CHAPTER 133
The border between the Sky Empire and the Zenith Empire was marked by nothing more than a shallow river and a line of weathered stones that had stood for centuries.
On one side lay the grasslands of the Sky Empire, golden in the afternoon light.
On the other side stretched the foothills of the Zenith Empire, dark with pine forests and cut by narrow valleys.
The sky above was clear, but the air was thick with tension.
Ronan stood at the head of two thousand elites, his black hair tied back from his face, his red eyes scanning the horizon.
Behind him, the army of the Hidden City of Sky waited in formation—seven-stars, eight-stars, nine-stars, arranged by rank and combat specialty.
Twenty Moon Class elites stood at the front, their auras dense enough to make the air shimmer.
Logan stood at their head, his brown hair catching the wind, his blue eyes fixed on the distant treeline.
"They are moving," Logan said.
Ronan nodded. He could feel them too—the shift in mana, the weight of approaching power. "How many?"
"Impossible to say. Their leaders are masking the signatures of the rest."
Ronan's jaw tightened. The Hidden City of Lightning had been making suspicious movements for weeks. Patrols had disappeared.
Supply convoys had been ambushed. The Sky King had sent Ronan to investigate, and Ronan had brought an army large enough to deter an invasion or fight one if necessary.
The first figures emerged from the treeline.
They came in formation, just as the Sky City's army had—seven-stars, eight-stars, nine-stars, arranged by rank.
Their armor was darker, their weapons different, but the shape of their advance was the same.
At their head walked a woman with blond hair and cold eyes, her hands resting on the daggers at her hips.
Tisha. Behind her, twenty Moon Class elites spread out in a wide arc, their auras flaring as they took their positions.
And at the center of them all, a man.
He was tall, broad-shouldered, with dark skin and close-cropped black hair. His eyes were yellow, bright as amber, and they held no fear.
He wore no armor, only dark pants and a sleeveless tunic that exposed arms covered in scars.
His hands hung at his sides, empty, but the mana radiating from his body was enough to make the grass at his feet flatten and brown.
Tisha stopped at the edge of the river. The man stopped beside her.
Ronan stepped forward. "You are on Sky Empire territory."
The man smiled. It was not a friendly expression. "We are on the border there is a difference."
"Not to me."
"No, Not to you." The man's yellow eyes swept across the Sky City's army, taking in the ranks, the formations, the Moon Class elites at the front. "You brought a lot of soldiers for a border dispute."
"You brought a lot of soldiers for a border dispute."
The man laughed. The sound was rough, unrefined. "Fair point. As you know my name is David. I am the general of this army. And I am here to show the Hidden City of Sky that you are no longer the most powerful."
Ronan's expression did not change. He had expected words like these, and he hoped for something else, something that could be resolved without bloodshed, but he had expected this.
"You are making a mistake," Ronan said.
"I have been told that before." David rolled his shoulders, and the mana around him intensified. His eyes began to glow, yellow shifting to gold. "I have also been told that the Hidden City of Sky has lost three Saint Classes in a single year. That your Sky King is injured beyond recovery. That your strongest warriors are dead or gone."
"Rumors are not truth."
"Rumors are wind. But where there is smoke, there is fire." David raised his hand, and lightning crackled across his fingers
"I have a Tier 8 Mana Beast sealed inside me. I have an army of twenty thousand at my back. And I have waited a long time to test myself against a true Saint."
Ronan's hand moved to his sword. Behind him, the Sky City's army shifted, weapons rising, mana flaring. Logan called out orders, positioning the Moon Class elites to cover the flanks.
Tisha stepped forward, her hands on her daggers. Her eyes found Logan's across the field.
She smiled, and her canines were sharper than they should have been. Water began to gather at her feet, pooling around her boots without visible source.
David's body began to change.
It started with his eyes golden, bright, crackling with electricity.
Then his skin, darkening further, taking on a pattern of faint stripes that shimmered in the light.
His hair grew thicker, wilder, and his ears elongated, becoming pointed and tufted.
His arms lengthened, his fingers curved into claws, and his teeth sharpened into fangs.
