Journey to Become the Zenith

The Sword That Split the Heavens

While Evelyne sat in a daze, Diana, who was watching from the side, was completely captivated by what she had just witnessed.

For several moments, she simply stood there without moving.

Her red eyes remained fixed on the heavens beyond the ruined cave.

One of the twin moons had been cut in half.

The sight was so unnatural that her mind struggled to accept it.

The moon had not been shattered into countless fragments. There was no explosion of celestial debris, no violent collapse, and no great disturbance spreading across the night.

Instead, it had been divided with impossible precision.

A single clean line separated the two halves.

The two pieces remained so close together that from the ground, it almost looked as though the moon had never truly been severed at all. Only that impossibly straight division betrayed what had happened.

Diana’s lips parted slightly.

Even as a spirit who had existed for countless years, she had never imagined that a sword could reach that far.

Yet the moon was not even the most frightening part.

Her gaze shifted toward the darkness surrounding it.

The stars.

The countless stars that had once decorated the night sky were missing along the path of Victor’s slash.

There was no trace of them.

No fading light.

No remnants.

They had simply ceased to exist.

Diana’s breathing became shallow.

”So this is...”

She stopped herself.

There were no words suitable for what she had witnessed.

She had always believed that Azriel was the strongest among Victor’s incarnations.

That belief had been deeply rooted in her mind.

Azriel’s strength had always seemed impossible to surpass. Even among beings who stood at the highest levels of existence, his power had inspired a natural sense of fear.

But now...

Diana slowly clenched her hands.

She had been wrong.

Terribly wrong.

The first incarnation had completely overturned everything she thought she understood.

Victor stood in the distance with that calm expression still resting upon his handsome face. His black hair moved gently in the night wind, while his golden eyes showed no trace of excitement over the destruction he had caused.

That indifference was perhaps what frightened Diana the most.

He had not looked as though he had just performed something miraculous.

To him, it seemed almost ordinary.

Diana swallowed quietly.

”How strong are you really...?”

Victor gave no answer.

Perhaps he had not even heard her.

Before Diana could gather her thoughts, something warm struck her cheek.

She blinked.

A red droplet slid slowly down her skin.

Her expression changed.

She looked upward.

Another drop fell.

Then another.

Within seconds, the air was filled with the faint sound of countless droplets striking stone.

A rain of blood had begun to fall from the night sky.

Diana’s crimson eyes widened.

The realization came slowly.

It wasn’t Victor’s sword alone that had been destroyed.

Anything caught within the path of that slash had suffered the same fate.

The blood falling around them was proof.

Diana looked toward Victor again.

For the first time since becoming a spirit, she felt something deeper than admiration.

She felt genuine awe.

...

Far away from the Red Cliff Mountain Range, the continent was beginning to descend into chaos.

The consequences of that single sword strike were spreading across lands that had never even heard the sound of the battle.

In one region, people were gathered beneath the night sky when a strange red mist suddenly appeared above them.

At first, they thought rain was coming.

Then the first drop struck the ground.

A man looked down.

His expression turned pale.

Blood.

Another drop landed beside him.

Then dozens.

Hundreds.

Thousands.

A crimson rain began falling from the heavens.

People screamed and fled beneath buildings, temples, trees, and whatever shelter they could find.

Nobody understood what was happening.

In another region, a flock of wyverns flying through the night suddenly disappeared.

Their bodies had been caught in the distant trajectory of the sword.

There was no warning.

No battle.

No enemy they could see.

One moment, they were flying through the sky.

The next, blood rained down from above.

Farther away, even dragons were not spared.

Four dragons were killed by that single attack.

The news spread like wildfire.

Fear swept through cities and villages.

People stared toward the heavens with pale faces.

”Are the Gods fighting?”

”Which Gods are fighting?”

”Did another divine war begin?”

Nobody knew.

The strangest part was that even those who understood the power of the Gods found the situation difficult to explain.

Even Gods could not kill a dragon so easily.

Yet four dragons had died in a single attack.

There had been no visible army.

No divine descent.

No great battlefield.

Only one sword strike.

And that strike had traveled across an unimaginable distance.

In the lands surrounding the Red Cliff Mountain Range, the situation was even more catastrophic.

The ancient barrier protecting the Ancient Continent had been struck by the distant sword force.

For countless years, that barrier had stood between the Ancient Continent and the outside world.

It was something that even powerful cultivators treated with caution.

But beneath the lingering might of Victor’s sword, the ancient barrier trembled.

Cracks spread across its surface.

Then came a deafening roar.

The barrier broke.

The impact tore through the surrounding land, sending mountains trembling and earth splitting apart. Ancient formations that had remained dormant for generations were destroyed one after another.

The Red Cliff Mountain Range became a scene of devastation.

Rock collapsed from the peaks.

Ancient trees were uprooted.

Dust and debris rose into the heavens.

Creatures living within the mountain range fled in terror, while those too slow to escape were caught in the destruction.

The sword strike had never been aimed at them.

That was what made it terrifying.

Victor had simply swung his sword.

Everything else had been unfortunate enough to stand in its path.

Across the continent, people continued staring at the heavens.

The moon above their heads had been sliced in half.