Lance felt a flicker of anticipation. Unfortunately, the people currently standing before him weren't even remotely capable of testing the true limits of his power.
"I suppose once I’ve wiped out these dregs, I’ll have to take a trip to The Phantom Sector," Lance mused to himself. "I’ve heard their Void Overlord is a powerhouse at Galactic Realm, Rank 3."
As that thought crossed his mind, he turned his gaze directly toward the four remaining Emperors.
The mont their eyes t his, the expressions of the four Emperors shifted instantly.
"Great Gale Annihilation Palm!"
Emperor Skrull struck first. He thrust a palm toward Lance with such blinding speed that it instantly manifested as a massive handprint, shimring with blue-purple Astral Gale, surging down to crush Lance into the earth.
Among the Skrulls, anyone with a modicum of talent could manipulate the power of wind. Emperor Skrull, however, was a genius among geniuses. His wind was no ordinary force; it was the S-Rank Trait: Astral Gale.
That terrifying blue-purple handprint carried enough force to utterly obliterate an ordinary Stellar Class (Rank 9) warrior if it connected.
Yet, as he watched the massive palm descend, Lance rely extended his right hand with agonizing slowness.
Zap!
In the next heartbeat, a brilliant beam of laser fire erupted from Lance's fingertip. The light tore through the void, shrieking toward Emperor Skrull.
In a re fraction of a second, the blue-purple palm was pierced through, leaving a gaping hole in its center. The laser didn't slow down for a mont, hurtling straight for Emperor Skrull.
"Look out! Get out of the way!"
The other three Emperors roared in unison, desperate for Emperor Skrull to dodge. But no matter how fast a man was, he could not outrun the speed of light—at least, an Rank 8 Stellar Class like Emperor Skrull hadn't reached that level yet.
Puchi!
The Divine Holy Power beam punched a clean hole right through Emperor Skrull’s forehead.
His Soul was caught in the wake of the light, twisted and annihilated in an instant.
Emperor Skrull’s eyes bulged, frozen in a mask of pure disbelief.
A mont later, the light faded from his pupils as his consciousness flickered out. The massive handprint of wind, which had been inches from striking Lance, simply dissolved into nothingness.
The suddenness of the execution left everyone on the battlefield stunned.
"He’s... he’s dead?!"
"Emperor Skrull is dead? Just like that?"
"How is this possible...?"
It wasn't just the three remaining Emperors; every powerhouse of the human race stared with wide eyes, their minds reeling.
Lance was only fifteen years old, yet he had obliterated an Emperor in a single move.
This was far more terrifying than when he had wiped out the other Stellar Class warriors of the four races earlier.
However, they didn't realize that Lance’s display of power hadn't just shocked the warriors of The Milky Way. Inside the secret realm, the Rank 11 top-tier intelligent lifeform, Blake, and the peak Domain Lord, Sovereign Glacia, were equally bug-eyed after witnessing Lance’s combat prowess.
"What exactly is that energy?! It looks like the Holy Light power he used before, but is Holy Light supposed to be that strong?"
Blake sucked in a sharp breath.
Lance had only used his Holy Light power once before, later passing it on to Lillian. Blake didn't know the specifics; he only knew Lance possessed Holy Light, along with other devastating abilities like the Abyssal Demonic Fla and the Nine Heavens Star Fla.
But it was obvious that this wasn't ordinary Holy Light. Holy Light didn't possess such overwhelming destructive properties.
Suddenly, Blake rembered the Rank 11 Seraphic Divine Void Core he had given Lance. His expression shifted drastically.
"Wait, is that Divine Holy Power? No, that’s not right either. As terrifying as Divine Holy Power is, it shouldn't be this potent! What is going on?!"
He had assud that Lance would master Divine Holy Power after devouring the Void Core of the Seraphic warrior who had understood it. But looking at it now, it clearly wasn't that simple.
One thing was certain: the stronger Lance’s talent beca, the greater the chance he could avenge his master in the future.
At that thought, Blake felt a surge of excitent.
"This brat is getting way too strong," Sovereign Glacia muttered, her mood souring. "He’s already at the Stellar Class. Damn it, does that an I’ll just have to sit back and let him bully from now on?"
She wasn't thinking about his potential; she was thinking about her own grudge. She had been held captive, and now it looked like she’d never get her revenge.