He did not become a monkey. He became something between a man and a monkey a fusion, a smaller form of the creature sealed inside him called The Monkey King of Lightning.
David cracked his neck. "Come, Saint of Sky. Let us see if you are worthy of your title."
Ronan drew his sword. The blade was black, unadorned, but the mana that flowed through it made the air around it shimmer. Earth rose at his feet, lifting him slightly. Fire coiled around his free hand. Wind whipped through his hair.
Behind them, both armies stepped back. The Moon Class elites on both sides formed defensive barriers, not to protect themselves from each other but to protect themselves from what was about to happen.
David moved first.
[Lightning Spell: Monkey King's Descent]
Lightning erupted from his body in a concentrated burst, propelling him forward at a speed that made the air scream.
He crossed the river in an instant, his clawed hand reaching for Ronan's throat. The ground beneath him cracked and melted, superheated by the electrical discharge of his approach.
Ronan raised his sword.
[Earth-Fire-Wind Spell: Tri-Element Bastion]
A wall of molten stone erupted from the ground before him, fused with roaring fire and spinning wind.
The three elements intertwined, creating a barrier that should have stopped any physical attack.
David's claw struck the wall, and the explosion that followed was not an explosion of sound but of light blinding, white-hot light that burned away the grass for a hundred meters in every direction.
The armies retreated further. The Moon Class elites reinforced their barriers. Tisha watched with narrowed eyes, her hand on her dagger, waiting for the opportunity to strike.
When the light faded, Ronan and David stood in a crater fifty meters wide and ten meters deep. The river had been vaporized. The stones that had marked the border were gone. The earth was glass, smooth and black, still smoking from the heat of their collision.
David's claw had pierced Ronan's shoulder. Blood dripped down Ronan's arm, sizzling where it touched the glass.
Ronan's sword had cut across David's chest. A shallow wound, but a wound nonetheless.
David smiled. "You are fast."
"You are slower than I expected."
David's smile widened. He pulled his claw free and leaped backward, landing on the rim of the crater. Ronan pressed his hand to his shoulder, and fire burned across the wound, sealing it closed.
"You should not have come here," Ronan said.
"I should not have come alone." David raised his hand, and lightning gathered in his palm—not wild, not scattered, but focused, compressed, spinning into a sphere of contained destruction. "But I did not come alone."
[Lightning Spell: Storm of the Monkey King]
The sphere detonated.
Lightning erupted in every direction—not bolts, but waves, concentric rings of electrical force that expanded outward at impossible speed.
The first wave struck the barriers and shattered them. The second wave threw the seven-stars from their feet. The third wave cracked the ground for a kilometer in every direction.
Ronan raised his sword, and the earth rose to meet him.
[Earth-Fire-Wind Spell: Mountain's Wrath]
A pillar of stone, flame, and wind erupted from beneath his feet, lifting him above the storm. He rode the pillar upward, his sword extended, and as he reached the apex of his ascent, he brought the blade down.
The pillar collapsed, and with it, the sky.
Fire rained from above, Earth rose from below and Wind howled between them, driving the other two elements into a single, focused point—David.
David looked up. He did not run. He planted his feet, raised both hands, and caught the descending mountain on his palms.
The impact sent shockwaves across the border. The ground for a thousand meters around them shattered, then dissolved, then vaporized.
The crater doubled in size and the glass at its bottom turned to dust. The armies on both sides were thrown from their feet, and only the Moon Class elites remained standing, their barriers straining to contain the destruction.
David's arms shook. Blood ran from his nose, his ears, the corners of his eyes.
"You are strong," he said.
Ronan pressed down. "I know."
David laughed. Then, with a roar, he threw the mountain aside.
The pillar of stone, flame, and wind crashed into the earth a kilometer away, carving a trench through the forest and sending trees flying into the sky. David stood in the crater, his arms smoking, his body trembling, but his eyes still burning.
"This is not over," David said.
"No," Ronan agreed. "It is not."
They charged.
Their clash, for the third time, shook the border between the Sky Empire and the Zenith Empire. The soldiers on both sides watched in silence, knowing that the outcome of this battle would be decided not by armies or formations but by the two men fighting at the center of the crater.