Entori, once a quiet coastal town, had transformed into a flourishing city when war erupted across the continent. It stood untouched for months—its isolation both curse and blessing.
Surrounded by the ocean on three sides and mountains to the north, Entori had no elemental node to lure the Greyrose Circus. There were only two narrow land passages from the south, both monitored and protected. The sky offered a path, too, but not for armies. And for a long time, there was no reason to attack—no strategic value, no rune node, no gain.
So, Entori became a haven.
Refugees from neighboring regions flooded in. Families, elders, children—all seeking safety. And with them came protection: cultivators from allied forces, sent to guard the swelling city. Among them, a single Spirit King was stationed to watch the skies.
But then everything changed.
A black hole tore open the sky.
From it descended armies of the Greyrose Circus—aberrant beasts and dead monsters, their shrieks thick with madness. Two Spirit Kings led the assault, their energy twisted and invasive.
The Spirit King of Entori fought alone in the sky, caught in a stalemate with two foes. With their power suppressed in this world, they could not kill him together, but they could exhaust him. And after twelve hours, one of them broke off.
He descended.
Below, Entori burned.
Buildings collapsed. Walls crumbled. Blood ran through the stone streets once filled with laughter and trade. But the people resisted.
A small group, led by a woman with flowing dark hair and eyes like steel, cut their way through the chaos. Her power pulsed with the clarity of a Spirit Lord. She stood firm against an enemy Spirit Lord of the Circus—an abomination in tattered robes whose mouth split far too wide.
Her blade shimmered with wind elemental energy, weaving arcs through the air as she dueled. Behind her, her group—Spirit Realm cultivators, everyone, fought desperately to hold the line.
They were outmatched.
But they refused to fall.
The woman shouted, voice calm but firm, "We hold them here. Do not scatter. If we fall together, we fall as one!"
For two relentless hours, Meriko and her group fought without pause. Dust and blood mingled on the cracked ground, the heat of battle never letting up. The enemy surged like waves—Spirit Realm beasts with warped forms, Tier-0 creatures without elemental cores but overwhelming in number.
Even without powerful elements, numbers alone threatened to drown them. Ants could strip an elephant to bone—and these weren't mere ants.
Meriko parried, slashed, and ducked. Her wind chakra swirled like a storm, her robe long torn and bloodstained. Around her, her group fought back-to-back, formation unbroken. But exhaustion crept in like a tide—slow, unstoppable. Limbs grew heavy, breath sharp and thin.
One of her group collapsed to a knee. Another's weapon cracked. Meriko bit her lip, eyes narrowing. She glanced up—the enemy Spirit Lord, a hulking lizardman covered in bone plates, waited at a distance, watching her group weaken. He knew time favored him.
She reached into her robe and pulled out a sealed scroll, marked with grey ink and glowing faintly with wind runes. A gift from her brother, Kanoru.
Now was the time.
Meriko stepped back from the front line, her group instinctively closing the gap. Her chakra surged as she poured it into the scroll. The seal burned, ash floating into the wind, and then the ground trembled.
The lizardman Spirit Lord saw the glow and his instincts screamed. Danger. Death.
He leapt back, vanishing into the haze of smoke and broken stone. But it was too late.
Ten arrows formed around Meriko, howling with pure wind energy—thin, bright, and deathly fast. Sky Arrow Kill. A spell of pursuit, made for locking down elusive enemies.
The arrows launched like lightning, splitting the air as they chased the lizardman across the ruins.
Meriko didn't wait. She turned, chakra rising, and unleashed a storm of slicing winds toward the Spirit Realm and Tier-0 invaders swarming nearby. Bodies fell. Creatures shrieked and fled.
The moment broke.
With the enemy Spirit Lord fleeing for his life and the lower-tier invaders scattered, Meriko shouted to her group, "Now! To the forest!"
No one hesitated.
They moved swiftly, vanishing into the broken hills and dense trees of Black Kanji Forest.
They lived.
And Entori was behind them.
Meriko and her group rested beneath the twisted canopy of Black Kanji Forest, their bodies slumped against roots and rocks, breaths heavy, clothes torn, stained with blood and dust. The battle had taken its toll, but they were alive.
They swallowed healing and energy pills in silence, the bitter taste a small price for survival.
Kanjo, her son, sat beside her, wiping sweat from his brow. "Mother… what are we going to do now?"
Meriko glanced at him, then at her husband Subuki, whose shoulder bled lightly beneath his torn robes. Her voice was steady. "We cannot stay here."
Subuki nodded grimly. "Our situation would be better if I had broken through to the Spirit Lord Realm." He didn't say it with resentment—only regret.
In his heart, he thought, *If that black hole portal had opened even a month later, I would've crossed that threshold… I could've protected them properly.*
Leaning gently against Meriko, he added aloud, "I'm sorry you had to handle all the pressure."
