Yban cleared his throat and announced:
"Pip will be training with Lilit, while Kael will be under my personal tutelage!"
Kael practically jumped with joy, thanking his lucky stars that he wouldn't have to deal with Lilit—that literal demon disguised as a saint. As for Pip... well, his expression spoke volumes; there was absolutely no need for words.
And so, Pip and Kael began their brutal grind, driven entirely by the desperate need for free food and shelter.
Every single day, Yban forced Kael to phase continuously through a hundred mirrors without a single moment of rest, leaving him completely collapsed and drained after every session. But Pip's ordeal was on a whole different level of agony. He was forced to endure excruciating pain by immersing himself in a freezing ice bath while Lilit ruthlessly electrocuted him. She unleashed a massive surge of electricity—powerful enough to illuminate the entire region—solely to push his endurance to its absolute limits. To make matters worse, Pip then had to spar with Lilit for twelve grueling hours a day, leaving him with a measly twenty minutes to eat and absolutely zero time to rest.
As time flew by, both Pip and Kael progressed by leaps and bounds, shattering all expectations and leaving Yban and Lilit utterly stunned. Kael could now phase and travel at a mind-blowing speed of 200 km/s, while simultaneously unlocking a brand-new ability. Meanwhile, Pip—who previously couldn't land a single blow on Lilit even after hundreds of rounds—could now exert enough overwhelming pressure to force her onto the defensive, and he even managed to strike her with a clean hit. On the final day, the atmosphere inside the Divine Sanctuary was thick with tension. It was time for a real battle.
Pip stood facing Lilit. Sensing the shift in the boy's aura, Lilit let out a sharp laugh. For the first time in centuries, she decided to stop holding back, unleashing the full, terrifying extent of her dormant power. Pip dropped into a low stance, preparing for the clash.
Boom!
The ground beneath their feet instantly shattered into a massive crater. In a fraction of a second, a radiant golden streak and a crystalline white streak collided with brutal velocity, leaving nothing but a blur of afterimages.
Pip moved like a flash, closing the distance instantly. With a fierce roar, he executed his technique: 'Angel Cage!' A massive structure of solidified energy materialized, trapping Lilit completely within its walls.
But Lilit was not one to be easily subdued. Sneering inside her prison, she converted her entire body into a living lightning rod. The sky turned pitch black as blinding torrents of golden lightning surged downward, striking her own cage with catastrophic force and destroying a section of Pip's construct.
Frowning, Pip swiftly conjured a spectral chain, wrapping it around the damaged cage. He leaped high into the air, channeling every ounce of his strength to slam the entire cage like a meteor straight toward Lilit's palace.
Boom!
Lilit managed to break free from the wreckage just in time. Airborne and furious, she unleashed her ultimate technique:
'Divine Thunder Palm!!'
The heavens parted as a colossal hand of crackling electricity descended upon Pip. Facing the apocalyptic threat, Pip didn't show a single hint of fear. He activated the technique he had perfected over the last two grueling months.
'Infinite Shadow Inversion,' Pip whispered.
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Instantly, countless floating cubes materialized, enveloping the entire Sanctuary.
'ACTIVATE!' Pip barked.
Just as the massive thunderous palm was about to crush him, Pip vanished. Even a literal Thunder God like Lilit completely lost track of his presence. Before she could comprehend it, Pip materialized directly behind her.
Lilit whirled around in utter shock, but Pip was already a second ahead. He lunged forward, grabbed her by both legs, and slammed her with immense force into a nearby tree. Not stopping there, he rapidly materialized a pathway of cubes along her trajectory, teleporting across them at a mind-boggling speed to land a devastating, heavy punch directly onto her.
***
Meanwhile, on the other side of the field, Kael was facing his own nightmare.
Yban raised his hand, unleashing a powerful shockwave of compressed air that instantly blasted away all the mirrors Kael had carefully set up. Forced into a sprint, Kael bolted across the terrain, gritting his teeth as his initial strategy crumbled.
Then, in a split second, Kael vanished.
Yban paused, scanning the empty battlefield with heightened vigilance. The area was bare; the only thing remaining was a flock of birds circling in the sky above.
Suddenly, Kael dropped down out of thin air, delivering a lightning-fast divekick straight toward the Emissary. The sheer force caused the ground beneath Yban's feet to sink rapidly.
With a calm sweep of his arm, Yban redirected the momentum, forcing Kael back several meters. 'Oh? Quite impressive. But how exactly did you materialize out of thin air like that?'
'I told you before, old man,' Kael replied with a confident smirk. 'My ability allows me to infiltrate anything that reflects an image. The moment you looked at me, I had already jumped into the reflection of the birds' eyes flying right over your head. From there, it was easy to ambush you from above!'
'It seems you've actually started using your brain, Kael,' Yban remarked.
'Hey! Talk like you're not insulting my intelligence!' Kael snapped, visibly irritated.
Without warning, Kael vanished again. Predicting another ambush, Yban swiftly conjured bullets of compressed air, firing them into the sky. The birds fell to the ground like withered leaves, but Kael was nowhere to be found.
Suddenly, a realization struck Yban. The exact moment Kael had disappeared, a tiny flash of light had entered his own eyes, temporarily blinding him.
*He's inside my eyes!*
Yban tightly closed his eyelids. With the reflection gone, Kael was violently ejected from the space, tumbling backward onto the dirt with a sharp cry of pain.
Taking immediate advantage, Yban stepped forward.
BOOM! BOOM!
Two heavily compressed walls of air blasted directly into Kael's torso. The impact was cataclysmic. Kael collapsed to the ground, coughing up a massive pool of blood. Dazed and bleeding out, he began to mutter incoherently:
'The sun... it creates light. Light hits the mirror... and the mirror reflects that light. In the end, everything in this existence is just a reflection. If there are no mirrors here... then I will just have to create millions of them myself. I... AM THE STRONGEST!'
Struggling to his feet, Kael channeled every remaining drop of his energy, screaming at the top of his lungs:
'MIRROR REALM: SEA OF BLOSSOMS!'
True to its name, a massive field of crystalline flowers sprouted from the earth at a terrifying speed. Every single petal on every single flower was a perfectly polished, razor-sharp miniature mirror.
In a flash, Kael completely merged into the sea of glass.
Yban went on high alert. Kael became a ghost—flickering in and out of existence, appearing for a fraction of a millisecond to deliver a deep, lacerating slash before vanishing instantly into another petal. With every passing second, Kael's speed multiplied, and Yban was forced to endure heavy, accumulated damage.
Gathering all his strength, Kael prepared to deliver his final, decisive strike. Across the shattered battlefield, Pip was also winding up a devastating punch, fully intent on bringing down the two Divine Emissaries.
But just as the boys drew near, the two Emissaries smirked.
BOOM!
Two massive pillars of light erupted into the sky. The kinetic force sent Pip flying backward, while Kael was violently repelled away from Yban.
As the dust settled, Lilit's form transformed completely. Her hair turned into a glowing gold, and her skin crackled with wild currents of electricity. Her hands elongated into lethal, predatory claws wrapped in deadly black lightning. On the other side, Yban stood completely unscathed, having stacked hundreds of dense layers of compressed air around himself to form an absolute, impenetrable shield.
Looking at the stunned, bleeding boys, Yban and Lilit smiled with pure amusement, speaking in perfect unison:
'Everything up until now... was just the warm-up. The real fight begins now!!'