Anshvi remained suspended in mid-air, her silhouette framed against the swirling remnants of shattered mountain stone and drifting dust, her gaze resting for a brief moment upon the obliterated remains of Akran whose body lay broken beyond recognition, his shredded limbs scattered amidst the freshly-formed crater where an entire peak once stood.

  The eerie silence that followed the collapse of the mountain carried a strange reverence, as if even the wind hesitated to disturb the aftermath of her single effortless strike.

  Only after surveying the ruin did she turn her attention downward toward Elder Sahas who lay breathing unevenly along the fractured ridge, his chest rising and falling as though every breath demanded a battle of its own.

  She descended slowly, the divine feathers of her golden-and-greenish-blue peacock wings folding behind her like shimmering curtains of celestial light, and she landed beside Elder Sahas with the grace of a sovereign visiting a mortal battlefield.

  Elder Sahas opened his eyes with difficulty yet managed a faint smirk as he whispered, “You surpass me at that age. Good, very good.”

  Anshvi gave him a half-smirk in return, one that carried both confidence and a softness otherwise hidden beneath her cold battle persona. “Just luck, Elder. Nothing else,” she said, though the calm power radiating from her made the words sound like a deliberate understatement.

  She placed a hand beneath his elbow, helping him sit upright, and drew out a pill that pulsed faintly with warm restorative light. “Rest here and recover, Elder. I will finish the rest quickly.”

  Elder Sahas swallowed the pill, sat cross-legged with her assistance, and began to circulate his ki to absorb the medicinal energy. His breathing steadied by the moment, though fatigue still drained his features.

  Anshvi stepped back, her divine wings unfolding once more, and with a single powerful beat she launched herself into the sky. She halted at a height where the entire battlefield sprawled beneath her like an intricate mosaic of chaos and bloodshed.

  From that vantage she inhaled, and then released the full depth of her aura—an oppressive, forceful, pressure that descended upon the battlefield like a sovereign decree none dared resist.

  The effect was instantaneous and catastrophic. Practitioners on the opposition side, those with weak or unstable cores, collapsed the moment her aura touched them, their bodies crushed against the earth as though the land had risen to claim their lives in obedience to her will.

  Some perished in that same moment, unable even to scream. Master Warriors trembled as their knees buckled, barely managing to remain upright in mid-air, struggling against the crushing sensation enveloping their bones and cores.

  Even Grandmaster Warriors, men who once commanded fear and respect wherever they walked, found themselves kneeling or collapsing under the pressure that felt like an entire mountain chain descending upon their shoulders.

  Before any resistance could form, Anshvi vanished. Only a faint shimmer of light marked her movement, and yet in that shimmering arc the sky split with trails of greenish-blue and golden brilliance. Each sweep of her spear—though it seemed more akin to a deity’s talon than a mere weapon—cut through the Grandmasters as easily as thin parchment, their bodies bursting into fragments of flesh and dissipating ki before they even comprehended her presence.

  Vedant, who once boasted unshakeable arrogance, died without a chance to raise his guard, reduced to dust beneath the cascading light of her strikes. To her, they were less than insects; they were disturbances to be removed with a single effortless gesture.

  Eklavya, watching from afar with widened eyes and parted lips, felt his heart pound at the sheer disparity of power. If earlier he believed he understood the meaning of Spirit Warrior, now that belief was shattered and reconstructed in the image of Anshvi’s overwhelming might. Her presence was too grand, too refined, too sovereign to be categorized by normal ranks.

  Having cleared the skies of the Grandmasters, Anshvi descended to the region where the enemy Master Warriors had been fighting mere minutes earlier. Now those same warriors stood frozen like fragile statues, unable to move without feeling the crushing threat of death lingering like a blade against their throats. Their eyes trembled as she approached, radiant wings trailing light as though she carried a divine dawn behind her.