"Hey, Blake," Sovereign Glacia said, turning to the AI. "You have stuff here to repair the Soul, right? Can you give so? Look, Lance and I are practically best friends now!"
"No," Blake replied flatly, rejecting her instantly. "Everything here belonged to my master. Now that the inheritance has passed to the young master, it belongs to him. I have no authority to move it. Besides, your relationship doesn't look that 'good' to ."
Sovereign Glacia grit her teeth in frustration.
Suddenly, she noticed Selina standing nearby, staring at Lance’s battle as if she were in a trance. Glacia’s eyes lit up.
"What do you an we aren't close? Once my disciple marries your young master, she’ll be your Mistress, right? And that would make his Master-in-law! With a connection that tight, you’re still going to tell we aren't close?"
Sovereign Glacia threw an arm around Selina’s shoulders, looking incredibly smug.
"What are you talking about?!" Selina’s face turned bright red instantly. "I never said I was going to marry Lance!"
"If you don't marry him now, you will later," Sovereign Glacia dismissed her disciple's protest without a second thought. "Do you an to tell you don't like the brat? Once he’s strong enough, I’ll make him marry you! It’s decided!"
She didn't care about Selina’s opinion; she just wanted those items.
Blake frowned. Sovereign Glacia saw this and thought she had a chance. Once she got the goods and restored her strength, she’d grab her disciple and vanish. Not even a Rank 11 intelligent lifeform would be able to find her. She was quite proud of her own cleverness.
"That won't work," Blake said with a small, knowing smile. "That only makes Selina related to the young master. Unless... you marry him as well. Once you’ve officially held the wedding and produced a little master for us, then I can give you the items."
Did she really think she could pull a fast one on a Rank 11 AI? Did she think he had survived this long by luck? Besides, he had basically watched Glacia grow up.
"Bullsht! Forget it then! Who would ever marry that brat? Selina, we’re leaving!"
Sovereign Glacia shrieked as if soone had stepped on her tail. Fuming, she grabbed Selina and stord out of the spacecraft.
"With Sovereign Glacia’s talent, she’s barely qualified to be the young master’s wife," Blake murmured, his eyes flickering as he watched them leave. "I wonder how the young master’s affinity for ice is. If he can master the Scripture of the Absolute Frost, combining those two energies would be incredibly powerful."
"Furthermore, if he can find the other five manuals and master them all... he might truly be able to fuse that legendary power."
If Sovereign Glacia had heard him, she would have been baffled. The other five?
The manuals were part of a set of eight, rumored to have been created by a supre powerhouse of the Immortal Grade. The set had been split into eight pieces.
Legend said that the Immortal Grade cosmic being had mastered eight supre powers, which were contained within those eight manuals. If one could master all eight to the Perfect stage, they could fully reconstruct a power that defied the very laws of the universe.
Word had it that back then, an Immortal Grade powerhouse had utilized that heaven-defying energy to obliterate a mighty Immortal Class expert!
However, Blake currently possessed five other parts. This ant he held at least three in his hands; counting the Abyssal Dreadnought Scripture and the Cryo-Sovereign Scripture, there should be one more.
Of course, the truth of the matter would likely remain a mystery until Lance returned and heard the explanation from Blake himself.
"Do you three want to die together, or one by one?"
In the depths of the starry void, Lance—having just obliterated Emperor Skrull—turned a freezing gaze toward the three remaining powerhouses.
His words sent a violent shudder through the three mighty emperors. They exchanged quick, frantic looks, seeing nothing but raw terror reflected in each other's eyes. At this mont, their fear of Lance had already eclipsed the dread they once held for The Martial Paragon.
"Lance, we... we have no intention of being your enemies. Why don't you let us leave? Our four races will evacuate The Milky Way imdiately. You must realize that if we truly choose a scorched-earth policy, you might be able to kill all our experts, but by the ti we are dead, your human civilians will have been wiped out as well! You wouldn't want to see that happen, would you?"
Finally, Emperor Xis stepped forward, his voice sharp and desperate as he spoke.
"He's right. If you kill us, not a single ordinary human will survive. The combined population of our four races exceeds yours by more than a hundredfold!" Emperor Tartarus chid in, his eyes brightening as he seized upon the threat to pressure Lance.
Beside them, the third emperor nodded feverishly.
