After that, everyone on the ground—mostly those in the Spirit Realm—witnesses an orange light streak into the sky and join the battle among the Spirit Kings. A moment later, a terrifying wave of energy ripples across the battlefield. Half an hour passes under that pressure, and then one of the Spirit Kings of the Greyrose Circus falls—his phantasm collapsing with a shriek of energy before his body is devoured by a blob of water.
Cheers erupt across the allied lines. Morale surges. Hope returns.
But on the other side, the Greyrose Circus falters. Fear creeps into their ranks. Worse than their loss, they watch as the devouring water consumes the Spirit King's corpse, leaving no trace behind. Panic spreads when some of the enemy Spirit Kings start turning their fury on them after killing their Spirit king.
Kanoru moves without pause. He targets only the Spirit Lords of the Greyrose Circus, and every time the devouring water finishes consuming one, replenishing his strength, he takes to the sky again, hunting his next enemy. With support from his allies among the Spirit Kings, each battle ends in less than an hour.
He doesn't stop—until one moment.
He's flying toward another Spirit King to assist—but he's too late. The allied Spirit King dies before Kanoru arrives, his phantasm torn apart in one blow, his body crushed by a single punch. The enemy hadn't even bothered activating his own phantasm.
Kanoru halts, floating at a distance. His eyes narrow.
The killer stands still—a humanoid rhino, massive and scarred, red thunder chains coiled tight around his arms like serpents made of lightning. One end drags behind him, crackling, carving molten scars into the sky. He doesn't speak. He doesn't hesitate.
He swings.
The chain slices forward with a roar of thunder.
Kanoru doesn't flinch. He ignite his forbidden state and both swords flash as he intercepts the strike. Sparks explode in the air. The moment their powers clash, they freeze.
The chain coils around one of Kanoru's swords.
But he doesn't budge.
Neither does the rhino.
Their energy clashes, locked in place, the battlefield pulsing around them. Both sides breathe in tension, sensing how closely matched they are. Kanoru's muscles tense. His eyes narrow. He knows this will not end quickly. Their power is nearly identical—and his forbidden state has limits. At most, he can maintain it for fifteen minutes now. That's five minutes more than before. His body has grown stronger, the density of his blood thicker, volume greater, but time is still ticking.
From his feet, blobs of devouring water begin to fall silently toward the ground, forming a ring of grey death beneath them.
Kanoru breathes slowly. Part of his consciousness pulls away from the fight. He begins to dive into the structure of his new energy. The grey elemental energy flows through him, formed from the six alien energies he's mastered—but its inner rune formation feels different, twisted into something new during the fusion. He doesn't understand it fully. Not yet. But now, locked in this stalemate, he has time to learn.
He doesn't try to win. Not yet.
He sustains the clash. Maintains the balance.
He learns.
He's aware that without a bold risk, this enemy won't fall. But if he acts too soon, too recklessly, the humanoid rhino might unleash his phantasm—and if that happens, Kanoru's odds of victory nosedive.
So he waits.
And while the chains spark, and the water spreads below, and thunder rolls from their locked weapons—
Kanoru begins to comprehend.
Above the clouds, near the edge of the sky where the world's barrier shimmers—a faint line dividing reality from the outer void—nine figures clash in brutal melees. Two against one. One against three. A storm of phantasms and will.
Hayate, his phantasm a colossal storm dragon, fights beside Wen Qiang. Together, they battle Rosie, Akila, and Ywet. Not far, Zilian and Elewyn face Aslan, while the Bone Clown dances with blades against Aslan alone.
Rosie moves like a crimson shadow, a woman who looks no older than thirty, with waterfall-grey hair and eyes that gleam like polished stone. She wears a dress of blood-red fabric that clings to her like a second skin, her presence soaked in menace. Grey elemental energy flows from her—pure annihilation. Anything beneath her tier dissolves upon contact.
Hayate and Wen Qiang can't match her energy. Not truly. If they faced her in a neutral world, her casual strikes—meant for one—might kill both if fate twisted cruelly. But this is the spirit world. Here, the land itself rises to protect its children.