  Anshvi raised her right hand slowly, her expression becoming colder, more detached, her attention fixed on the clouds above where Ishant and Laksh continued their brutal battle. Those clouds had long since darkened, churning violently and radiating crackling arcs of lightning due to the clash of their immense energies.

  As her hand ascended, the storm responded like a loyal beast, the swirling darkness condensing around a central point, gathering thunder, fury, and celestial force into a single spiraling focus.

  With a slight motion of her wrist, the condensed storm ruptured.

  Countless arrows of concentrated thunder burst downward, blazing with incandescent fury as they descended upon the frozen Master Warriors of the opposition. The sky wept lightning like a rain of divine judgment, each bolt piercing a heart, splitting a skull, or vaporizing a core.

  There was no cry, no attempt to escape; any who tried were shattered before they even shifted a step. In the span of a breath, the entire regiment of enemy Master Warriors was erased.

  Once the lightning stopped, only faint wisps of smoke and the charred remains of burnt armor littered the battlefield. The destructive beauty of her attack left even the clouds trembling.

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  Only a handful of Practitioners survived, trembling, scattered, and horrified beyond reason. Among the remnants were two young Master Warriors engaged with Ashish. She made no move toward them, instead watching the fight calmly with unreadable eyes. Ashish, though exhausted and bleeding, fought with a steadiness that revealed he had already gained the upper hand.

  Anshvi observed for a moment, then folded her wings. “He can handle it,” she murmured to no one in particular. “There is no need for me to interfere.”

  With a single, powerful thrust of her divine wings, Anshvi propelled herself upward toward the swirling dark clouds where Ishant and Laksh waged their brutal, sky-shattering duel. The sky churned under their clashing auras, lightning boiling through the storm like celestial serpents, and the very wind quivered beneath the pressure.

  Laksh, who until a moment ago had avoided Anshvi as nothing more than a newly awakened one-star Spirit Warrior, did not even spare her a glance. He had not foreseen the devastation she would unfold—devastation strong enough to shift the entire tide of war.

  Laksh’s expression twisted when he finally noticed the aftermath below: his sect’s elder crushed to pulp, the entire mountain range disintegrated under a single attack, and the battlefield littered with corpses of Masters Warrior who had fallen like insects.

  Only then did he understand what a grave miscalculation he had made. He wanted to rush down and rescue his people; however, Ishant, despite being wounded from head to toe, kept pressing him relentlessly, refusing to allow a moment of retreat or escape. Laksh could only watch helplessly as the warriors he had brought to annihilate the Rudra Clan were instead annihilated themselves.

  Anshvi flew straight into the center of the storm, her wings leaving trails of radiant light as she broke through the thunderous curtain. She arrived beside Ishant, bringing her palms together in a respectful bow despite the battle raging around them. “Sorry, Uncle,” she said softly, though her voice carried through the storm like a melodic blade, “I am late.”

  Ishant, despite his blood-soaked state and shaking limbs, let out a tired, sincere smile. “Even if you had not come, child, I would never blame you. This was never a responsibility you were required to bear.” His voice was rough from battle, but there was a kind warmth in it, the warmth of a man who had long considered her as more than just someone stranger.

  She turned her gaze toward him, her irises glowing with an ethereal light. “I cannot abandon you,” she said, her voice carrying both steel and tenderness. “You and Aunty have always treated me with the love and trust one gives to a daughter. I owe you far more than a simple appearance on a battlefield.”

  Ishant smirked faintly, even managing a teasing glint through his exhaustion. His eyes shifted downward toward Eklavya, who watched from far below. “Oh? I think there may be… another reason as well.”

  Before she could respond, Laksh’s irritated voice cut sharply through the rolling thunder. “What nonsense are you two chatting about in the middle of a battle?” His tone dripped with contempt and disbelief, offended not only by their audacity but by the implication that he could be ignored so casually.

  Both Ishant and Anshvi turned toward him simultaneously, their expressions cooling into sharp, unforgiving edges. Anshvi’s voice dropped several degrees, each word carrying lethal finality. “So, it is you who dares to strike at the Rudra Clan.”

