Anyone who achieved Grand Completion was, without exception, a genius of extraordinary talent, possessed of tremendous resolve and unyielding will. Standing at the absolute pinnacle, they had grown accustomed to the deference and reverence of others. Even when meeting a Sovereign, they need not kneel—the slightest bow would suffice. The pride in their hearts went without saying.
"The person I intend to kill, you cannot stop!"
Lin Lei's indifferent words, along with the look in his eyes as he spoke them, instantly turned Magnus's gaze blood-red. His grief and fury over his friend's death had already been raging, and now they boiled over completely.
Magnus set down Ramsen's body, slowly rising to his feet, straightening his spine as he stared coldly at Lin Lei.
Lin Lei showed not the slightest fear, returning Magnus's gaze with calm composure.
"Rumble~~" The roar of battle echoed ceaselessly around them. Slaughter was underway on every side—warriors from the Dark Alliance and the Holy Alliance cut each other down without mercy. Blood drifted through the air, divine sparks tumbled from the sky, and insignia were snatched up by surviving combatants one after another. The Stellar River passageway was a scene of utter madness.
Yet in the midst of this madness, Lin Lei and Magnus faced each other, neither moving a muscle.
It was as though the tens of thousands of soldiers killing each other all around them were nothing more than air.
"Target—the silver-haired man in the white robe standing still! Soul attack!" A hundred-man squad had locked onto Magnus. The moment their captain transmitted the order via divine sense, seventy-five surviving members of the squad launched transparent attacks of various kinds from their bodies simultaneously, streaking straight toward Magnus.
Magnus, who had been glaring at Lin Lei, turned his head to look.
"Hmph!" A low grunt escaped his lips, and his gaze turned frigid.
From those icy eyes erupted misty lances of light, more than a hundred of them shooting outward like a volley of arrows. "Whoosh!" "Whoosh!" They sliced through the air in an instant, colliding with the soul attacks, shattering them on impact while barely losing any speed. Then they plunged into the bodies of the squad members. Every last one of those soldiers wore a look of pure terror in their eyes.
Silent.
Seventy-five corpses plummeted from midair, divine sparks, insignia, and everything else tumbling down with them.
A single look, and seventy-five Highgods were dead.
"Impossible?" A handful of soldiers noticed the scene and went pale with shock. But... the fighting on the Stellar River passageway was far too chaotic. Only a dozen or so soldiers had seen Magnus display his power, and the rest hadn't noticed at all. After all, people were dying everywhere along the passageway. Seventy-five dying at once wouldn't draw anyone's attention.
"Boss." Bei Bei and the others were growing worried.
"Don't concern yourselves. Fall back first," Lin Lei transmitted. "I may not be completely certain of beating Magnus, but I will never lose!"
"Lin Lei, Magnus is a Grand Completion expert after all—don't be careless. And he possesses a Sovereign artifact," Lei Sijing transmitted. With that, Lei Sijing, Bei Bei, and Lei Hong retreated together. They understood that once Lin Lei and Magnus clashed, the destructive aftershocks would be no less devastating than that sparring match between Lin Lei and Bluefire.
When Grand Completion powerhouses fought each other, even the slightest overflow of their attacks could threaten territorial lords.
At this moment, neither Lin Lei nor Magnus paid attention to anyone else. It was as if the entire world contained only the other.
Magnus looked at Lin Lei, his voice low and heavy: "You actually survived?"
"What, regretting it now?" Lin Lei replied with a faint smile. There was a trace of mockery in it.
"I don't regret it," Magnus said, having regained his composure. "Because I know that you survived last time. This time, you will die for certain."
"You're quite confident." Lin Lei regarded Magnus with an appraising tone. "But last time you were confident too—convinced that your strongest strike would kill me without a doubt. And what happened? Last time I shattered your confidence, and this time... I will shatter it again!"
Magnus's expression turned dark.
"Ha ha ha..." Magnus suddenly let out a cold laugh. "Anyone can talk big! Today, I'll show you the gap between yourself and a Grand Completion expert." Magnus did not believe Lin Lei had reached Grand Completion. After all, he had fought Lin Lei before, and in his view... Lin Lei was still far from that level.
An ordinary territorial lord, standing before a Grand Completion expert, was simply walking to his death.
"Boom!" Amid the laughter, Magnus moved. He reached the limit of his speed in an instant, becoming a phantasmal streak of light that lunged directly at Lin Lei. At the same time, his right hand—clad in a black glove—formed a claw shape and seized straight for Lin Lei's head. "Tss tss, pop pop~~" The space around him shattered repeatedly, torn open one hole after another.
A single claw strike, and space itself became fragile.
"Arrogant!" A thunderous shout rang out across the Stellar River passageway.
"Boom!"
A streak of black sword-light blazed to life, piercing straight into the palm of Magnus's claw. Heaven and earth trembled, and Magnus was hurled backward. But at the point of collision, the space immediately split open into several pitch-black chasms of spatial rifts. Those terrifying rifts devoured more than a dozen nearby soldiers like ravenous beasts before fading away.
"Spatial rifts—spatial rifts that massive?" The soldiers who had been locked in frenzied combat, especially those closest to Lin Lei and Magnus, finally realized that two supreme powerhouses were clashing here.
But their realization was of no use. The rear ranks of both the Dark Alliance and the Holy Alliance continued to press forward, wave after wave, and the slaughter never stopped.
"You... you—" Magnus stared at Lin Lei in disbelief. "You've reached Grand Completion?"
"Truly arrogant of you." Lin Lei couldn't help but let out a derisive laugh.
With his mastery over the world's elements, Lin Lei could clearly sense that Magnus hadn't used a shred of a Sovereign's power in that strike. A Grand Completion expert, even without invoking a Sovereign's might, was generally more than capable of killing other territorial lords. But to use that same approach against Lin Lei—that was simply foolish overconfidence.
"You've really reached Grand Completion?" Magnus couldn't believe it, but the strength Lin Lei had just displayed was undeniable.
"I should actually thank you for that full-power strike of yours back then," Lin Lei said with a soft chuckle. "If you hadn't tried to kill me, driving me to the brink of life and death, I might never have made such tremendous progress." Lin Lei never directly confirmed that he had reached Grand Completion, but to Magnus's ears, it sounded like an admission.
"So that's why you've become so arrogant—you've reached Grand Completion," Magnus said, his expression sinking. "But Lin Lei, even if you have reached Grand Completion, today I, Magnus, will show you... that my friend is not someone you have the right to kill!"
The words had barely left his mouth before Magnus moved once more.