The battle in the city raged on.
More lives were lost.
Some grew stronger amidst the chaos.
Others lost everything they held dear.
And a few, like Brian, found themselves at the most pivotal moments of their lives.
Boom!
Brian didn’t know how long he’d been trading blows, but it felt like an eternity.
At this point, his appearance had changed drastically.
His hair was now snow white, not with the elegance of age, but the pallor of illness.
His body had grown gaunt and pale, exuding a heavy sense of weakness despite the terrifying aura radiating from him.
Also.
His left arm was missing.
“Give up… cough, cough…”
In the void, Peter tried once more to persuade Brian to surrender, only to end up coughing blood.
His face turned ashen.
He knew his time was running out.
If the battle dragged on any longer, he wouldn’t survive.
This was why he had never wanted to face the “Mad Phoenix.”
Having a strong Law was one thing, but having a Law among the strongest was entirely different.
Brian’s Law.
The Law of Eternal Embers.
Peter had often called it the nemesis of nearly everything, even those of its kind.
In the beginning, Peter had held the upper hand.
As a Rank 5 cultivator with a more complete Law, his energy far exceeded Brian’s.
Though the Law of Eternal Embers was a force that consumed anything and everything for energy, it functioned much like feeding a dog—no matter how much it could eat, there was always a limit, and it couldn’t be fed its entire capacity all at once.
Similarly, while the Law of Eternal Embers could devour most things, it had its own constraints. Yet, countering it was even more challenging, as attempting to extinguish its flames with an overwhelming surge of Law energy often backfired—turning the excess energy into fuel for its insatiable fire.
However, even a rank 5 cultivator had his limits.
Now, Peter was barely holding on.
The only thing keeping him alive was the thin barrier of energy coating his body, shielding him from the flames. But it was a temporary measure.
The Law of Eternal Embers continued to feed on his energy, growing stronger with every passing moment.
The void they were trapped in was in shambles, chaotic energy tearing through it, threatening to collapse at any moment.
Yet Brian, holding a treasure that could have allowed him to escape, made no move to leave.
One of them was going to die here.
And Brian had already decided.
The sea of blue flames swirled around him, their glow illuminating his gaunt figure as he spoke.
His voice was deep and calm, unshaken by the chaos around him.
“Have you ever regretted killing… Isabella in these past 50 years?”
Peter had initially been relieved seeing Brian finally open his mouth to speak.
Ever since the first blow was thrown, not a single word had been exchanged between them.
Seeing Brian turn to address him made Peter almost believe the mad phoenix wasn’t as suicidal as he seemed.
However, it was clear he thought too much. Or rather, thought too soon.
“What bullshit are you talking about?” Peter finally snapped.
He barely had any energy left, and he could feel the terrifying flames of the Law of Eternal Embers closing in on him.
Any moment now, if the flames touched his physical body, it would be over.
The fear of death clawed at him, and the words he expected didn’t come.
Brian repeated his question.
“Have you ever regretted killing… Isabella in these past 50 years?”
Though his voice was emotionless, there was something in the way he said it.
If Peter had paid attention, he might have noticed how much this question meant to Brian.
And it did.
Brian didn’t expect this to change the result of their battle, but he wanted to know.
He wanted to know if Peter—the friend he had once trusted, laughed with, and shared everything with—still existed somewhere beneath the bitterness and hatred.
“Why the hell would I care about her?!”
“Why?!”
“Why?!”
“Why would I care about the daughter of the woman you stole from me?!”
“Why did Lira choose you and not me?!”
“Why?!”
“Why has everything always gone your way?!”
“Why?!”
“Why are you so much better than me?!”
“Why?! Why?!”
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Peter’s voice cracked as the words tumbled out, his tears falling freely.
Brian didn’t respond.
He stood there silently as every word hit him like a blade.
He had suspected Peter’s bitterness but hadn’t realized just how deeply it ran.
Memories flooded his mind.
For the first time, Brian questioned himself.
Had he really been a good friend?
But that didn’t matter anymore.
Whatever Peter’s reasons, whatever his bitterness, it didn’t excuse Isabella’s death.
