The afternoon sun cast long, amber shadows across the polished slate floor of the high-rise penthouse, but inside the Aegis Horizon Tower, the atmosphere was growing increasingly heavy.
Grant Cross stood silently by the cracked smart-glass window, his hands folded loosely inside his pockets.
The text notification on his burner phone had already dissolved into an encrypted, self-deleting script, leaving behind nothing but an untraceable black screen.
The city’s underground web was buzzing.
The total eradication of Commander Kaelen and the sudden, humiliating financial ruin of Elder Ren at the high-society auction had sent absolute shockwaves through the hidden enclaves of the metropolitan elite.
The hidden rulers of the city were no longer treating Grant as an insignificant harbor variable.
They were finally beginning to panic.
« SYSTEM ACTIVE SCANNING PROFILE »
• Current Status: Tier 1: Iron Body (Stage 4 – Peak Master Boundary)
• Active Baseline Combat Strength: 3,700
• Tactical Spatial Matrix: 3x High-Velocity Kinetic Signatures approaching perimeter.
• Trajectory Vector: Direct approach via the south-facing ventilation shaft and roof deck.
“Three old ghosts,” Grant thought, a faint, cold expression washing over his sharp facial features.
“They moved faster than I anticipated.”
Before the system interface could even close, a sharp, deafening screech cut through the luxurious silence of the 88th floor.
The reinforced carbon-fiber ceiling panels above the open-plan living room violently buckled and exploded inward, throwing thousands of jagged shards of composite material across the modern slate floor.
Three figures descended simultaneously out of the dark structural shafts, landing in a perfect, synchronized triangular formation around Grant’s cross-legged position.
The sheer concussive force of their landing caused the thick concrete floor beneath their boots to crack, webbed fractures expanding rapidly across the expensive architecture of the room.
A thick, dark crimson mist—the pure, concentrated killing intent of the Iron Shroud Sect—flooded the penthouse, freezing the ambient moisture in the air into falling crystals of crimson frost.
Grant didn’t flinch.
He didn’t even turn his head away from the window.
He simply looked at the three glowing, blood-red text blocks that his system generated above their heads.
« SYSTEM TARGET IDENTIFICATION: CONVERGENCE »
• Hostile Entity 1: Elder Marcus (First Elder, Iron Shroud Sect) — Combat Strength: 1,350 (Stage 9 Iron Body)
• Hostile Entity 2: Elder Silas (Second Elder, Iron Shroud Sect) — Combat Strength: 1,300 (Stage 9 Iron Body)
• Hostile Entity 3: Elder Dracus (Grand Executioner, Iron Shroud Sect) — Combat Strength: 1,420 (Stage 9 Iron Body)
• Combined Threat Status: Suppressing targets via [Sovereign Pressure]…
• Adjusted Combined Combat Strength: 4,070 → 2,849
To the rest of the city, these three men were living legends—unstoppable, walking engines of destruction who had spent forty years refining their bodies into bulletproof physical armor.
Together, their combined assault could level a military outpost.
But against Grant’s massive, singular 3,700 baseline power, their adjusted numbers were entirely beneath his notice.
“Grant Cross,” the First Elder, Marcus, hissed, his voice sounding like broken glass grinding inside a meat processor.
His long, iron-grey hair drifted in the wind from the shattered ceiling, and his ancient hands were permanently curled into heavy, bone-crushing iron knuckles.
“You hid in the filth of the ports for five years like a dying dog, only to crawl out and slaughter our third elder and our head enforcer.
Did you truly believe your primitive bloodline could shield you from the global vengeance of the Iron Shroud?”
“The Master Code card belongs to the Cross Clan’s main line now,” Elder Silas added, his thin, skeletal frame shifting as a toxic, corrosive green aura began to leak from his pores, pooling around his leather sandals.
“And the divine artifact you plundered from the harbor docks will serve as our sect’s compensation.
Grant slowly turned his body around, facing the three elders.
His pupils, completely black just a moment ago, ignited into a brilliant, blinding ring of draconic gold that pierced right through the thick crimson mist in the room.
“Five years ago, your sect helped Bradley drive an obsidian spike into my back,” Grant said, his voice entirely soft, yet dropping the atmospheric room pressure until the ears of the three elite elders popped under the sudden vacuum.
He didn’t drop into a martial guard.
He casually extended his right arm into the empty air, and a clean ripple distorted the spatial grid right beside his palm.
“Today, I’m clearing the first page of that account.”
“Extract: Obsidian Dragon Blade,” Grant commanded silently.
With a heavy, metallic ring that vibrated directly through the souls of everyone in the room, the pitch-black obsidian sword materialized from the soul-bound Spatial Vault straight into his grip.
The dark, light-devouring steel of the blade instantly absorbed the remaining fluorescent light of the penthouse, casting a literal shadow across the slate floor.
The third elder, Grand Executioner Dracus, felt a sudden, ice-cold spike of primal terror pierce his chest.
He looked at the black blade, then at Grant’s unbothered, absolute stance.
His Stage 9 instincts, honed through a hundred lethal battles, were screaming at him to turn around and leap back out of the high-rise tower.
