Chapter 259: Ambush in the Skies
Chapter 259: Ambush in the Skies
The ten grey-robed figures hovered in the night sky, completely sealing off the space ahead.
Their unadorned robes fluttered in the high-altitude winds, but the pressure radiating from their bodies was so overwhelmingly dense that the very clouds around them disintegrated into nothingness.
On the deck of the Dawn-Breaker, everyone looked at the ten figures with severe expressions.
Rhain’s dark grey eyes narrowed sharply, the golden light of the Eyes of Truth already igniting deep within his pupils.
He swept his gaze across the ten assassins, and his heart immediately sank.
The situation was far more disastrous than he had anticipated.
"All of them..." Rhain murmured, his voice chillingly grave. "Every single one of them is at the middle stage of the Domain Master Realm."
None of these assassins were weak, newly ascended Domain Masters.
The weakest among them was at the fourth level, and several were at the fifth and sixth levels.
But it was the man hovering at the very center of the formation—the leader of the hit squad—that made the blood of everyone on deck run completely cold.
Seventh level of the Domain Master Realm!
A late-stage Domain Master!
Beside Rhain, Dean Carmilla and Matriarch Seraphine both took a simultaneous half-step forward, their expressions turning grave.
Both Carmilla and Seraphine were only at the fifth level of the Domain Master Realm.
In the Domain Master Realm, the gap of a single minor level was like a vast, uncrossable chasm.
The disparity between the fifth level and the seventh level was a life-threatening disadvantage.
Death was practically staring them in the face.
"They really think highly of us," Carmilla gritted her teeth, a suicidal resolve flashing in her bright eyes.
The silver-bearded man in the lead spoke up.
"Dean Carmilla of the Stormveil Academy. Matriarch Seraphine of the Emberford Noble Family."
He announced loudly.
"My name is Veydris. I serve as an Inner Guardian of the Imperial Household. I have been dispatched under the authority of His Imperial Majesty."
He raised one hand and pointed a single finger at Rhain.
"The boy dies here. Everyone else may leave."
There was no room for negotiation. No room for politics.
The Royal Court had dispatched a literal execution squad, and they would not leave until Rhain was a headless corpse.
"Protect the skiff! Protect Rhain!" Carmilla roared, her melodious voice turning into a fierce battle cry. "DO NOT HOLD BACK!"
BOOM—!!!
Carmilla, Myrielle, Seraphine, and all five High Preceptors of the Stormveil Academy erupted into action simultaneously.
Eight overwhelming auras shot from the deck of the Dawn-Breaker, tearing into the night sky to intercept the ten descending gods of death.
An apocalyptic battle commenced in the skies.
"I will not let you take a single step closer!" High Preceptor Aldren bellowed.
He didn’t charge directly into the fray. Instead, he fell back, landing squarely on the central control array of the golden war-skiff.
His hands blurred into a series of incomprehensibly complex seals, forcibly linking his own Domain Master aura with the Dawn-Breaker’s ancient core.
VMMMM—!!!
The seventy-two crystalline spires lining the war-skiff’s flanks—dormant for three centuries—rotated upward with a grinding shriek of ancient metal.
FWOOSH!
Seventy-two pillars of condensed golden light erupted into the sky.
Under Aldren’s supreme array mastery, the beams curved, split, converged, and recombined mid-flight, weaving through the chaotic battlefield with impossible precision to avoid every single Academy expert while converging on the grey-robed assassins from seventy-two different angles simultaneously.
Three of the assassins were caught completely off guard.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The first was struck squarely in the chest and hurled backward through six hundred feet of open air.
The second raised a barrier of layered essence only for eleven separate beams to converge on the exact same square inch, shattering the barrier and sending him flying back.
The third managed to twist aside, but four beams tracked his movement and caught him from behind.
"An array master!" one of the assassins roared. "Destroy the ship’s core!"
"You are welcome to try," Aldren said calmly.
The spires rotated again
"You think a mere ship can stop us?!" one of the middle-stage assassins sneered, raising his hand to deflect an incoming beam, and then attack.
ROAAAR—!!!
However, the assassin hadn’t even formed his defense when a spatial tear ripped open beside him.
High Preceptor Mordecai, his eyes bloodshot, had forcefully summoned his contracted spirit beast!
A colossal, terrifying creature resembling a mythical winged manticore appeared in the sky.
The beast was heavily armored in azure scales, and the aura rolling off its massive frame marked it as a 3rd-level Domain Master itself!
"Tear them apart!" Mordecai roared.
The beast charged headfirst into the enemy lines, its massive claws tearing through the air with enough force to shred a mountain, instantly forcing one of the middle-stage assassin into a defensive posture.
Not far away, a deafening metallic clash rang out.
CLANG!
High Preceptor Octavius threw his head back and laughed like a madman.
His towering, muscular physique expanded even further, his veins bulging like thick cables beneath his skin.
He completely abandoned any elegant martial arts, utilizing his monstrous physical strength to brutally clash against a 5th-level Domain Master in point-blank close-quarters combat.
Every punch he threw produced a shockwave that shattered the clouds for miles.
Nearby, High Preceptor Erasmus fought with a completely contrasting style.
The scholarly elder wielded a slender, jade-white sword.
His movements were elegant, flowing like masterfully written calligraphy across the sky.
Yet, hidden within those beautiful, strokes were lethal, unpredictable traps that kept another assassin entirely on the defensive, fearful of being injured.