Meriko gave a small smile and whispered, "It doesn't matter."
She always carried the weight without complaint. It was who she was.
As the group focused on recovering, Meriko's healing finished first. Her wounds had been light—bruises and shallow cuts—and her cultivation gave her the edge in recovery speed. The air was still, broken only by the occasional crack of a branch or distant cry of beasts.
She stood quietly and climbed a thick tree nearby. Her movements were practiced, silent. From the branch high above, she peered out, hiding within the dense foliage.
She could fly. But a streak in the sky would be far too conspicuous with enemy scouts crawling through every path and ridge.
So she stayed still, eyes sharp as blades, watching.
Waiting.
Then, among the group, one of the women silently climbed the tree to stand beside Meriko. Her breath was soft, her expression tired but grateful.
"Mrs. Meriko, thank you for taking us," she said quietly.
Meriko turned to her, voice gentle. "Ziyu, it was nothing. You're our neighbor. We were protecting our family—you joining us made our group stronger."
She wasn't just being polite. It was true. Her own family had only four members. She alone had reached the Spirit Lord Realm, while the others—Subuki, Kanjo, and Aoi—were all still in the Spirit Realm. If they had faced the enemy alone, the outcome would've been death.
The ambush outside Entori had included one Spirit Lord, twelve Spirit Realm enemies, and more than a hundred Tier-0 cultivators. If not for Ziyu and her husband—and the others who fled with them—the escape would've been impossible.
Ziyu's husband and Subuki had each taken on two Spirit Realm enemies during the breakout, keeping the line from breaking. Their unity turned what should've been a massacre into survival.
Meriko thought about the scrolls her brother gave her—each one deadly, each one meant to be used only when there was no other choice. Powerful enough to rival peak Spirit Lords, but limited in number.
She couldn't afford to waste them.
Down below, the others were stirring. The energy pills and healing techniques had taken effect. Wounds were closing. Breath steadied.
Meriko looked down and spoke softly. "Let's go."
She floated off the branch, gliding silently toward the ground. Ziyu followed, leaping into an open space near the group.
Aoi was the first to speak. "Mother… now where will we go?"
All eyes turned to Meriko. Even in silence, they waited—she was their anchor.
Meriko glanced toward the east. Faint booms echoed from that direction. Fights still raged. The sky above was too exposed, and the land routes choked in chaos.
That left only one path.
*The ocean,* she thought. *If we reach the coast, maybe—*
But her thoughts shattered.
Every Spirit Realm and above cultivator in the group suddenly froze. Their expressions tightened as they felt it—an elemental fluctuation so dense and oppressive it drowned the very air.
A black streak tore across the sky from the west like a spear of pure death, piercing the battlefield where a massive crocodile phantasm fought a towering knight. The light struck the crocodile man's chest.
Meriko's breath hitched. She knew what that meant.
"That crocodile… he's one of theirs," she muttered. "A Spirit King of the Greyrose Circus."
The crocodile's enormous phantasm shattered into nothing. In its place, a smaller humanoid crocodile fell, barely holding together.
And then came another streak.
No explosion. No roar.
Just a man—a blur of darkness so fast he was almost invisible—flying behind that second light.
As he became visible in the air, the crocodile man's body jerked.
Then crumpled.
The man descending from the sky was holding a heart in his right hand, still beating once, then stopping.
The forest was silent.
Even the wind held its breath.
Meriko rubs her eyes, disbelieving. Then her lips part in a whisper, *It's impossible…* But no—there he stands. The figure in the sky, bathed in fading black light, holding a still-beating heart.
Her voice breaks through the silence. "Brother!"
Kanoru hears it. Familiar, yet aged by time. He turns. In his memory, the last time he saw Meriko, she was a determined fourteen-year-old girl waving goodbye as he left Entori. Now, standing there with the bearing of a warrior, she's a Spirit Lord Realm cultivator. She looks barely twenty.
A rare softness flashes in his eyes. But before he can descend to meet her, his expression hardens.
He senses something. Shifting slightly, he looks south. There, beyond the clouds, space itself parts.
A massive phantasm emerges. A skeletal bird cloaked in black flames, each feather a blade of death. The white bones glow under the hellish fire, its wings spread wide, its presence suffocating.
Kanoru's jaw tightens. Its aura is just as strong as the red thunder rhino he fought before. But this time, he has no allies beside him. The Spirit King guarding Entori is too weak. Below, another enemy Spirit King still remains among the scattered ruins of the city.
So, the Spirit King has to fight against the enemy spirit king below.
He floats higher, steadying his breath. Alone this time.
His fingers curl, bright grey energy swirling around his palm.
Kanoru whispers to himself, "Then I'll kill it alone."