  Laksh straightened his back, the storm sparking around him as he drew up all the false pride of his lineage. “So what if I am?” he spat. “Do you think you can kill me? I am not merely the Sect Leader of the Light Rain Sect. I am also an Inner Elder of the Falling Leaf Sect. I hold authority that would crush your clan with a single decree.”

  Anshvi’s lips curled into a slow, chilling smile, her expression filled with a cold mockery that cut far deeper than any blade. “Perfect,” she said, her voice low and dangerous. “I have a score to settle with your Falling Leaf Sect anyway. You coming to me saves me the trouble of going to your gates.”

  Laksh’s face twisted in fury and disbelief that someone he once underestimated now dared to threaten his entire sect. Before he could hurl another insult, Anshvi and Ishant moved. Their bodies blurred into streaks of color—gold, blue, red—rushing toward Laksh with killing intent so sharp that the storm itself parted to make way.

  Laksh brought his sword up, gripping it with both hands as he screamed and forced all of his energy into a defensive stance. Ishant’s sword struck first, sending a shockwave through the sky. Laksh barely blocked it, his arms trembling. In that same instant, Anshvi’s divine spear pierced clean through his chest, the golden-blue weapon emerging from his back in a radiant burst of light.

  Laksh coughed blood violently, his eyes widening in horror. But with a desperate roar, he used the last surge of his strength to knock Ishant backward with a wild, uncontrolled swing, and in doing so managed to force his body backward just enough for the spear to tear free instead of impaling him fully. Anshvi lunged to finish him, but Laksh staggered out of the spear’s path, barely avoiding the killing blow.

  Now floating several meters away, Laksh’s body shook violently. Blood leaked from his chest in thick streams, and he could barely hold himself upright in the air. His face was pale as paper, yet he still forced a twisted grin. Ishant and Anshvi dashed forward to finish him, their combined killing intent locking onto him like a pair of celestial hunters closing in on their prey.

  But suddenly, a powerful voice boomed from high above, far beyond the cloud layer. “Stop.”

  A single figure descended from the region near the second layer of clouds, moving with a grace and authority that froze even the storm itself. His presence was overwhelming, and oppressive in a way that only an Overlord Warrior could possess.

  He had a neatly kept beard, wore the formal uniform of the Falling Leaf Sect, and carried an aura that suggested the weight of a thousand executed judgments.

  Anshvi and Ishant stopped.

  Laksh’s trembling lips curled into a victorious smirk as he looked upward. “I will take the revenge of my sect’s destruction and my son,” he said triumphantly, as though his survival was guaranteed simply because this man had appeared. “I will come back for all of you—”

  But before he could complete his boast, the Overlord Warrior’s cold voice cut through the sky again. “Clan Leader Ishant,” he said, addressing Ishant directly and ignoring Laksh entirely. “Our Falling Leaf Sect has no wish to make an enemy of a clan that suddenly holds two terrifying Spirit Warrior powerhouses whose origins we cannot trace. We will not interfere in today’s matter.”

  “However,” the Overlord continued, his tone deepening, “I cannot permit the killing of Elder Laksh.”

  Anshvi stepped forward, divine wings spreading wide, the spear in her hand glowing with killing intent so cold it froze the air around her. She was about to speak—likely something merciless—when Ishant suddenly appeared beside her. He placed a steady hand on her shoulder and whispered, “Let him go.”

  She glanced at him, immediately understanding the calculation behind his words.

  Ishant wanted Laksh dead more than anyone. But the appearance of a Falling Leaf Sect’s Overlord Warrior meant one thing: even a single misstep could plunge the Rudra Clan into annihilation. Ishant was not afraid of dying, but he would never risk the entire clan on one man’s vengeance. He knew he could not defeat an Overlord Warrior; he knew the political consequences were far too steep. So, he let him go.