Inside the abandoned stadium’s locker room, Joren sat on a bench with one broken leg. A cracked mirror hung in front of him, reflecting a young and handsome face.
His attention rested on two blue Talents.
"System."
"All in."
"Upgrade [Phantom Thorn] and [Thunder Dominion]."
[Ding!]
[Spend 10000 Bloodstars to evolve Phantom Thorn into a purple Talent?]
[Spend 10000 Bloodstars to evolve Thunder Dominion into a purple Talent?]
"Yes."
Twenty thousand Bloodstars vanished at once.
[Ding! Evolution successful.]
[Blue Talent Phantom Thorn has evolved into purple Talent Voidshadow Execution.]
[Blue Talent Thunder Dominion has evolved into purple Talent Ruinous Radiant Thunder.]
New streams of data poured across Joren’s vision.
He opened the first description immediately.
[Talent: Voidshadow Execution]
[Grade: Purple]
[Description: You no longer borrow the shadows. You are a sovereign who walks through the void itself. The barriers of the world mean nothing to you. Wherever shadows exist, your dominion reaches.]
[Void Walk: Active ability. Your body enters the void plane completely. While in this state, you are immune to all physical attacks and cannot be detected through conventional means. Duration depends on Mental Force consumption.]
[Shadow Blink: Instantly move into any shadow within your line of sight, ignoring all obstacles. Maximum range: 500 meters. Cooldown: 0 seconds.]
[Execution Backstab: After emerging from the void or a shadow, your first attack is converted into true damage. It ignores armor and energy barriers and deals 500 percent critical damage. This ability enters cooldown after use.]
Joren drew in a sharp breath.
This was absurd.
[Phantom Thorn] had only provided optical concealment. Anyone with strong perception could still expose him.
[Void Walk] was something else entirely.
He entered another dimension and became immune to physical attacks.
That meant if Joren had no intention of fighting, he could stand in the center of a missile barrage and smoke while the world exploded around him.
Then there was the 500 percent true damage that ignored armor.
A tank’s worst nightmare.
A fragile enemy’s worst possible father.
Joren forced down the excitement and opened the second Talent.
[Talent: Ruinous Radiant Thunder]
[Grade: Purple]
[Description: Wherever thunder falls, only ash remains. What you command is no longer mortal electricity. You are destruction given form.]
[Lightning Element Body: After activation, your body fully transforms into pure lightning over three seconds. While elementalized, you are immune to physical damage, your movement speed rises to subsonic levels, and every target you pass through suffers a devastating lightning strike.]
[Extinction Thunder Prison: Draw upon the power of heaven and earth to create a field of surging thunder plasma within one hundred meters. All enemies within the field suffer 200 percent lightning damage every second and are forcibly paralyzed.]
[Divine Judgment: Gather all lightning power into a single point and release an unavoidable spear of destruction. This attack carries an irreparable effect. Any wound it causes continues to decay and cannot be restored by healing abilities.]
[Bloodstars: 16020]
Joren stared at the panel.
Every Talent was purple now.
A full set of monsters.
Only now could he truly say he was equipped from head to toe.
[Divine Mammoth Might] gave him absolute strength.
[Glacial Boneplate] gave him supreme defense.
[Worldheart Awareness] opened the entire map before him.
Now [Voidshadow Execution] gave him impossible assassination methods, while [Ruinous Radiant Thunder] brought overwhelming destructive power.
This was not merely an all rounder.
This was a demon king with no weaknesses.
Joren stood before the fractured mirror and closed his eyes.
One thought.
[Voidshadow Execution].
Buzz.
The world changed.
The smell of rot and dust vanished from the air.
So did the wind, the distant voices of the soldiers, and the crackling of the campfires.
Even color disappeared.
Everything became an abstract world of black, white, and gray lines.
Joren looked down at his hands.
They were no longer flesh and blood. They had become translucent, almost unreal, as though formed from countless particles of dark matter.
"So this is Void Walk."
He stepped forward.
A load bearing concrete wall stood directly in his path, thirty centimeters thick.
Joren passed through it without resistance and entered the storage room on the other side.
Rusted dumbbells and barbells were piled across the floor.
He reached for one.
His fingers passed through the iron handle.
"Physical immunity."
Joren nodded thoughtfully.
In this state, he existed as an observer in another dimension.
The physical laws of reality could not restrain him.
By the same logic, he could not directly interfere with physical matter either.
That did not mean he could not attack.
His gaze settled on the shadow in one corner.
[Shadow Blink].
Whoosh.
The storage room emptied.
At almost the same instant, a figure condensed beneath the shadow of a giant billboard at the highest point of the stadium stands.
Joren stepped out.
Five hundred meters.
No delay.
Not even a ripple in space.
It looked as though he had been standing there all along.
"Now this is a real assassin ability."
The corner of his mouth rose.
With this power, where in the world could he not go?
Even the heavily guarded vault of Alkaid Authority would feel no different from his own backyard.
Joren drew a breath and released the void state.
Brilliant violet light replaced the darkness in his eyes.
[Ruinous Radiant Thunder].
Crackle!
His body lost the texture of flesh in an instant.
Skin, bones, hair, all of it transformed into pure violet thunder plasma.
Highly compressed destructive energy.
None of it leaked outward.
Every trace remained locked inside him, held in an unstable balance.
Joren raised his right hand and pointed one finger into the distance.
"Divine Judgment."
A violet beam no thicker than a thumb shot from his fingertip.
It moved too quickly for the eye to follow.
The narrow streak of lightning crossed the night without a sound, passed over the overgrown football field, and struck an abandoned signal tower a thousand meters away.
One second later, a five meter section in the middle of the fifty meter steel structure simply ceased to exist.
It had not been blasted apart.
It had been vaporized.
The signal tower lost its support and collapsed, throwing smoke and dust into the air.
Only then did the thunder arrive.
Boom!
The delayed roar shook the stadium and rattled every remaining pane of glass.
"Decent."
Joren dismissed the lightning around his fingertip.
His body returned to flesh.
He was satisfied.
Not long after the test ended, hurried footsteps pounded up the stands.
"Frontier Marshal!"
Alar and Dax rushed toward him, both drenched in sweat and gripping their weapons.
"What happened just now?"
"Was that an enemy attack?"
"We heard thunder, and over there..."
Alar pointed toward the fallen signal tower, his voice unsteady.
The thunderclap had been terrifying.
It had sounded only once, but the pressure released in that instant had made the hearts of more than three thousand soldiers miss a beat.
Like prey sensing its natural predator.
Joren stood beside the railing while the night wind moved his clothes.
He turned toward them, his face still as deep water.
"What are you panicking about?"
Alar quickly pulled himself together.
"Well, Frontier Marshal..."
Dax stepped forward, his expression turning serious.
"If it was not an attack, then I have something important to report."