My vision and senses are filled with a pure silver light and a high-pitched ringing once my full greater form phases through the throne's open door.
It feels warm and hot at the same time, similar to a far superior aura of perception moving through me, and it easily bypasses the purple barrier surrounding me like it's not even there.
Once the flash of silver ceases, my vision goes black.
I expect my senses to go dark as well, but instead, they feel heightened.
The outside world is still completely visible to me, in crystal clear clarity...
In fact, it's even better than it was before. My perception is being effortlessly boosted without me having to even use any additional mana.
The Dark Continent and the 8 Great Regions aren't the only things I can see and feel. The vast ocean separating this Nation from Central to the west becomes visible to my senses with ease, and I can see every single human in Central Headquarters above the flaming mountain.
Not only that, I can see even further than I've ever traveled before, to the east, north, and south as well.
Hundreds of Nations housing tens of millions of citizens each all over the world show up in my senses.
Not many of them even have A-Class hunters, and even fewer have any divine core holders, as they are not the main powerhouses of the world; but it opens my eyes to the vastness of the world beyond what I've traveled, and the lives of innocent, unaware citizens that I'll be fighting for today.
Not only can I feel everywhere the throne's surges have touched, but my senses inside the tower have heightened as well. Ember by my side shows up in my senses in pristine detail, and I can feel the presence of two True Core Monsters above me, entering the tower as well.
I feel the walls of the room I've been transported into, over 10 kilometers high and nearly 30 kilometers wide and long; however, I can't sense Elara, Beckman, or the Demon that entered the tower at all...
Redgrave and the flaming hound he rides on come into full view about a kilometer overhead, and their levels and status beam into my mind, burning with yellow divine light.
A bright [Lv. 19440] hits my senses from both of them, telling me they must be soul-bonded entities. Over a dozen armor and gear pieces stack all over his body with maxed-out 5-category stat buffs ranging from +1000-2000% each.
He still points his flaming yellow blade down at me, and I see [Fire Summoning][Supreme Grade] on both his and his beast's status while he fully releases his aura to light up the dark room we've been transported into.
"Time to die, Flame Emperor! I am the strongest Divine Fire User on this planet! There can only be one!"
The man's golden armor amplifies his flames, and the hound's color glows bright while it too explodes with a murderous aura even stronger than the intimidation attacks I felt from the Demon that engaged with me in the desert.
His whole body pulses and expands, creating a massive yellow-white flaming greater form that amplifies his aura by multiple times yet again.
My eyes widen, and I don't hesitate to pull a full 32% of stats from 17.7 million Links of loyalty to boost both mine and Ember's strength to withstand the wave of flames coming our way.
I don't pull from anyone on the battlefield and leave the 3% available for Maria, Arie, and Abby to pull from as I assume they will be having battles of their own.
While they are all strong, the amount of usable stats I would gain from them is minuscule compared to the ringing notifications in my head from the massive stat gains I get from my links all over the Nation.
[+509,760,277 Strength]
[+551,023,950 Mental Strength]
[+496,654,239 Defense]
[+510,020,524 Speed]
[+499,160,400 Agility]
The borrowed MCP surges into the hundreds of trillions as well. It helps, but the power of massive stat boosts, raising my base stats by thousands of times their natural limit, is what really makes up the difference.
When the immense wall of yellow flaming aura ripples off my enemies, it is combated with a strong aura of my own, making an ear-piercing static crashing sound that makes it feel like reality itself is bending and breaking between the auras that clash.
My aura mimics that of Maria's when we were testing out her powers for the first time, skewing dark crimson in color as there is more mana and soul energy flooding out from me than my True Core's threads can even handle tethering to.
The dark red and yellow flames colliding light up the entire black room, and at the back of it, a 5-kilometer-tall statue of a silver demon with 3 eyes and 9 arms guards the archway of a door that looks very similar to the one we just entered.
As our auras collide, a voice rings out in my inner ear that sounds very similar to a system notification but with a more ancient and echoing tone.
Silver letters appear in my mind as it speaks, and from the widened eyes and change in heart rate of Redgrave, Ember, and the flaming hound; it's clear they can see the message as well.
[One Soul-Bonded Pair Per Door Is Permitted. The Trials Will Begin Once One Challenger Remains.]
All three eyes on the Demonic Statue at the back of the massive room glow bright silver, and my vision and senses are blinded again.
Once the light and ringing fade, I witness the entire room start to shift and morph before my eyes.
The jet black ceiling turns into a red sky, and the floor below us morphs and shifts into a dark black rocky terrain where spikes and pillars of stone shoot upward, ranging from a few hundred meters up to kilometers high and thick.
