Chapter 222: End of an Era
Chapter 222: End of an Era
For a full five seconds, not a single sound existed in the entire central plaza.
A hundred thousand people stared at the scene before them with expressions frozen between disbelief and awe.
For nineteen years, Lyra had dominated her peers.
Since her birth, she had stood upon an untouchable pedestal, looking down at the rest of the world.
She was the undisputed peak.
But today, she was kneeling on the scorched arena floor with a blade pressed against her throat.
The realization crashed over the entire city like a tidal wave.
"She lost... Lyra Emberford actually lost!"
"The queen has fallen! The undefeated myth of the Emberford Noble Family has been shattered!"
"He is the strongest now! Rhain Voss is the absolute strongest of the younger generation!"
Beyond the academy gates, the millions of ordinary citizens and wandering cultivators watching the projection arrays across Stormveil City completely lost their minds.
"He defeated Lyra Emberford! Even after she broke through to the Core Formation Realm!"
"This is the greatest battle I have ever witnessed in my entire life!"
"From today onward, the strongest genius of the younger generation in Stormveil City is Rhain Voss!"
The established hierarchy of Stormveil City had just been violently overthrown in the span of a single afternoon.
Rhain Voss was no longer just the new king of the Inner Palace.
He was now the undisputed strongest person of the younger generation in the entire Stormveil City.
Down in the Gold Badge section, the Inner Palace disciples were staring at Rhain as if looking at a descended god.
Neve’s jaw was hanging so low it nearly touched her knees, her hands gripping her hair in sheer, mind-numbing shock.
Zane watched the scene with a bitter, self-deprecating smile that slowly turned into profound respect.
Jace sat in the contestant area, his sixteen-year-old face had a look of stunned admiration.
He, who had once glared at Rhain with defiant, competitive eyes now looked at him with the reverent awe of a man staring at his untouchable idol.
Rhain was no longer just a genius for them.
He was an insurmountable mountain.
Up on the grand stage, the true titans of the Solathane Dynasty were experiencing a psychological earthquake of their own.
Patriarch Thorian Thunderwood slowly exhaled a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.
"Stormveil City’s hierarchy has just been rewritten," Thorian muttered, "To cross a major realm boundary, bypass a Domain, and suppress a Heavenly Flame... this boy is a walking calamity."
He slowly turned his head toward his son, Godfrey, and daughter, Elara, who sat beside him.
Godfrey Thunderwood, peak Spirit Manifestation Realm, considered one of the three strongest young prodigies in Stormveil City, sat absolutely still. His face had gone completely white, and his hands were trembling in his lap.
He now understood with devastating clarity that if he had been the one standing in that arena, he would have been killed in the very first exchange.
Elara looked at Rhain with her intelligent eyes, her brows were knitted together as if she was thinking something very deeply.
Patriarch Caelan’s calculating mind was furiously spinning with political strategies.
"This boy..." Caelan whispered to himself, "If we do not secure his loyalty now, in ten years, he will be an existence that even the combined might of our three families cannot suppress."
Among the High Preceptors and Preceptors, there was a stunned silence.
Aldren, Octavius, and Mordecai exchanged looks of profound gravity.
Fabian and Krell were completely paralyzed, unable to even articulate the impossibility of what they had just witnessed.
Lucius’s charming smile had not returned since the blood-red Heavenly Flame first appeared.
The calculus in his mind had shifted dramatically.
This was no longer a matter of simply eliminating a husband to acquire a wife.
Rhain Voss was an existence that could shake the very foundations of the Solathane Dynasty.
"He must be brought to heel,’ Lucius’s mind was filled with chilling calculations. ’A talent like this, will undoubtedly grow into a power that can completely disregard the king, and the whole dynasty. He is an existential threat to the throne. If he can’t be controlled... he must be eliminated before he reaches the Core Formation Realm.’
Nearby, Matriarch Seraphine had slumped slightly in her ornate seat.
Her imperious, composed demeanor had completely crumbled.
Her sharp eyes were trembling as she stared at her precious daughter, the pride of the Emberford Noble Family, kneeling in the dirt with a blade at her throat.
It broke Seraphine’s heart as a mother, and shattered her pride as a Matriarch.
Lyra had broken her perfect foundation to reach the Core Formation Realm, unleashed her ultimate trump card, and still suffered a total, crushing defeat.
The sheer psychological blow of this loss was something she feared her proud daughter might never recover from.
Beside her, Dean Carmilla let out a long, heavy exhale, though a strange, appreciative light glimmered within her bright eyes. "It seems my Academy really did produce the strongest genius of this generation..." she murmured under her breath.
Myrielle sat paralyzed, her sapphire eyes locked onto Rhain’s figure.
