest mistake could lead to an energy backlash, the destruction of one’s foundation, or even assimilation by the chaos... How... how did he do it?"

"Perhaps... it was precisely because the Deep Red Wilderness is so dangerous, because the pressure was so extreme, that it forced a breakthrough?" the Iron Wall Imperial Guard Commander’s deep voice sounded. The veins on the back of the hand gripping his lance bulged, betraying his inner turmoil. "To find life in death’s domain... But what terrifying willpower and foundation would be needed to withstand that!"

He raised his head, his gaze fixed on the direction in which Murphy had disappeared.

This quiet, reserved, and even somewhat unremarkable Governor of Monte Territory now seemed utterly foreign and larger than life in his eyes, as if shrouded in an invisible, awe-inspiring halo.

To shatter the earth with a single step was a symbol of ultimate control over one’s physical power, a sign that one’s very life essence had undergone a leap—one of the true marks of stepping into the Legendary Realm!

And he had done it in that godforsaken place, the Deep Red Wilderness!

This completely overturned his understanding of cultivation and breakthroughs!

The highlander swallowed hard. Coming from a tribe, he believed more in intuition and power itself.

Murphy’s stomp had no flashy lights, no complex techniques. It was the simplest, most direct manifestation of violence, yet it contained an oppressive pressure that made his very soul tremble.

This was definitely a level of power that surpassed the mortal realm!

"Where... where is he going?" Ostun asked tremulously, staring in the direction Murphy had vanished, his voice filled with confusion. "He... he just left?"

Knight Armand took a deep breath, suppressing the tempest in his heart. His gaze shifted back to the sky-high flames over Blackstone Fortress, then down at the ghastly cracks at his feet, and an irrepressible thought arose.

"Reinforce the fortress?" he muttered to himself, his expression complex. "As a Legend... all by himself?"

"A-All by himself?" Ostun, still on the ground, seemed to have been jolted awake by those words. He struggled to prop himself up, his voice sharp with agitation. "He just left? Just like that... abandoned us here? He’s a Legend! He clearly could have..."

"No, he already saved us," the highlander cut him off, glancing at the surrounding monsters, which had silently retreated dozens of meters and dared not approach. He grunted heavily. "The aura and traces he left behind have intimidated these things. For a short while, at least, they won’t dare come near this area."

Silence fell over the hollow once again.

But this silence was completely different from before.

Mixed in with the fear and confusion was a thread of indescribable shock, and a faint, newly kindled glimmer of hope.

As for Murphy, his figure had long since vanished into the vast mountain range.

All that remained was the huge crater, the ring of spreading cracks, and a group of survivors with incredibly complicated feelings.