Wen Qiang, Hayate, and even the storm dragon fight with the world's blessing. Their energy hasn't reached the next tier, but within their own, it burns at its peak—pure, refined, absolute. Rosie, an Invader, suffers the opposite. The spirit world chokes her power, restricting her to a mere twenty percent of her full strength. She cannot draw energy from the world. Every attack drains her reserves, with no way to refill them.
Yet still—she dominates.
Even shackled, her strength exceeds theirs. But she does not try to kill. Not yet. Her movements are calculated, efficient, controlled. She fights to conserve. To extend her time here.
Because she already knows.
Their target isn't this battlefield. It's the invasion of World M10254.
M stands for medium-tier world. The number marks how many such worlds the Nightmare World has encountered.
The Spirit World is inferior—unranked. To become a low-tier world, it must birth a Tier-4 being. Until then, it has no identification.
Inferior worlds are like drifting dust—born and erased without warning.
Their destruction comes for many reasons:
natural decay, void monsters, invaders, or even internal collapse.
Only Great Worlds escape inevitable death. Nightmare World is one of them.
The invasion of M10254 begins in 100 Nightmare Days—33 years here.
And Rosie's force isn't the vanguard. They arrive 100 days after the first wave.
She has no time to wait for a Tier-3 breakthrough. Even if this world is conquered now.
So, she's made her decision—
she will enter a Time Room in one of Nightmare's great cities,
where time slows.
She gives herself 50 years of Spirit World time—
and she will conquer this world before the clock runs out.
Zilian, like Rosie, maintains a stalemate—fighting cautiously.
She sits on the shoulder of a giant puppet, a little girl clutching a doll, her expression blank. Two more puppets clash with Akila and Ywet, keeping both of them occupied.
The Clown, at first aiming to kill either Elewyn or Aslan, suddenly shifts his stance. After receiving Rosie's message in Nightmare tongue—unintelligible to the six defenders—he adopts the same conservative approach as Rosie and Zilian.
He understands: the longer they remain, the weaker the world's suppression grows.
For the last 50 years, the suppression kept him restrained. Though a Tier-2 being, his energy is also Tier-2. The world never lifted its weight off him. He could replenish energy by absorbing this world's essence, but it wasn't enough.
Zilian is different—her energy level is Tier-3. Ten Clowns together wouldn't match her.
Rosie, stronger still, holds Tier-4 energy. Even a hundred Clowns wouldn't survive her serious attack.
All three are at the same cultivation realm—Tier-2. But in the Nightmare World, Tier-2 is ranked by energy level: from Tier-2 (lowest) to Tier-5 (peak). Only then can one break into Tier-3 and earn the title of Nightmare Noble.
Nightmare Nobles are protected. If Nightmare is an empire, Tier-3 is nobility—immune to execution by higher tiers without cause. Tier-4 and above cannot harm them without proper reason.
Those below Tier-3 are ants. No one cares if they die—unless under a noble's protection.
That's why they must conquer this world.
Only through conquest can Rosie reach Tier-3, using the Grey King's partial inheritance in her hands.
Only then will Greyrose Circus fall under the protection of a Nightmare Noble.
Otherwise, they remain cannon fodder in the coming invasion of the medium-tier world.
In the distance, the humanoid rhino lets out a guttural roar and shouts something in a language Kanoru doesn't understand. A surge of red thunder bursts from the creature, blasting Kanoru back through the air. His expression hardens—he knows what's coming.
Within seconds, the humanoid figure vanishes. In its place stands a colossal red rhino, its four massive legs pressing down on the clouds. Red thunder lashes out violently. Kanoru dodges, circling the beast at high speed, narrowly evading each strike.
He doesn't counterattack. The grey energy barely harms the creature—its resistance is too high. He chooses to wait, conserving energy while hoping the rhino's phantasm form drains itself.
Still, he's prepared for the worst. If the tide turns, he's ready to flee.
But the world favors him.
From the skies, two figures streak toward the battlefield—a large white pegasus and a savage manticore. Kanoru recognizes them instantly. He'd aided them just before encountering the rhino.
The pegasus, wings spread wide and shimmering with cold mist, is Edward's phantasm. The manticore is the true phantasm of a manticore cultivator.
The pegasus radiates light and water elemental energy. The manticore pulses with wood and earth.
Their voices echo in Kanoru's mind.
"We'll block its attacks."
"Your job—attack the rhino."