The youth she had once looked down upon as an unnecessary attachment to her peerless disciple had just proven himself to be the most terrifying monster the academy had ever seen.
Seris stood at the edge of the stage.
Her pale purple eyes glistened with pure joy and overwhelming pride.
She watched her husband standing victorious in the center of the devastated arena, and her heart swelled with such powerful emotion that it threatened to burst from her chest.
"That’s my husband," Seris whispered, pressing both hands against her heart. "That’s my husband."
Far across the plaza, in the Outer Palace spectator section, Liana’s emerald eyes glistened with a complex swirl of immense joy and a crushing, isolating sorrow.
As she looked at the radiant, untouchable god of war standing in the arena, the unbridgeable gap between them had never felt so despairingly clear.
He was a sun, and she was merely a speck of dust in his orbit.
But while the entire world was suffering from their shock, the girl kneeling in the center of the arena was trapped in a nightmare she couldn’t wake up from.
Lyra stared blankly at the dark steel of the broadsword pressing against her throat.
She was kneeling.
She had lost.
"No..." Lyra muttered, her voice trembling.
Her crimson eyes, which had always burned with fierce pride and haughty confidence, were now wild and unfocused.
"No... no... this is impossible!"
Lyra violently shook her head, her disheveled crimson hair whipping wildly around her bruised face.
She looked up at Rhain’s perfectly placid, indifferent dark grey eyes, and her mind simply snapped.
For nineteen years, she had been the uncontested peak.
She had comprehend a Domain!
She wielded a True Heavenly Flame!
She had now even broken through to the Core Formation Realm at the age of just nineteen!
She was supposed to be invincible!
"I AM A CORE FORMATION EXPERT!" Lyra screamed, her voice tearing through her throat, entirely devoid of her usual haughty elegance. "I FORGED A DOMAIN! I HAVE THE EMBERFORD BLOODLINE! A SPIRIT MANIFESTATION TRASH LIKE YOU CANNOT DEFEAT ME!"
She scrambled backward, crawling away from the tip of his blade, looking pitifully deranged.
"YOU CHEATED!" Lyra shrieked, pointing a trembling finger at Rhain. "That’s it! You used some forbidden demonic art! There is absolutely no way you could break my Domain without cheating! YOU ARE A FRAUD!"
The hundred thousand spectators fell silent, watching the meltdown of the city’s former queen.
She had completely lost her mind.
The invincible prodigy could not comprehend her own defeat, retreating into a state of mentally disturbed denial.
Rhain looked down at the frantic, screaming girl.
He slowly lowered his dark broadsword, letting it rest against the cracked stone floor.
His dark grey eyes held not a trace of pity, only chilling contempt.
"How pathetic," Rhain’s voice echoed clearly in the silent plaza, silencing her hysterical screams.
"You spent your entire life standing on a pedestal built by your family’s name, looking down on everyone else. But the moment someone shatters that fragile illusion, you throw a tantrum like a spoiled child."
Rhain stepped forward, his gaze piercing directly into her shattered soul.
"You didn’t lose because I cheated," Rhain stated ruthlessly. "You lost because, despite all your resources, your bloodline, and your domain... you are simply weak."
"SHUT UP! SHUT UP! YOU CHEATER! I WILL KILL—!"
Swoosh—!
Before Lyra could even finish her deranged threat, the temperature in the arena violently plummeted.
A blinding streak of icy-blue light descended from the grand stage, slamming into the cracked stone floor directly between Rhain and Lyra.
The absolute zero cold radiating from the impact instantly froze the surrounding air, coating the scorched arena in a layer of profound frost.
And the reason of it all was a breathtaking figure standing before Rhain, shielding him completely.
Seris.
Her magnificent silver-blue hair fluttered in the freezing wind, and her pale purple eyes, which usually held nothing but serene gentleness, were now blazing with a bone-chilling fury.
She looked like an enraged goddess of ice descending to execute a sinner.
"Shameless!"
Seris’s melodious voice rang out, but it was so cold that it made the nearby spectators shiver involuntarily.
She glared down at the hysterical, kneeling Lyra with disgust.
"You demanded this duel! You used your higher cultivation! You used your Domain! You used your Heavenly Flame! My husband crushed every single one of your pathetic trump cards with his own strength, and yet you still dare to sit there and whine like a sore loser?"
Seris took a step forward, the Heavenly Glacial Essence rolling off her slender frame, causing the very stone beneath Lyra’s hands to crack and freeze.
"You couldn’t accept the fact that my husband is simply better than you in every conceivable way!" Seris declared, her voice striking Lyra’s heart deeply.
"HOW DARE YOU CALL MY HUSBAND A CHEATER!"