CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT — The Butcher's Feast
BOOM… BOOM!?
That was the only sound Mira could hear. Or maybe it wasn't sound at all...Just pressure, shivering through the bones of the earth, vibrating through her chest, rattling her teeth. The battlefield had already lasted a few minutes since Leylin had killed the first commander, yet it felt like hours compressed into a heartbeat.
She pressed herself against a jagged stone, eyes wide, mouth dry. Smoke, blood, and energy swirled around her like a living storm. Titans lay shattered in molten rivers, soldiers' essences flickered and were devoured mid-step, and the ground quaked under the collapse of leviathans whose jaws had never closed.
Mira's mind raced to piece it together. He hadn't even touched the Seat Holders yet. The commanders, the awakened, the legions of bloodline bearers..They had been nothing more than moving lessons. And he had learned fast. Faster than anyone could imagine.
Leylin moved through them like a ghost. Not a single misstep. Each strike, each redirection, each parry..a calculated absorption of their strength, their patterns, their essence. He was learning, not dominating...his Pride Core pulsing calmly beneath his chest, molten veins blazing in quiet certainty. Not arrogance. Curiosity. Testing.
Then came the Seat Holders. Seven of them, descending like the wrath of gods. Their domains ignited, pulsing outward, reshaping the battlefield with pure law. The Time Seat Holder, golden and terrible, their Domain Expansion holy and absolute, tore space apart with every gesture.
Leylin responded without hesitation. Sonic booms erupted as he leapt, the air splitting around him, his molten lines carving trails through reality itself. He hadn't even released his own energy fully, yet the battlefield bent, fractured, and screamed.
Mira could only watch. Blood rained, ash fell, and the world seemed to pause—not in fear of him, but in recognition of something far beyond comprehension.
"He's… learning from them," she whispered, her voice trembling. "He… he's at Foundation Establishment… and he's surviving Domain Expansion…"
Every strike, every dodge, every leap across the air—he was absorbing, measuring, remembering. And still, he smiled. Calm. Curious. Devouring not just the flesh and essence around him, but the very knowledge of war itself.
Just as he was about to take a step forward… a pause. Hesitation.
And that was what the Frost Seat Leader had been waiting for.
"Gotcha," she said, delivering a frost kick to Leylin's spine...sending him spiraling downward as he crashed into the battlefield below, tearing through stone like butter. When he finally came to a stop, he had left a thousand-meter-wide crater carved into the earth.
BOOM… BOOM… This was not the sound of collision, but the Seven Seat Leaders appearing around the crater like quiet judges waiting to see if their prey had fallen.
"Told you he was weak," said the Frost Lady.
A leader of Gravity, bulking mass coiled like steel, scoffed. "Would've been over if you guys let me join in."
"So that your dragging domain would pull us back too," hissed another.
The Gravity Leader stared at the Lightning Leader, about to speak… before they were silenced by the Leader of Sound, a middle-aged woman who looked thirty-five.
"He isn't dead," she said, eyes fixed on the crater as if expecting something to burst out.
"Impossible. No Foundation Establishment realm cultivator could survive that strike," muttered another.
"Exactly," said the Time Leader, who had remained quiet until now. "That's the point."
And as if answering his question, the rubble split. A figure burst forth from the crater, calm yet serious, playfulness nowhere to be seen.
Leylin hovered briefly in the sky before his imminent descent, a single thought in his mind:
"Alright. Play time's over."
BADUM!
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