The Regressed Heir of Ravencrest

The midnight wind howling through the rocky pass suddenly died. An eerie, heavy silence descended over the canyon, broken only by the crackle of burning pine torches inside the camp.

Then, the shadows exploded into violent, chaotic motion.

Ethan’s form vanished into the dark, but the air didn’t remain still. High-pitched, air-splitting whistles tore through the hollow as the Eternal Sovereign Blade carved dark violet arcs across the night.

To Ethan, every movement unfolding around him felt unbearably slow. Every shift of weight, every tightening of a grip, every contraction of muscle announced an attack long before the blade ever moved. Against ordinary Great Knights, it was like watching men fight underwater.

Swish! Slice!

Blood blossomed across the darkness one heartbeat after another. Before one corpse struck the ground, Ethan’s blade had already found its next target.

Ethan moved like an absolute phantom through their ranks. He didn’t waste a single millimeter of footwork or a fraction of excess aura. His dark blade bypassed iron tower shields, split reinforced steel breastplates, and severed key tendons with surgical, terrifying precision.

Beside him, Rune needed no command. The little cub moved as though he could read Ethan’s thoughts, appearing wherever an opening existed, his claws tearing through steel and flesh with terrifying precision.

"Form up! Surround them! They’re just—" a senior Great Knight shouted, raising his heavy warhammer.

Before the sentence could leave his lips, Ethan materialized in front of him. A single, high-frequency shadow thrust pierced the center of the knight’s chest plate, the aura shattering the metal and collapsing the man’s lungs instantly. Ethan fluidly withdrew the blade, spinning on his heel to slice through the neck armor of two flanking swordsmen behind him.

CLANG! SLICE! THUD!

In less than half a minute, the hidden encampment had become a graveyard. Broken weapons littered the ground. Torchlight reflected across widening pools of crimson as bodies collapsed one after another. The hidden force House Thorn had spent months assembling had been reduced to corpses before a proper alarm could even spread through the camp.

Ethan’s blade paused.

His eyes shifted toward the command tent.

Finally...

BOOM!

The mountain pass violently detonated.

The heavy canvas of the central command tent didn’t just tear—it was reduced to microscopic ash as two massive, suffocating surges of aura erupted outward. Dark red fire and heavy, earth-shattering yellow aura hit the night sky, cracking the bedrock for thirty meters in every direction.

The Vanguard Commander and the Bandit Leader stepped out from the destruction. They had both reached the Peak of the Knight Commander Realm.

Though neither had fully matured their Domain Seeds yet, their emerging power manifested as a terrifying, radial shockwave of pure aura pressure. An invisible, heavy wall of gravitational force slammed into the canyon floor, turning gravel into fine powder. The pure physical aura pressure radiated outward like an invisible hammer, seeking to pin Ethan’s frame to earth.

The Vanguard Commander’s bloodshot eyes swept across the mountain pass littered with corpses. His pupils contracted violently as he recognized the bodies of his own men.

"Who are you?!" he roared, his voice shaking with disbelief.

"Why are you attacking us?"

His gaze darted across the battlefield once more before locking onto Ethan.

"Do you even know who we are?!"

Ethan didn’t answer.

The silence only fueled the commander’s fury.

"Bastard! You die here!"

CRACK-BOOM!

The Vanguard Commander moved, blitzing forward in a crimson streak that shattered the sound barrier. He became a blinding streak of red light, his longsword trailing a localized firestorm. Simultaneously, the Bandit Leader soared dozens of feet into the air, his heavy spiked claymore glowing with dense, earth-shattering aura as he executed a supersonic overhead strike.

Two Peak Knight Commanders, coordinating their full speed and overwhelming kinetic weight!

Ethan’s instincts screamed.

He couldn’t afford to meet either attack head-on.

Clang!

Ethan didn’t try to block head-on. As the Bandit Leader’s claymore crashed down like a falling meteor, Ethan angled his dark blade at a precise fifteen-degree slant, utilizing the Northern Heaven War Art to deflect the crushing downward force into the stone beneath his boots.

BOOM!

Every remaining torch bent beneath the pressure. Loose gravel rose from the ground before exploding outward, unable to withstand the suffocating aura flooding the battlefield.

The ground collapsed, a three-meter crater forming where Ethan stood. The sheer kinetic shockwave transferred through the hilt, violently dislocating Ethan’s left shoulder with a sickening POP! Pain flared white-hot behind Ethan’s eyes, but his facial expression didn’t even flicker.

For the briefest instant, his fingers loosened around the hilt.

Then they tightened once more.

Without missing a beat, Ethan used the momentum of the falling claymore as a stepping stone, springing backward to avoid the Vanguard Commander’s follow-up thrust.

Rip!

The fiery red blade grazed Ethan’s ribs, burning a deep gash along his flank and searing his clothes. As he twisted mid-air, Ethan slammed his body sideways against the stone cliff face, popping his dislocated shoulder back into its socket with a brutal, muffled grunt.

"ROAR!"

Rune moved in perfect harmony with Ethan. The cub exploded forward at near-supersonic speed, his paws coated in dense blades. Rune slammed directly into the Vanguard Commander’s flank, his razor claws tearing through the officer’s reinforced arm guard and shredding the muscles in his sword arm!

"AGHH! Get off me, beast!" the Commander howled as his red fire flickered wildly.