But not everyone was holding the line so evenly.
High Preceptor Amarantha, the head of the Alchemy Division, was sweating profusely.
As the weakest of the five High Preceptors in terms of raw combat power, she was fighting desperately just to survive.
She hurled handfuls of highly explosive, custom-forged pills while executing frantic evasive arts, barely managing to stall a 4th-level Domain Master who was relentlessly trying to run her through.
And at the very apex of the battlefield, the most catastrophic clash was unfolding.
Carmilla hovered directly opposite the 7th-level leader, Veydris.
"You are outmatched, Carmilla," Veydris stated coldly, his overwhelming late-stage aura pressing down on her like a collapsing sky. "Hand over the boy, and I will spare your Academy."
Carmilla’s red robes whipped violently in the howling tempest.
She didn’t waste a single breath on words.
Her eyes blazed with a suicidal, unyielding ferocity.
"Empyrean Purgatory Bloom."
Rhain, watching from the deck of the Dawn-Breaker, felt his heart skip a beat.
He recognized the stance instantly. He had read the scroll on the fifth floor of the Grand Library just yesterday.
It was the legendary 3rd form of the ultimate Mystic-Grade art—a technique that required immense comprehension of the Law of Fire, and a move that only Carmilla had ever successfully cultivated in the whole academy.
"BURNING PURGATORY DOMAIN!" Carmilla screamed.
WHOOSH—!!!
The dark sky of night sky changed colour.
An apocalyptic sphere of roaring, white-hot flames exploded outward, transforming the sky into a literal purgatory.
The heat was so cataclysmic that the 7th-level leader’s arrogant expression finally turned serious, forcing him to immediately summon his own Domain to avoid being incinerated on the spot.
Down on the deck, Rhain’s dark grey eyes rapidly scanned the chaotic battlefield.
The Academy’s forces were fighting with everything they had, but the numerical and cultivation disadvantages were glaringly obvious.
Amarantha was bleeding, and Myrielle was being pushed back by two assassins working in tandem.
He had to turn the tide.
With a flash of spatial light, a majestic golden bell materialized in the sky.
The Emperor-Grade Artifact: Monarch’s Soul-Sealing Bell!
Rhain channeled his vast, ocean-like Soul Power directly into the artifact.
DONG—!!!
A clear, ancient, and overwhelmingly majestic bell toll rang out, radiating outward in a shockwave of pure spiritual authority designed to bypass all physical defenses and stun the souls of Domain Masters.
But as the golden soundwave washed over the ten assassins... nothing happened.
Rhain’s eyes flashed with surprise.
The three assassins who had survived their encounter in Stormveil City had not been idle.
They had already warned their comrades.
Every single one of the ten Domain Masters had their ears coated in thick, heavily reinforced layers of isolating, soul-blocking essence.
They had anticipated the Emperor-Grade artifact, rendering it entirely useless.
"Damn," Rhain cursed in his mind, a cold, ruthless light flashing in his eyes.
Since tricks wouldn’t work, he would just have to rely on brute force.
"The boy’s artifact is useless! Take him now!" one of the middle-stage assassins roared, managing to break away from Aldren’s array bombardment.
The assassin, a 4th-level Domain Master, dove directly toward the Dawn-Breaker like a falling meteor, his hands conjuring a massive spear of condensed metal essence aimed straight at Rhain’s heart.
"HUSBAND!" Seris screamed from behind the defensive barrier.
Rhain didn’t dare to hesitate.
"Origin Domain of Darkness."
WHOOSH—!!!
A pitch-black void erupted from the mark on his forehead, expanding instantly to swallow both himself and the descending Domain Master.
The deck of the war-skiff plunged into light-devouring darkness.
Inside his Domain, Rhain fought for his life.
He unleashed the Red Tribulations Heavenly Flame, integrating it perfectly with the crushing, devouring properties of his 30% Law of Darkness.
He clashed head-on against the 4th-level Domain Master.
BANG! CLANG! BOOM!
Despite the terrifying amplification of his Origin Domain, the gap between a Spirit Manifestation cultivator and a 4th-level Domain Master was astronomical.
Rhain was pushed to his limits.
His dark essence churned wildly as he deflected lethal blows, his Abyssal Sovereign Physique pushed into overdrive just to heal the tearing wounds the assassin inflicted.
But he held his ground.
He did not take a single step back, keeping the assassin completely trapped within the dark void, fighting with a savage, unrelenting ferocity that made the Domain Master question if he was truly fighting a human.
Above the war-skiff, a total of twenty Domains were unleashed simultaneously in a single, confined airspace.
Domains of Fire, Metal, Water, Earth, Darkness, and Wind crashed, grinded, and detonated against one another continuously.
The night sky rapidly changed color—from blood red, to blinding silver, to pitch black—as the conflicting laws of the world fought for supremacy.
The sheer scale of the conflict was apocalyptic.
The spiritual backlash of twenty Domain Masters fighting to the death could not be contained in the air.
The catastrophic shockwaves slammed into the earth thousands of feet below.
RUMBLE—!!!
The ground fractured violently.
Entire mountain ranges were flattened into dust in the blink of an eye.
Rivers vaporized instantly under the oppressive heat, and massive, bottomless chasms split the terrain for hundreds of miles in every direction.
It looked as if a wrathful god had descended, subjecting the mortal realm to a natural disaster of unimaginable proportions.