[Sudden Death Match Has Begun.] Echoes throughout our minds again as the room turns into a massive battlefield with open areas and strategically placed mazes and underground hiding spots, making this look like a natural canyon or dungeon I'd find in the outside world.
All of the terrain is made of silver divine threads; it feels very similar to when I looked into the inner makeup of Celia's purple divine construct.
The only thing that doesn't change from the original room is the 9-armed silver demonic statue at the back in front of the doorway watching it all.
No other sound or ancient system notification follows, all that I hear is the maniacal laughter of Redgrave, who now floats on the opposite side of the room.
He sends two massive crescents of yellow fire straight at the ceiling and yells out loud again.
"This is great! You're actually not that weak! This will be fun! Yes, very fun indeed!"
He twists his body around in circles, like he's dancing, and sends another wave of yellow flames in a seemingly random direction, while his fiery hound locks eyes with us and opens its mouth to send a pillar of flames our way.
The fire escaping these two is easily three times as strong as the fire that circled the central capital.
I grip my flaming sword and dark magic blade and yell as the pillar of divine fire comes toward us while Redgrave's last attacks slam against the red sky above and spread all throughout the outer walls of the room.
"I expected this level of strength at least, but this guy is crazy! An absolute lunatic..."
I propel myself upward to dodge the incoming flames, while Ember flaps his wings to stay eye level with the hound, sending me a telepathy message.
"This is a good warmup for us too. I'll take the pup; you handle the old man."
Ember bursts into a massive ball of fire while I fly upward and begin weaving through the black pillars of artificial rocky terrain to hover in front of the red-haired madman that laughs and throws more and more yellow fire at the ceiling above.
However, the instant I get to eye level with him, his aura and demeanor completely shift, and he kicks off with a cold and callous stare, charging his blade with an immense amount of Divine Energy that seems to endlessly pour out from his True Core, which trumps mine in size by over 5x the diameter.
I tighten my gaze as well, channeling every drop of Soul Energy and spare divine threads into my weapons, kicking off the air and activating the hexagonal shielding True Core Trait to add even more protection and power into my dual sword strike.
At the top of the room, my dense crimson flames collide with his sharp yellow fire.
Our auras clash again, but this time with far more intensity as we're both sending out our most powerful attacks.
His yellow blade collides with the hexagon in front of both of my blades at the same time that Ember sends a glistening clear soul-energy fire that flows like liquid from his mouth, tethered with True Core strands and an absurd amount of Mana.
Our attacks collide at the same time, sending two shockwaves through the top and bottom of the battlefield on impact.
A collision like this would have easily decimated the entire Dark Continent in seconds, but nothing within the tower changes at all.
The Silver Demonic Statue watches without moving, and the pillars of stone at varying sizes and heights all around withstand the blast and don't budge at all.
The two streams of flames below stay pushing against each other at seemingly equal strength, while my hexagon of pure divine energy blocks Redgrave's incoming divine sword.
I can see his face, bright white smile, and crazy wide eyes close up and personal now.
His blade is stopped in mid-air, just meters away from me, but it is still moving forward at a slow rate.
His bellowing laugh echoes through the room again while his flames burn brighter and brighter yellow as energy surges out from his core to power his blade.
In the next moment, his blade breaks through the defensive barrier, shattering it and letting the full power of his initial attack be released against my two swords.
I'm pushed back the instant they're hit, and I feel his sun-hot blade piercing into the two blood-bonded weapons in my greater form's grasp like they're butter.
It's like he's wielding his True Core in his hands and swinging it toward me. Despite all the power at my fingertips, he still follows through and sends me flying backward 15 kilometers in the blink of an eye to slam against the back wall of the room.
I cough up blood while my vision blurs for a moment. His echoing laughter rings throughout the room, and he goes back to sending seemingly random flaming crescents of divine fire all over the ceiling.
"That was everything I had... I need to somehow step it up another notch..." I mutter to myself while shaking myself out of the brutal impact with the solid wall and bringing my blades up in front of me again to focus my blurry vision.
As soon as my full perception comes back to reality to look at the blade marks in my damaged swords, I concentrate my full power into self-regeneration to slowly heal them.
The ringing in my ears finally stops as I grit my teeth and watch Ember fend off the hound below. Their initial attacks looked equal, but the overwhelming raw power of the fiery animal's yellow divine flames is beginning to push the Soul Energy burst from Ember back.
I have confidence that Ember can use his trump card to get out of this situation whenever he wishes, there is only one enemy I need to keep my eye on.
My gaze tightens on the maniac dancing in the air, and the black originator cube that rotates around me comes into my peripherals making its usual rounds. However, this time it blinks with divine energy for the first time since I found it in its tomb.
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Author's Note:
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