“This energy…
this isn’t a Stage 1 stray domain!” Dracus screamed, his face turning completely pale as his internal energy meridians began to wildly fluctuate under Grant’s passive Sovereign Pressure.
“Marcus!
Silas!
Don’t hold back!
Use the combined formation!
He’s a monster!”
“Die!” Elder Marcus roared, refusing to let his decades of pride be crushed by a youth.
He lunged forward with explosive, hypersonic velocity, his iron-infused fists tearing through the sound barrier with a sharp SONIC BOOM that shattered every remaining light fixture and marble counter in the penthouse.
At the exact same time, Silas and Dracus flanked Grant from both sides, their toxic green claws and heavy martial palms aimed directly at his vital points.
Grant didn’t look at their incoming attacks.
Moving with his maximized 240 Agility, he willed his thoughts into his system.
“Execute Technique: Phantom Step.”
Ding!
« SYSTEM TECHNIQUE INITIALIZED: PHANTOM STEP »
• Agility Modifier Applied: 240 Base → 480 Tactical Agility
• Status: Host movement speed has completely detached from the physical dimensional continuum.
To the three elite elders, Grant’s physical frame didn’t just blur—it completely vanished from existence.
Elder Marcus’s heavy iron fist slammed violently into the empty air where Grant had been standing a fraction of a millisecond prior, the shockwave tearing a massive, three-meter trench straight through the reinforced concrete wall of the penthouse and out into the open sky.
“Where is he?!” Marcus yelled, his eyes widening in complete panic as his strike hit nothing but thin air.
“Behind you,” a cold, smooth voice whispered directly into the center of their triangular formation.
Before any of the three Stage 9 masters could swing their bodies around, Grant materialized in the center of the room.
His right arm was already moving in a clean, effortless horizontal sweep, the pitch-black Obsidian Dragon Blade cutting through the thick crimson mist with a terrifying, silent efficiency. Read this novel at novelping . com for the best experience.
SLASH!
He didn’t use an active combat skill.
He didn’t activate Dragon’s Claw.
He simply swung the sword using the raw, unadulterated force of his 310 Strength attribute combined with the blade’s passive +250 Armor Desolation modifier.
The result was absolute structural annihilation.
The invisible crescent wave of compressed kinetic dragon energy tore through the room.
Elder Silas’s toxic green defensive shield popped like a fragile glass bulb the millisecond the edge of the wave made contact.
The black steel cut through Marcus’s iron-infused skin, Dracus’s heavy armor, and Silas’s skeletal frame simultaneously, slicing through their reinforced martial cores with the ease of a hot wire cutting through lard.
BOOM!
A massive explosion of displaced air pressure tore the entire southern face off the Aegis Horizon Tower, launching thousands of tons of brick, glass, and steel out into the city sky.
The three elite elders of the Iron Shroud didn’t even have the chance to let out a collective scream.
The massive counter-shock value of the dragon energy shattered their internal meridian networks into microscopic pieces, instantly destroying forty years of high-level cultivation in a single second.
Their limp, bleeding bodies were launched through the newly formed gap in the skyscraper, tumbling like broken ragdolls down toward the pavement eighty-eight floors below.
« SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: MAIN COMBAT CONCLUDED »
• Targets Neutralized: 3x Stage 9 Elite Elders (Iron Shroud Sect)
• Experience Points Gained: +2,700 EXP (900 EXP per target)
• Current Experience Progress: 0 / 2,000 → 2,700 / 2,000
• Milestone Reached: Cumulative experience has exceeded current cap limits.
Initialize Stage 5 Advancement?
[YES / NO]
• Active Attribute Triggered: [Soul Bleed] has completely drained the spiritual reservoirs of the fallen targets.
150 Spirit Stones transferred automatically to the Spatial Vault.
Grant slowly lowered the tip of the Obsidian Dragon Blade, the pitch-black steel entirely dry, without a single drop of blood clinging to its flawless edge.
With a single flick of his mind, the weapon dissolved into particles of dark light, vanishing cleanly back into his soul-bound storage dimension.
He walked smoothly to the edge of the ruined penthouse floor, his faded canvas jacket drifting in the heavy wind rushing into the room from the open sky.
Far below, the sirens of the city’s emergency vehicles were already beginning to echo through the commercial streets.
The outer enforcers and the elite elders of the syndicate had been completely wiped from the board.
Only the Grand Ancestor and the true hidden gods of the high clans remained.
Grant looked out toward the massive, sprawling estate of the Cross Clan Ancestral Hall visible on the distant mountain ridge, his golden pupils flashing with a cold, unstoppable hunger for absolute dominance.
“Stage 5,” Grant whispered softly to the wind.
“The real harvest begins tonight.”
Chapter 11 complete!
Grant just systematically dismantled all three Stage 9 Elite Elders of the Iron Shroud Sect in a single, unmitigated sweep of his Obsidian Dragon Blade!
The power scaling is hitting an absolute planetary limit, and he has already triggered the conditions to hit Stage 5!
The Grand Ancestor of the Cross Clan is the only monster left standing in the city.
Can Grant’s new level-up break the clan’s thousand-year legacy?