CHAPTER 68: THE STORM THAT REACHED THE SKY.

Absolute silence.

Rhys stood alone in the heart of the vast plaza, like a solitary figure in a world of his own making. The starlit void above was the only witness to the carnage.

Around him, the ground was a uniform blanket of fine, grey ash, punctuated by the soft, ethereal glow of thousands of lifespan crystals.

They were the only remnants of an annihilated army, the final embers of the Sanctum’s might.

He was breathing heavily, each breath a ragged gasp that sent a plume of vapour into the still air. His simple clothes were shredded, and his body was a canvas of gore.

Deep gashes, cauterised by the light of the Archons, criss-crossed his torso. Dark, viscous blood was smeared across his skin, drying into a grotesque second hide.

His entire legion of Ashen Vindicators he had raised was gone. Every last one had been sacrificed, shattered into the same dust that now coated the battlefield.

’But I won.’

A slow, terrifyingly bloodthirsty grin stretched across his lips, splitting the mask of blood and grime.

The exhaustion that wracked his body was a distant hum, drowned out by the roaring symphony of adrenaline and victory in his veins.

The battle had pushed him to his absolute limit, forcing him to burn through his power, to innovate, to kill with a ferocity that bordered on madness.

And it had been glorious.

It had been a battle of attrition, a war of wills fought on a conceptual level. In the end, Rhys’s will, fuelled by an infinite well of life, had been stronger.

Now, standing in the aftermath, he felt the raw, untamed power of the island’s accumulated death energy swirling around him.

The air was thick with it, a potent cocktail of slain monsters, from the weakest Remnant to the mighty Archons.

It was a feast, and he was starving.

"Time for dessert," he rasped, his voice raw.

"Arise..."

He raised his hands, and the ashes responded. The ground began to churn. The fine, grey dust and the shattered blue crystal remnants of a thousand monsters lifted from the floor of the plaza.

They swirled, rising into the air, drawn to him as if he were the centre of a new gravity. The thousands of glowing lifespan crystals were pulled into the vortex, their pure energy adding fuel to the growing storm.

What started as a small whirlwind under the command of his Tyrant-grade Tempest Weaver profession grew, expanding with impossible speed, sucking in the ash from the entire island.

It rose higher and higher, a pillar of swirling grey that tore at the starlit void.

It became a typhoon. A massive, continent-sized storm of pure death energy, visible from every floating island in the Sanctum.

It was a declaration, a call to any who dared. But would anyone dare? Rhys was interested to know.

Far to the west, on a secluded island dotted with elegant, ruined spires, Anya Sterling’s hand flew to her mouth, her eyes wide with horrified disbelief.

Her group, having wisely chosen to avoid the central island, had watched the distant battle as a series of blinding flashes and faint tremors.

Now, they were witnessing its conclusion.

The typhoon was a thing of terrible beauty, a swirling galaxy of ash and light that dominated the sky. The sheer, overwhelming power it represented was beyond anything she could comprehend.

It was not the power of a cultivator; it was the power of a natural disaster.

"By the ancestors..." one of her disciples whispered, his face ashen. "What is that?"

Anya knew. She had seen a fraction of that power before when he had effortlessly collected the treasures they had thrown on the ground.

She had warned Aiden. She had warned them all. She had called him a natural disaster to be avoided, but even she had underestimated its scale.

"That," she said, her voice a barely audible whisper, her mind replaying his cold, bottomless eyes and the feel of his blade against her neck, "is him."

On another island, Lysander Crestfall stood with his disciples, his usually calm and principled expression shattered.

He stared at the typhoon, the untamed power that dwarfed anything their families had ever produced.

His principles, his belief in order and righteous strength, felt like a child’s sandcastle before this raging tsunami.

This was not a power that could be judged by honour or morality. It was a fundamental force, and it had just been unleashed upon their world.

’No wonder the Matriarch warned me to avoid any trouble with others...’

The alliance of the great families, or what was left of it, watched from their fortified position on a strategic island overlooking the central plaza.

They had seen the tide of monsters converge. They had seen the battle begin. And now, they saw this.

Joric Ashton gulped, a cold sweat beading on his forehead. The humiliation he had felt earlier was gone, replaced by a deep, primal terror.

He looked at the monstrous storm in the sky, then at the dark, cloaked figure beside Prince Daemon.

"Shade... is that... is it from him?" he stammered, his voice trembling.

The shadowy figure was unnaturally still.

"It is from the direction of that man," Shade’s raspy whisper was flat, devoid of emotion, which only made it more terrifying.

