Chapter 60: HEAVENLY CLOWN

With the final structural collapse of the illusion, the suffocating fog dissolved completely, leaving Ethan standing alone at the true, breathtaking apex of the Mountain of Death.

Hovering directly above the ancient stone altar before him was the legendary **Red Dust Magic Flame**.

It was an ethereal, hyper-dense vortex of crimson dust particles that combusted continuously without consuming any physical fuel, radiating an intense, hyper-concentrated heat that warped the spatial grid around it like a miniature, breathing star. Its surface flickered with shifting runes of ancient celestial energy, promising destructive potential far beyond ordinary elemental flames.

The Red Fairy fluttered excitedly from behind him, her tiny, translucent crimson wings beating at a frantic blur as glowing amber stardust fell from her heels. "That’s it! That’s the Red Dust Magic Flame!" she squeaked, her voice echoing in the sudden silence. "Hurry up and refine it before the resonance fades!"

Before Ethan could even blink, the swirling vortex of crimson flame suddenly compressed into a streak of blinding light, shooting forward and embedding itself directly into Ethan’s forehead.

A sharp, intricate crest of a burning flame materialized between his brows, glowing with a fierce, crimson brilliance.

Ethan smiled faintly, raising a hand to touch the burning crest. The moment his fingertips brushed the mark, the dormant fury of the flame unleashed itself.

*WHOOOSH!*

In an instant, an incandescent pillar of crimson fire erupted from his skin, engulfing his entire body in a raging inferno that soared straight up into the firmament, tearing through the upper atmosphere like a volcanic geyser.

***

Far down the trial slopes, the spatial disruption abruptly snapped.

Arthur and Prince Aethelgard were violently hurled backward out of their respective illusionary domains, stumbling and crashing onto the solid stone steps as their feet were forcefully ejected from the mountain trail.

Gasping for breath, their eyes wide with disorientation, they scrambled to their feet and looked up. The sky above was split by a towering, magnificent pillar of blazing crimson light that illuminated the entire secret realm.

Aethelgard’s face paled, his teeth grinding in sheer frustration. "Someone... someone else cleared the trial ahead of us. The supreme treasure has already been claimed."

Beside him, Arthur froze. A crushing, suffocating emptiness hollowed out his chest, as if a monumental, life-altering destiny that rightfully belonged to him had been ripped straight out of his grasp by an invisible hand. He stared at the blazing pillar, fists clenched so tightly his fingernails drew blood, though he couldn’t comprehend *who* could have beaten him to the summit.

***

High above on the summit, Ethan sat cross-legged amidst the roaring sea of fire, his expression locked in fierce concentration.

The Red Dust Magic Flame was flooding his physical body and spiritual core with an overwhelming, destructive deluge of raw thermal energy. Inside his spiritual inner sea, his three crimson mana rings trembled violently under the assault, nearly cracking from the sheer density of the power. The wild, untamed flame began to devour his spiritual boundaries, threatening to incinerate his internal organs and shatter his foundation from the inside out.

Seeing the catastrophic backlash, the Red Fairy panicked, frantically zipping around his head and channeling her own minor spiritual energy to help guide the rogue flames toward his rings. "It’s too powerful!" she shrieked over the roar of the fire. "This flame isn’t meant for a standard fifth-rank core! You’re burning up!"

Ethan’s jaw tightened, cold sweat beading on his forehead. But amidst the agony, a calculated gleam flashed in his eyes.

*My foundation is built on fate and multidimensional mastery,* Ethan thought coldly. *A mere remnant flame cannot consume me.*

He abruptly shifted his focus, plunging his consciousness deep into the absolute core of his mind-sea.

With a mental command, he unlocked the dormant seals of his secondary elements—the supreme concepts he had begun to comprehend through his absolute manipulation of fate.

*Flash!*

Directly above his three trembling red mana rings, a pristine, glowing **White Ring** materialized—the manifestation of **Space**. And hovering majestically above that was a deep, abyssal **Black Ring** crackling with crackling azure temporal waves—the manifestation of **Time**.

Though Ethan had not yet fully mastered these two primordial elements, their conceptual hierarchy was absolute. The moment the Space and Time rings manifested, a crushing, reality-bending pressure swept through his inner sea.

*REVERSE!*

The wild, destructive crimson flames suddenly hit an invisible wall. Under the absolute authority of Space and Time, the chaotic thermal energy stopped dead in its tracks, then violently reversed its flow, compressing inward instead of destroying outward.