It was clear that if Lance followed through with his execution, a war of total annihilation would erupt across The Milky Way. Sure enough, as soon as the threat was uttered, the faces of Aurelius, the High Guardians, and the other human experts nearby darkened significantly.
They had finally produced a powerhouse like Lance, soone capable of leading humanity to true prominence. And yet, they were still paralyzed, unable to strike at the four races.
The emperors weren't bluffing. If humanity pushed them to the brink, those four races would launch a suicidal counterattack. Faced with a hundred tis the number of experts, humanity truly had no way to resist. Even if the four races' elite were eventually wiped out, humanity would be effectively extinct. What would be the point of the survivors living on in a graveyard?
"Lance... it is our race that has beco your burden," Guardian Aether spoke with a weary, haunting sigh.
His words stoked a fire of indignation in the hearts of the human experts, yet they had no outlet for their rage.
Lance glanced back at the human experts and fell silent. The core issue was simply that humanity had started its developnt too late. Otherwise, at their current rate of growth, they wouldn't even need him—in another hundred thousand years, humanity would have been capable of dismantling those four races on its own.
"Honorable Lance, none of us wish to walk the path to the grave. How about this: our three races will imdiately order a total withdrawal from The Milky Way! We will never return. Furthermore, we will leave all our technology behind and take only our people. What do you say?"
Seeing Lance’s silence, Emperor Xis scrambled to show goodwill. He had even begun using honorifics, desperate to save himself and his kin. From his perspective as an emperor, he had done nothing wrong; humanity was the greatest threat, and if they didn't destroy humans, they would be the ones destroyed.
That was their ideology, at least. In reality, while humanity’s expansion involved the total eradication of Void Beasts, they had always treated other interstellar races with a policy of soft power and assimilation. Over the last hundred thousand years, hundreds of weaker civilizations had integrated into humanity, eventually becoming indistinguishable from them.
Even when dealing with the four major races, humanity had never pushed for total genocide when they had the chance. With the strength The Martial Paragon possessed both then and now, he could have easily wiped out every high-level expert among them. Once the Stellar Class and even Planetary Class experts were gone, humanity could have taken its ti to dominate the entire Milky Way within ten millennia.
Yet, The Martial Paragon had never done so—unless it beca an absolute necessity, such as his own impending death.
However, the four races, built on a history of invasion and destruction, refused to believe that humanity truly desired peace. they had always assud The Martial Paragon lacked the confidence to finish them, or that his previous victories were the result of so temporary, forced power boost. They hadn't dared to gamble, leading to this fragile, uneasy peace. But they knew that at the slightest opportunity, they would have tried to annihilate humanity completely.
Now, however, they realized they had no cards left to play. Their only choice was to flee. If they stayed, humanity's exploding population would eventually overwhelm them.
Hearing the offer, so of the human experts felt a flicker of interest. If the enemies left, they would be handing over all their territory to humanity. Once they were gone, returning would be impossible. Theoretically, this was the best possible outco for humanity—gaining control of the entire Milky Way without shedding another drop of blood.
However, upon hearing their terms, Lance rely offered a thin smile.
"The conditions you're offering are quite tempting. But there's one thing I suspect you don't know yet."
Lance looked at the three emperors, his smile widening. His words made the hearts of both the four races and the humans skip a beat. Was he really going to choose war?
"What is it?" Emperor Xis asked, bracing himself.
"The Void-kin. Are you familiar with them?" Lance asked casually.
The ntion of that na caused the faces of every expert present to pale.
They had heard of the Void-kin, and so had even clashed with them. They were a formidable race where even the weakest mbers were at the Great Grandmaster level. No one knew where they ca from, but they had begun appearing at various points across The Milky Way a thousand years ago.
The appearance of the Void-kin had been classified as a top-secret threat by all five major races. They had made every effort to kill any Void-kin on sight and had even attempted soul-searching on captives. Yet, for so unknown reason, their mories were impossible to access.
The four races had no way of knowing that the Void-kin were protected by specialized mory seals. They never stood a chance of uncovering any clues.
"What does that have to do with our current situation?" Emperor Tartarus asked, his voice heavy with apprehension.
"It has everything to do with it. The connection is massive!"
Lance chuckled. He swept his right hand through the air, a sudden burst of light erupting from his palm.
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