She was innocent.
She hadn’t deserved to die for her father’s actions.
Brian’s grief and anger burned brighter than ever.
He didn’t wait for Peter’s energy to be fully depleted.
“Blaze of Devoural.”
“Noooooooo!” Peter screamed, his voice full of despair.
“Goodbye, friend,” Brian said softly.
And then the flames consumed everything.
At first, driven by the rage that had consumed him throughout the battle, Brian planned to slowly burn Peter to ashes if he emerged victorious.
But in the end, he couldn’t bring himself to do it—not to his old friend.
Instead, he granted Peter a quick death.
It might not have been painless, but it was swift.
“If reincarnation exists… I hope your next life treats you better,” Brian murmured.
His focus shifted elsewhere.
Though he had erased Peter’s existence from the world, Brian hadn’t truly destroyed everything of his.
Not completely.
Well, In truth, what remained was never really Peter’s to begin with.
“Isabella,” Brian whispered, his gaze falling to the darkness swirling in his palm—a law seed.
This small object carried a connection to two of the most important people in his heart.
A law seed was an incredibly rare resource.
With it, a peak Rank 4 cultivator could immediately begin advancing toward Rank 5, making it highly sought after.
It could also be consumed by those who had comprehended a law but had yet to fuse it into their own seed, accelerating their progress.
Even Rank 5 cultivators coveted such seeds to speed their cultivation.
But Brian had no intention of using it in the traditional sense.
Not when it was the last tangible connection to his daughter.
Clothing and material possessions decayed over time.
They could be carefully preserved but their meaning could never compare to what this organ in his hand represented.
“With this… I’ve avenged you, Isabella. Lira… I’m sorry. Peter… why…?”
In the end, the ever-cold Brian broke down, tears spilling from his eyes.
For the sake of vengeance, he had sacrificed everything.
But in doing so, the bottleneck that had trapped him for so long began to loosen.
Freed from the shackles of hatred, the once-stagnant barrier to Rank 5 cultivation started to dissolve.
A terrifying aura emanated from Brian’s body as his sobs subsided.
“I guess what remains now is to…”
His voice grew firm.
“Become a god.”
It was the goal he had promised to the three people who mattered most to him.
For the first time in a long while, Brian felt that hunger for power reignite within him.
He glanced down at the law seed in his hand.
Perhaps, after reaching the godly realm, he could finally fulfill ‘that.’
Determined, Brian sat cross-legged in the void, his expression resolute.
“King Rank, Emperor Rank, Demigod Rank, and even ‘that’ rank. My journey starts here.”
On the day countless lives were lost, a phoenix was reborn.
One that would scorch everything in its path to achieve its goal.
Outside the void, Michael surveyed his surroundings with a deep frown etched on his face.
The steadily decreasing number of monsters made it clear that the Level 3 cracks were beginning to close, but the devastation they left behind was undeniable.
The battlefield was already overflowing with corpses, despite Michael’s best efforts to manage the chaos in the little time he had.
The sheer number and size of the fallen monsters had transformed the area into a grotesque landscape of death.
Around the community, hills of scattered flesh and gore piled high.
The fighting itself now took place atop heaps of bodies and rivers of blood.
While Michael had not been affected by it and even benefited from the corpses surrounding him, the presence of so many corpses distracted him.
It wasn’t the sight of the corpses that disturbed Michael.
It was the human corpses that caught his attention.
Michael had never created a human undead before.
For a brief moment, curiosity took hold of him.
He wondered what the evolution of a human undead would look like.
How would it be different from his usual creations?
Would there be a distinction between a normal human corpse and that of a cultivator?
The temptation to take a few bodies into his storage space flickered in his mind.
No one would notice, after all.
But as soon as the thought crossed his mind, Michael felt a jolt of shock.
What was he thinking?
He quickly corrected himself, but the sight of the corpses and the lingering greed gnawed at the edges of his resolve.
For a fleeting moment, his thoughts drifted elsewhere.
“I wonder what the demonic supernaturals are doing now… and where they are.”