Chapter 125: A Statement, Not a Rank

Ashworth’s composure fractured instantly, the exact nanosecond he registered the heavy, lethal arc of the fused blade scything through the air directly toward him.

He had just witnessed Wolf-2, the server’s single toughest, most impregnable defensive build, fail to survive even a single casual swing.

Against a magnitude of raw output that defied all basic logic, his own gear amounted to little more than fragile tissue paper.

Pure survival instinct violently overrode rational thought. He broke hard to the side, dropping instantly into textbook mechanical evasion, trusting his finely tuned combat reflexes to carry him clear of the killing zone.

In that frantic flash of adrenaline, however, he suffered a fatal oversight: he had forgotten, for one critical, unforgiving half-second, precisely who he was crossing blades with.

Those exact same reflexes that handled ordinary, high-tier opposition with effortless grace read, to the server’s former premier melee sovereign, like watching an amateur heavily telegraph every single tactical intention a full beat in advance.

Kael anticipated the dodge before Ashworth’s boots had even left the mud, pivoted seamlessly on his heel, and bridged the remaining gap in a single, fluid, terrifying step, his sword already rising to initiate a second strike.

This time, there was no window for evasion. Ashworth accepted that merciless reality in the space of a single heartbeat, gritted his teeth against the rising panic, and lunged forward with his own blade in a desperate, last-ditch counter, golden light flaring viciously along the edge.

Too agonizingly slow. Kael’s blade connected first, opening a razor-thin, flawless line directly across his throat.

Attribute suppression of this absolute, colossal scale, compounded by bonus damage delivered squarely into an exposed weak point, left zero margin for anything remotely resembling a genuine duel.

Ashworth’s health bar instantly imploded from full to absolute zero in the exact same microsecond, leaving no window even for his own priests to react.

Kael did not break his stride to watch the body hit the muddy ground. He pivoted sharply toward the vulnerable flank of the remaining formation, acquired his next vector, and unleashed his next skill without a shred of ceremony.

Hollowscream.

A warped, fan-shaped shockwave rolled violently outward from the edge of his blade, sweeping across the densest cluster of surviving operatives.

A single archer, blessed with abnormal reaction speed, managed to sprint clear of the radius just in time, escaping untouched.

Every other combatant caught within the crushing sweep dropped instantaneously, their health bars vanishing wholesale as a glittering cascade of top-tier gear burst loose into the air, their bodies dissolving into streaks of white light.

What remained of the group finally comprehended, in terrifying, absolute clarity, exactly what they had walked into.

Decaying grass trying to stand against a full moon. Twenty operatives, however formidable individually, could not bridge a chasm of power this absolute.

Like shaking an ancient tree with an ant’s strength. Like hurling a fragile egg against an immutable mountain.

There were no coordinated plans left worth attempting. Survival instinct shattered their cohesion entirely, and they scattered in every direction at once.

Kael possessed zero inclination to let a single one of them walk away clean.

A cold, merciless glint flashed deep within his eyes, and he surged forward in relentless pursuit.

Reading an opponent’s footwork well before their next step had never presented a challenge to him.

Voidrupture

tore the earth wide open beneath a fleeing priest, jagged bone spikes erupting from the ground to claim the kill before the man had covered twenty meters.

From Ebonreach’s distant, bristling ramparts, Lyra’s bowstring sang once with a bell-like resonance, a single Starpiercer arrow arcing gracefully across the sprawling gap and punching clean through a fleeing mage’s chest.

The Hollow Emissary closed the remaining distance instantly via Hollowleap materializing in absolute silence directly behind a sprinting warrior. Its scythe rose and fell in one whisper-quiet stroke, claiming another life without a sound.

Between the two of them, the rest fell within a single, breathless minute.

The entire secret project, twenty hand-picked operatives in four specialist cells, built at staggering official expense specifically to put Kael in his place, ended with every last one dead. Not a single survivor made it clear.

Every active global broadcast went dead silent for a long, heavy beat, the sheer, crushing scale of what had just transpired far too vast for the audience to process in real time.

Then the noise rushed back in all at once, detonating across every communication channel simultaneously.

"Wait, that’s it? That was the whole fight?"

"I was genuinely expecting a close contest. That was a one-sided slaughterhouse."

"Those two sides weren’t even participating in the same game."

"That was supposed to be the government’s secret weapon. This is it?"

"Unrivaled just put them down like they were nothing."

"The entire point of sending them was probably to humble him publicly on a global stage. Instead, they just handed him the biggest highlight reel of his career."

"People genuinely forget what the number one name on this server actually means. Tonight served as a pretty clean reminder."

"Unrivaled isn’t merely a leaderboard position anymore. It’s a statement."

While the public forums burned with endless debate, Kael never broke his relentless momentum.

He swept back across the blood-soaked expanse of the field, systematically collecting every piece of gear dropped by the fallen operatives.

None of them had been individually exceptional on their own merits, but heavy official backing had outfitted them with absurdly excessive equipment: a full set of pristine Legendary-grade pieces per person, with several items pushing into territory rarer still.

Generous of them, to be entirely honest. A faint, deeply satisfied smile touched his lips. Auction that entire haul off properly, and the payout alone would be worth remembering.

The hundred-thousand-strong mercenary army fared no better against Ebonreach’s disciplined archer corps, a thick, glittering carpet of discarded loot stretching endlessly across the churned mud beneath the looming fortress walls.

Kael laughed aloud at the ridiculous spectacle, genuinely delighted, and issued his orders without a moment’s hesitation.

Several hundred stealth-oriented Starborn Assassins slipped quietly out from the city under the protective cover of night, sweeping the battlefield clean and hauling every last scrap of treasure back into the warehouse vaults.

If the government insists on delivering this much high-tier loot directly to my doorstep, it would be terribly rude to refuse.

The night’s sustained violence had kindled an old, familiar fire within him that he hadn’t felt in longer than he cared to measure, the electric, intoxicating thrill of real combat, sharpened even further by the roaring chaos unfolding across the valley.

He remained fully fused, his heavy blade resting comfortably in his gauntleted hand, and kept moving.

A single armored figure, cast in stark silhouette against a floating sky-city and a rampart lined with thousands of silent Starborn archers, carving an unyielding path through an army of a hundred thousand without taking a single step backward.

The defensive line held firm. Westfall’s reinforcements never managed to punch through to the Winterwatch Legion’s position along the riverbank, not while Kael stood as an impassable bulwark between their vanguard and the crossing.

As the final sand grains slipped through the glass nearly an hour later, the mission timer officially expired.

A crisp, satisfying chime rang out clearly in his ear.

"Quest Complete: The River Crossing. The Winterwatch Legion successfully repelled the enemy assault, covering the main army’s crossing of the Silverflow. Rewards: 10,000,000 Experience, 1,000,000 Gold."