"Don’t ignore me!"

"Who sent you?!" the Bandit Leader roared, his face twisted with fury. "Speak!" He growled, recovering his claymore and sweeping it horizontally in a wide, air-ripping arc aimed at bisecting Ethan at the waist.

The heavy blade whistled through the air at supersonic speed, pushing a wall of compressed air ahead of it. Ethan ducked under the sweeping arc, the sheer wind pressure tearing gashes across his face and forearms. Ignoring the sting of fresh blood, Ethan closed the distance instantly using a high-speed shadow glide.

Northern Heaven War Art : Third Form

Frozen Battlefield.

Ethan’s pupils narrowed into razor-thin slits.

His feet dug into the fractured stone.

His breathing slowed.

His sword shifted into a lower stance.

Ethan drove the hilt of his blade directly into the Bandit Leader’s exposed inner elbow joint—the precise structural weak point of his aura circulation—and followed through with a lightning-fast reverse slash.

SLICE!

"MY ARMMM!!!!"

Blood erupted from the severed limb, staining the shattered rocks crimson. The Bandit Leader shrieked as the dark blade severed the primary mana pathways in his right forearm, forcing the massive claymore to crash uselessly to the dirt.

Before the leader could retreat, Rune leaped off a nearby boulder, driving his paw directly into the back of the Bandit Leader’s knee with the force of a battering ram, shattering the joint and bringing the giant man to his knees.

The Vanguard Commander, bleeding heavily from his shredded arm, realized his partner was down. Desperate, he pushed his aura pressure to its absolute maximum, sending a wave of burning heat that scorched the surrounding rocks. He charged Ethan in a suicidal, all-out blitz.

"I’ll drag you into hell with me!"

The Commander moved at blinding speed, executing a three-stage lethal thrust aimed directly at Ethan’s heart, throat, and head simultaneously.

Ethan stood his ground, his ribs aching and blood soaking his shirt. He didn’t blink as the flaming sword approached his throat. He waited until the blade was mere inches from his skin.

His body screamed for him to move.

Instead...

He waited.

At the absolute last millisecond, Ethan shifted his stance by three inches. The flaming blade whistled past his neck, grazing his cheekbone. In the exact same breath, Ethan brought the pommel of his sword down in a devastating, aura-compressed strike directly onto the Commander’s collarbone.

CRUNCH!

The sound echoed through the mountain pass like breaking stone.

The Vanguard Commander’s chest armor caved in. The shockwave disrupted his internal aura flow completely, blowing out his breathing. Before he could fall, Ethan drove a heavy knee into his chin, knocking him out cold before his body hit the gravel.

The Bandit Leader stared at the unconscious Vanguard Commander in disbelief.

"Impossible..."

"Who the hell are you...?"

Ethan turned back to the kneeling Bandit Leader. With a precise, heavy strike using the flat of his blade against the side of the leader’s neck, Ethan neutralized the second commander instantly.

THUD.

The canyon became deathly silent once more.

Only the crackling of dying campfires remained...

Not a single enemy remained standing.

Bodies covered the mountain pass from end to end, while the only two survivors lay unconscious at Ethan’s feet.

Ethan remained standing for several silent breaths, blood dripping steadily from his torn clothes onto the gravel below. Every muscle in his body ached, yet his gaze never left the two unconscious commanders.

"Rune..." Ethan rasped softly. "We’re done here..."

Ethan first bound both commanders with mana-suppressing chains before sitting beside a shattered boulder. The Northern Heaven War Art circulated quietly through his body, slowly stabilizing his breathing while the torn muscles around his ribs and shoulder gradually recovered.

Only after confirming no survivors remained did Ethan walk toward the command wagon. He pried open the floorboards, and swept the three ironbound chests containing gold coins into his Inventory.

Nearly an hour later he made his way back to Bluewind City, slipping silently past the border fortress carrying both the unconscious commanders.

Most of Ethan’s external wounds had already stopped bleeding, but the strain on his body remained.

Inside the grand study of the Bluemoon Estate, Lady Luna sat behind her desk, pale and exhausted, staring at the stacks of unpaid supply notices and debt demands.

The estate had fallen completely silent.

Only the scratching of Luna’s pen echoed through the study.

Suddenly, the ambient shadows behind her desk distorted violently.

Luna’s instincts flared—her Peak Knight Commander aura erupted in a blast of icy blue light as she drew her spear, spinning toward the shifting shadows at the door!

The spear shot through the darkness.

CLANG!

Sparks burst across the study.

Ethan calmly lowered the blade that had diverted the attack only an inch from his face.

Neither his breathing nor his expression had changed.

His clothes were torn and soaked through with his own blood, his left shoulder was bruised and bloody, and his flank was bandaged tightly with cloth.

Ethan looked at Luna, his gaze calm and unshakeable despite his injuries.

Ethan released his grip.

Two bound figures dropped heavily onto the marble floor behind him.

Luna’s icy blue eyes widened.

One wore the armor of her Vanguard Commander.

The other...

was the infamous bandit leader who had terrorized her eastern border for months.

Luna forgot to breathe.

Her spear arm hadn’t lowered.

The boy standing before her looked no older than twelve...

He was ten years old. But he stood unusually tall for his age, his bearing quiet and unreadable in a way that made most assume he was older.

Luna had no way of knowing that.