"Kaden wants to meet Alex?" Verity asked, her face deathly pale.
To the people of the divine realm, Kaden was a symbol of undefeatable power. For thousands of years, the Crimson sect had been an undistinguished group among the seven great sects. At times, it had even been ranked at the bottom.
Then, generation after generation, there had been a great number of powerful people in the sect, and their status had risen. Now they held sway over the entire divine realm, and Kaden was even regarded by some as a mythical being.
Alex couldn't possibly stand up against such a figure.
Fern looked worried. "Although the Great One is very powerful, at most, he's an Earth immortal," she said. "How can he be a match for Kaden? He's in big trouble this time." She shook her head.
Agatha smiled bitterly and said, "I had thought that it might be my sect's master who would make a move first. I never imagined it would be Kaden." She sighed. "It looks like the leaders of the various major sects think that they might not be able to defeat the Great One themselves, so they went to Kaden. Or it could just be that he's itching for a fight. After all, warriors like the Great One are only seen once in a hundred years.
"Maybe they can come to an agreement when they meet. But if they fight, I fear the Great One's chances of winning aren't very good. Kaden was undefeatable three hundred years ago, so how much stronger has he gotten since then?"
As she listened to the conversation, Verity grew more and more concerned.
The visitors to the city also heard the news, and none of them believed Alex could defeat Kaden. It seemed that they had come all the way here for nothing.
**
People were gathering from all over the realm.
The prevailing opinion around the city was that Alex should flee. Even if he declined to accept Kaden's challenge, Kaden was not going to tolerate his presence in this realm.
Many members of the seven great sects were delighted, and they were eager to see Alex being dealt with.
"Did he really think that he could impugn our dignity without consequences?" one of them said to his companion. "Well, he's going to regret it."
**
Alex was completely unaware of the hubbub he had caused.
He sat in the nameless valley, cross-legged and enveloped in a pure white light.
The soul concentrating pill was incredibly powerful. Without it, he would have needed at least three years to break through to the middle innate realm.
Now that he had entered the innate realm, each level he advanced to was ten times more difficult than the one before and gave him a proportionate increase in combat strength.
Two days went by. Five days. Ten days.
On the fifteenth day, his aura expanded, and he broke through a barrier to the middle innate realm. Everything for miles around him trembled. Funnels of spiritual energy descended from the sky like tornadoes and gathered around him.
He was now the strongest being in the innate realm. But it still wasn't enough.
He made a sign with his hand, and an ancient symbol appeared in his soul. The pattern showed a lightning bolt piercing the universe, and Alex recognized it as the second incantation—the thunder god.
As energy began to circulate through it, the power from the treasure pill transformed into countless streaks of lightning. The soul concentrating pill had contained a large amount of divine lightning, and it was just the right amount of power for the thunder god incantation.
As the symbol grew within Alex, bolts of lightning struck the surrounding valley, and terrifying thunderclouds brewed in the sky above him.
Divine beasts were all born, not created, and they were the beloved children of the universe. Allowing a mortal to possess the power of a divine beast—and not just one, but two of them—was defying the heavens.
It was no wonder that Alex had never seen anyone who had mastered all twelve incantations in his previous life. This path was too difficult, and it required too many resources.
But Alex was prepared. He muttered a spell under his breath, and the numerous spirit stones and herbs that were in his magic storage space exploded, one after another.
He had stored thousands of them away, and now, with each breath, more spirit stones exploded, turning into pure energy that gathered inside him.
With the accumulation of precious herbs and spirit stones, the thunder god symbol grew even more powerful, and an ancient figure slowly lit up behind him. It was the image of a thunder dragon, and it was sheathed in lightning.
Such a beast was born with the ability to control lightning, and rumor had it that the ancient thunder god, who had once dominated the universe, was a thunder dragon.
The symbol was growing stronger, but then it stopped, with only a tiny bit left to go. Alex had already used up all his spirit stones, but once again, he was prepared. He pulled on his energy and cast another spell.
Blood-red flames surged around him. He had once devoured the essence of the six great blood ancestors, and he had only used up half of them. Now the rest all erupted at once.
When this massive amount of pure energy poured into the symbol, it was instantly complete. When the last piece lit up, a brilliant aura, shining with an ancient light, filled the valley.
At last, when the completed symbol was absorbed into his body and deeply imprinted into his every muscle and bone, he opened his eyes.