Immortal Kingdoms

Clouds blotted the sky. Silence in the deep grey heaven and earth. Countless corpses littered the ground for miles in all directions. A deep crater bore into the ground at the center of it all.

Dust, smoke, and wisps of blood rose from the now-barren land. The souls of the dead wept as the thunder rumbled above as though the will of Arcadia felt pity and infuriated. Only saints survived the shockwaves of a battle that lasted for half a day, as those below the saint realm could barely lift a finger under the pressure of twelve superimposed yet clashing domains, let alone try and flee. The normal soldiers were nothing but a flock of sheep to the slaughter, but it wasn't like Leonardo and company cared one bit about them.

"You shameless- PFFT!" The saints of House Samuel and House Issac spat blood from rage. The military power of their armies had been crippled, and they couldn't possibly engage in any secular warfare in the future.

"Boss is simply too powerful, he can't control his strength when beating idiots. If you make it out of here alive, chase away the trash from the battlefield unless you desire a thorough cleansing!" Miko sneered, panting lightly with green flames dancing in his eyes.

Sitri and the rest rolled their eyes while panting as well. This idiot is as loud-mouthed as always, it seemed that his contempt for the royal families was like the seven oceans that never ran dry. However, it truly was a curious thing how contradictory were the flames of the brother and sister. The former had an explosive flare to his flames, and the latter had an elegant ambiance to her flames, but both of them were equally deadly.

"Guess the warm-up is over. Right, gentlemen?" Leonardo spoke in a flat tone betraying the excitement in his crimson eyes.

Following Leonardo's signal, everyone scattered into isolated regions of the battlefield. For now, everyone would focus on fighting a solo life-and-death battle, and the faster one side cut down their opponents, the better their odds at making it out alive.

Sharp whistling through the air and consecutive sonic blasts exploded to Leonardo's left, right, and front as his followers dashed into the distance while leading their respective opponents.

"Seems like I'll have to rid this planet of a demon today. I have this intuition that my advancement to the second-cycle rests on your head!" A pair of vacuum wind blades condensed in the man's hands, violently kicking up a storm that tore at the earth below.

An invisible energy blended into his body from the natural ambiance, clearly being reinforced by the will of the world. A hint of ridicule surfaced in Leonardo's eyes as he picked up this attempt of tipping the scales of power in the native saint's favor.

"Well then, what are you waiting for?" Leonardo tilted his head sideways, lifting the tip of his halberd forward before thrusting it from a tricky angle, not even bothering to quibble about life and death.

The man's eyes shark as the tip of death zoomed in towards his throat. This attack was multiple realms above the previous casual blows exchanged for half a day.

But of course, Leonardo's previous style of combat was simply unbridled and barbaric because his sim was to expel as much excess energy as possible to expand the scope of the shockwaves and borrow the momentum to kill and slaughter the army.

Now that he was in a legitimate life-and-death battle, although Leonardo's main path of practice was the sword, he could easily infer the weaknesses of his opponent after fighting for almost half a day. With no way to block, the man's aura exploded as he shot back like a gust of wind, barely escaping a fatal injury.

However, as he shot back, he deliberately drew the condensed air from Leonardo's surroundings at a speed so fast it actually created a vacant space without any gaseous pressure, only for the wind to collapse all around Leonardo with a loud boom.

The dust settled to reveal Leonardo shielding his head behind his crossed arms, countless gashes of blood riddled his torn robes, revealing the glowing crimson inscriptions on the tight-fit battle armor below.

"Sure enough, magical arts hit differently when you're creative enough!" Leonardo muttered silently. He never expected that the man would suddenly expand the region of his wind blades influence to silently encompass a domain within the original domain, masking the fluctuations by simply overwhelming them with similar yet stronger ones.

Because of that little trick, Leonardo suffered a loss in this exchange because he was yet to adapt to fighting experts who weren't restricted to their physical limitations and hand-to-hand combat. Nonetheless, this also spiked Leonardo's interest to study not only combat skills, but magical arts as well.

Sadly, establishing magical arts with the bloodthirsty martial intent as the foundation is but a joke, so he could only suppress that urge for now.

"You're actually just so-so."

The man seemed to also pick up on Leonardo's weakness. However, he was also deeply shaken because he felt as though Leonardo could read his weaknesses as well.

"You better keep focused lest your lack of experience results in your fall today, Bloodthirsty!" He then shot forward like a rotating bullet with both blades dancing, crisscrossing wind blades weaving into a formidable net that covered Leonardo's vision completely.

Observing the original wind blades closely, one could notice a sharp decline in their dense concentration of energy that was being controlled by the man. Furthermore, Leonardo noticed a brief lag from unleashing the attack to drawing the worldly energy once again.

These fluctuating intervals displayed the inconsistency in the formation of the net, and Leonardo specifically targeted that weak link in the chain as he charged through the net of death by piercing its weak point.

Just as he thought he made the right decision, the man smiled coldly.

Leonardo immediately had a bad feeling about this, but he quickly realized that he fell for the same trap a second time. Just as expected, the interwoven wind blades collapsed with the intent to entangle Leonardo while the man brought his semi-solid down on Leonardo's neck while his arms and legs were bound by the violent winds.

Bang!

A silent beam of light shot right through the man's right hand, blasting both his palm and the wind blade to bits just as it was about to slash through Leonardo's neck.

Blood splashed like a blossoming lotus.

Not having the spare time to complain about the sneak attack, the man brought his second blade in a dual slash from Leonardo's foremost right, but the man was shocked to see Leonardo bundled up in the wind net without the halberd.

A sense of crisis washed over the man and he instantly retreated.

Boom!

The moment he dashed backward, the halberd smashed down his previous location with a shocking momentum. Leonardo remembered that the halberd wasn't a real weapon, but the condensed essence of his martial intent, and he could freely control it within his domain.

Thus, instead of using it the traditional way of close-quarters combat, he attempted to utilize it in a similar way to magical arts. He simply needed an opportunity, and luckily, Pandora also knew of Leonardo's weakness when facing a magic user and thus she kept an eye on his end of the battlefield.

Leonardo cracked his neck and reached out for his halberd while he spoke, "The lack of experience is never a fatal weakness, but merely a temporary one. Come, let me collect some experience at the behest of your life!"

The man was fuming that he missed a golden opportunity to slay a saint, but he knew better than anything that he should maintain a calm head. Everything prior to this point could be considered petty schemes and warmups, the true battle is about to finally erupt.