"OH!"
Only after Kurus openly conceded did the crowd finally recover from their shock. Cheers erupted like thunder.
A Seven-Star Fiend.
So, this… was a Seven-Star Fiend.
A casual strike had torn open Hell's space itself, leaving behind a rift dozens of meters long.
If that power had not been partially absorbed by the spatial fracture—
Any Six-Star Fiend lacking sufficient defense would have been killed outright.
And yet, because the space had truly been torn apart, the residual spatial turbulence carried a lethality no less terrifying than the original strike itself.
The Aftermath in Nightblaze Prefecture
After the duel, Nightblaze Prefecture gradually returned to calm.
Beside the Violetflame Castle, the first Fiend Castle branch officially established within the prefectural capital was completed.
God-level experts flooded in.
Applications for Fiend examinations piled up.
Locke.
Kurus.
Reyn.
Yan Feng.
Dalton.
All of the Five-Star Fiends personally conducted advancement trials.
The results were astonishing.
The Fiend Castle now possessed:
1 Seven-Star Fiend – Locke
1 Six-Star Fiend – Kurus
4 additional Five-Star Fiends
37 Four-Star Fiends
Over 1,000 Three-Star Fiends
Nearly seventy percent of the Highgods in Nightblaze Prefecture had joined.
With such strength—
No city within the prefecture could resist expansion.
Ironically, the bottleneck now lay not in opposition, but manpower.
A small city required at minimum:
3 Three-Star Fiends
200 Two-Star Fiends
500 One-Star Fiends
…to operate properly.
After all, Fiend Castle functioned much like a mission guild—providing military protection and structured contracts.
Commerce boomed.
Merchants now routinely posted escort missions before conducting trade.
The old rule of "your strength determines your survival" was slowly changing.
If one had sufficient wealth—
One could hire high-ranking Fiends.
Money was no longer a death sentence.
It became protection.
Many merchants deposited half their wealth into standing revenge contracts.
If their families were slaughtered—
Fiend Castle would fund pursuit missions.
Bandits could no longer escape consequences.
As trade increased, so too did mission volume.
Medium cities required five times the Fiend presence of small ones.
As for the prefectural capital—
To maintain Nightblaze Prefecture alone required:
A Six-Star Fiend (Kurus)
4 Five-Star Fiends
20+ Four-Star Fiends
300+ Three-Star Fiends
And this was only one prefecture.
That was why Locke had told Rockpeak and Ryan:
He would only challenge one Prefect every thousand years.
Expansion required structure.
Across Hell
However—
While Nightblaze had stabilized…
The rest of Hell had not.
Locke's battle projection was spreading like wildfire.
The sight of multicolored spatial turbulence alone was enough to make Six-Star Fiends feel dread.
In front of such power—
Numbers were meaningless.
Without an equal-tier expert—
Seven-Star Fiend Locke could sweep across half of Hell unopposed.
Blood River Prefecture
Within a secluded cultivation chamber—
A red-haired man sat cross-legged.
This was the Prefect of Blood River Prefecture:
Visto Belloso.
The next challenger on Locke's path.
He had watched the projection repeatedly.
The spatial rift.
The turbulence.
The effortless suppression.
Even he—
Felt fear.
He tested his own power afterward.
At full strength—
His attacks damaged space less than Kurus had.
After watching Kurus barely survive one strike—
Visto made a decision.
In the next thousand years—
He would focus entirely on defense.
Because all Prefects now shared one silent consensus:
At minimum—
They must survive one strike.
Only then could they maintain dignity after defeat.
If one could not endure even that—
They were merely Five-Star Fiend level.
And Five-Star was no longer sufficient to rule a prefecture.
Six-Star commanded respect.
But the era was changing.
According to intelligence gathered—
All Fiends who joined swore a billion-year secrecy oath.
In exchange—
They received the true path of fusion cultivation.
The implications were terrifying.
Within:
100,000 years → 70% of gods could grow tenfold1 million years → 10% could grow hundredfold
After that?
Only the truly exceptional would continue rising.
But even so—
In a million years—
Seven-Star Fiends might not be enough to rule.
Suddenly—
Visto felt something.
He opened his eyes.
"Who?"
His heart nearly stopped.
Before him stood a red-haired youth in crimson robes.
He had not sensed his arrival.
Not even a fluctuation.
"Hmm. Weak… but alert."
The youth studied him casually.
"You are the one scheduled to fight Locke in a thousand years?"
"Yes… my lord."
Visto did not dare move.
The pressure from this being—
Made Locke seem like a candle before a sun.
Life and death felt like a thought away.
The youth lifted a hand.
Three droplets of black liquid hovered above his palm.
They radiated terrifying authority.
Visto's mind blanked.
A name surfaced in his consciousness—
One every god knew—
But none had seen.
Sovereign.
"Visto Belloso."
"I await your command, Sovereign."
He immediately dropped to his knees.
The red-haired Sovereign spoke calmly:
"These are three drops of Destruction Sovereign's Might."
"Each drop will multiply your power by several hundred times for a short duration."
Visto inhaled sharply.
Several hundred times.
As a Six-Star Fiend—
This meant—
He could temporarily reach Asura level.
Beyond Seven-Star.
Beyond Locke.
But such gifts carried weight.
Thunder and rain alike were divine grace.
Refusal was not an option.
"Thank you for your favor, Sovereign."
"What must I do?"
"Nothing complicated."
"In one thousand years—"
"When you fight Locke—"
"Use them."
"If you defeat him, I may grant you the opportunity to serve under me."
"If you use them and still fail—"
"Then you are not qualified to serve me."
The Sovereign's voice was indifferent.
"Perform well, Visto Belloso."
"In a thousand years—"
"Do not disappoint me."
And just like that—
He vanished.
Leaving behind three drops of Sovereign's Might—
And a storm yet to come.
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