For two grueling hours, Ethan sat motionless on the scorching altar. Externally, his skin charred and regenerated repeatedly; internally, his mind-sea raged like a boiling ocean as the dual-elemental suppression wrestled with the primordial flame.

Finally, as the two-hour mark passed, the roaring inferno abruptly died down, swallowed entirely by his core.

*BOOM!*

A muffled, world-shaking detonation echoed from deep within Ethan’s chest.

A brilliant, blinding shockwave of mutated crimson-and-gold energy burst outward. Hovering proudly above his three original rings, a brand-new, fourth mana ring materialized—pulsing with a divine, terrifying iridescence.

The Red Fairy’s jaw dropped, her eyes sparkling with absolute disbelief as she danced in circles around his head. "You... you actually did it! You forced an absolute breakthrough! That fourth mana ring... it’s forged entirely from mutated primordial flame, not ordinary magic! Your fire-type destructive output has been multiplied by a hundred, and you’ve unlocked absolute flame dominion!"

Ethan slowly opened his eyes.

Where calm blue irises once rested, a chilling, supernatural **red glow** now pulsed within his gaze, carrying the terrifying weight of a supreme sovereign.

He exhaled a breath of superheated air, preparing to stand—when suddenly, the atmosphere above him warped violently.

Heavy, unnatural black storm clouds choked the sky, blotting out the ambient light. This was a shielded pocket dimension; weather and clouds had no business forming here, let alone carrying such an ominous, apocalyptic pressure.

*Crack-a-boomin!*

Violent bolts of purple lightning tore across the churning clouds. Right at the center of the dark firmament, the clouds parted to reveal a gargantuan, terrifying visage: a colossal **jester’s face**, painted in stark black and white, stretching across the entire sky. Its painted mouth stretched into a sickening, malicious grin, staring down directly at Ethan with soul-chilling intent.

*Ding!*

A harsh, crimson-tinted system alert flashed aggressively into Ethan’s vision.

> **[CRITICAL WARNING: Host has aggressively plundered and usurped massive protagonist destinies within a 24-hour window. The Supreme Heavenly Will has detected the anomaly and is fully enraged. Heaven has dispatched its elite executioner—the HEAVENLY CLOWN—to erase the Host!]**

>

> **[System Status: Do not panic, Host. I am locking down your spatial signature. I will shield you from its gaze.]**

High above the shattered firmament, the gargantuan jester’s face stretched across the sky, a terrifying distortion of painted white and black skin. Its eyes—two bottomless abysses—shifted colors with violent, sickening speed, flashing from a toxic dark green to a blinding crimson red, and then to a chilling, glacial blue.

Every flicker of those shifting irises radiated an oppressive, omniscient weight.

It didn’t just feel like a monster staring down from the clouds; it felt as though the absolute consciousness of the universe—the raw, unadulterated gaze of a celestial God—was locking directly onto Ethan’s soul.

Even with his newly awakened fourth mana ring and his mastery over space and time, a cold prickle of danger danced along Ethan’s spine.

Crack! Hiss—!

Suddenly, the fabric of the sky split open. From the painted mouth of the colossal jester, thousands of glowing, ethereal white threads poured downward like a torrential rain of spider silk.

They weren’t ordinary ropes of energy.

These threads were woven directly from the laws of causality and fate, extending across dimensions to probe every living soul within the secret realm.

Ethan narrowed his eyes, his advanced spiritual perception expanding outward to track their trajectories

To the South: One thick, vibrating thread plummeted deep into the subterranean halls, plunging straight into the ruined, blood-soaked chamber where Kael lay shattered and writhing in agony.

Across the Distance: Another thread raced like a striking viper toward the outer sectors, tracing the spatial signature of Seraphina as she traveled with the newly acquired Eye of the Abyssal Sovereign.

Directly Below: Countless other threads rained down upon the lower slopes of the Mountain of Death, sinking seamlessly into the minds of Arthur and the surviving cultivators.

The Heavenly Clown wasn’t just launching a blind strike. It was casting a cosmic net, plugging directly into the consciousness of every protagonist, anomaly, and living entity in the realm. It was scanning memories, probing soul marks, and tracing the ripples of stolen destiny to unmask the exact parasite who had upended the heavens’ grand design.

The white threads twitched and pulsed in unison, humming with a frequency that threatened to rupture the minds of anyone they touched. The search had begun.

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