Daemon Azure shook his head, his face a mask of pale denial. He was a prince, the heir to a royal line that had ruled for a thousand years.

He refused to believe that a single, nameless outsider could possess such world-altering power.

"There is no way," he said, his voice trying for its usual tone of command but wavering with an undeniable tremor of fear.

"No human can create such a phenomenon."

Aiden Thorne was not listening. He was frozen in place, his powerful frame rigid with a terror that went beyond simple fear. He had seen this before.

A tiny, insignificant version of it, but the same terrifying principle: the swirling vortex that had so casually snatched away their treasures in the ash plains.

At the time, he had dismissed it as a clever trick, the work of a stronger, cunning thief.

He had spent the entire time in the Labyrinth growing stronger, his Meridian Opening technique giving him a confidence that bordered on invincibility.

He had believed himself to be far stronger than that masked man. He had agreed to Daemon’s alliance not out of necessity, but as a simple guarantee that the man would not escape his hunt.

Now, looking at that typhoon, at the true scale of that ’clever trick’, he felt his own power, his own pride, crumble into dust.

He remembered Anya’s words, words he had dismissed as feminine cowardice.

’Provoke him if you are ready to die. For him, this entire labyrinth is a playground.’

He had not believed her. Now, he knew. She had not been exaggerating. She had been giving him the single most important piece of advice in his life, and he had been too arrogant to listen.

The Labyrinth was not a trial for that man. It was his domain. They were not competitors; they were trespassers.

Aiden took a single, shaky step back. Then another. He turned to a stunned Prince Daemon, his face devoid of its usual arrogance, replaced by a stark, primal fear.

He cupped his hands in a hasty, almost clumsy salute.

"Our Thorne family is not in this alliance anymore," he declared, his voice rough. He turned and walked away, not even waiting for a response.

His disciples, seeing the terror in their leader’s eyes, scrambled to follow him, their previous bravado completely forgotten.

They were not just retreating; they were fleeing for their lives.

Daemon watched them go, his mouth agape. He did not say a word. What could he say?

Joric Ashton did not even bother with the formalities. He simply turned and led his own shaken disciples in the opposite direction, disappearing into the ruins without a single backward glance.

In the span of a minute, the grand alliance had dissolved. Only the Azure royal family remained, standing alone before a power that defied comprehension.

Daemon clenched his fists, his knuckles white, his pride warring with the cold, logical fear that was now seeping into his bones.

Shade placed a hand on his shoulder. The touch was cold, like a fragment of ice.

"I have never expected to see such an existence in this backwater province," Shade whispered, its voice carrying a tinge of fear.

"Master... the birth of every such person is a sign. A sign that announces the world is going to change. Calamities will follow in his wake. Simply breathing the same air as him will be a calamity. The Netherworld is a safer place for you. Let us leave this Labyrinth."

Far away, on a desolate, forgotten island, the battle was of a different kind.

A Chitinous Impaler, a vicious, spider-like creature with legs like obsidian spears, relentlessly thrust its limbs into a battered body lying on the ground.

The body was no longer recognisable as human. It was a mangled ruin of raw, pulsating meat paste.

But from that grotesque ruin, a voice emerged. It was cold, eerie, and filled with a singular, obsessive focus.

"Kaelan..."

"Kaelan..."

"Kaelan..."

The voice stopped. The mangled flesh on the ground seemed to still, as if its attention had been drawn elsewhere.

The typhoon had risen in the sky, visible even from this remote corner of the Sanctum.

The eerie voice returned, but its tone had changed. The pained obsession was gone, replaced by a cold, analytical interest.

"Hm... isn’t that where that man is? That looks like a profession. Interesting. Really interesting."

A wild, unhinged laugh echoed across the desolate island. The blood that had pooled on the ground around the meat paste suddenly came to life.

It flowed backwards, defying gravity, surging towards the mangled form. It formed into sharp, crimson lances that shot upwards, piercing the Void-Silk Matriarch, an Elite spider monster, killing it instantly.

The blood continued to churn, pulling the scattered pieces of meat and bone together. The grotesque paste reformed, muscles weaving, bones snapping into place.

In seconds, a complete human form stood where the ruin had been.

Kaelan Ashton II was naked, his body pristine and unscarred, the only sign of the previous battle being the blood that still dripped from his fingertips.

He licked his lips, his red eyes fixed on the distant typhoon, a look of hungry, manic excitement on his face.

"Truly interesting," he purred. "Time to meet my interesting stranger..."