"Rescan! Confirm that the target is a Morning Star Wizard!"
The Formation Spirit's voice cut through, silencing the person in charge. One false reading could be a mistake, but two or three?
He stared at the figure on the screen in disbelief. "Star level? Hurry, pull up his energy star level!"
The display shifted rapidly: "Target identified as Leilin Farell! Stored data star level: Four Stars!"
"Ridiculous! Rescan!" The person in charge was practically shouting.
*Whoosh!* An energy bar materialized, filling almost instantly past the four-star mark and surging to five stars!
"So it's a peak Morning Star Wizard. No wonder he could tangle with Lord Stewart for a while. But don't worry, he won't last much longer..."
The man let out a sharp breath of relief. But in the next instant, the monitor technician grabbed him, and he turned back to stare at the screen, his entire body turning to stone.
On the screen, the energy representation for Leilin, having filled the five-star bar, was still climbing. It finally even burst through the progress meter.
The screen descended into chaos and began rebooting. The Formation Spirit issued a new assessment.
"Still in the Morning Star phase. Energy intensity is—Six Stars!!! Monster! A monster!" The person in charge slumped weakly into his chair.
"Sir! What do we do?" The monitor technician looked at him, hesitating to speak.
"What else can we do? Activate maximum defenses! Ensure their battle doesn't spill over to other areas. As for what happens below... I can't control that..."
The man's eyes rolled back, and he fainted directly.
……
Welles, amidst the battlefield, perceived Leilin's strength even more clearly.
"This kind of energy intensity..." Welles watched the colossal serpent phantom soaring skyward and heard the terrifying hiss, a hint of daze in his pupils. "It absolutely surpasses five stars! Could it be the rumored six-star level?"
Generally speaking, Morning Star only had a five-star classification. But throughout history, monstrous geniuses had occasionally appeared, whose very existence was to shatter conventional limits! Six stars! Though not yet a Radiant Moon, it was already comparable!
"He's actually reached this level?" Welles clenched his fists. The thought that he'd been smugly content with just breaking through to four stars moments ago made his face flush with embarrassment, wishing for a crack in the ground to swallow him.
*Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!*
A large number of elite Wizards arrived, their faces grim or even set with a resolve to face death.
A flash of platinum-colored flame, and Welles directly blocked their path. "I'm taking command here! All of you, halt!"
Despite a twinge of jealousy, the covenant still had to be honored.
Welles looked proudly at these guards and the other Morning Stars emerging behind them, advancing to meet them...
"Boom!"
The massive energy storm split apart violently, and a beam of black radiance sent Stuart hurtling through the air, landing beside Welles.
Leilin tossed the Morning Star Wizard onto the ground, the dark mist that had previously enveloped his opponent completely stripped away.
"That's McGee from Jupiter's Thunder!" "The soul signature matches — I've seen him once before, there's no way this can be faked!"
The gathered Morning Stars exchanged glances.
"Everyone can see that Lord Leilin was merely attacking a wizard from the hostile force Jupiter's Thunder, and in accordance with His Majesty the Sky Throne's decree, our Sky City remains neutral in this matter!"
Welles stepped forward and declared righteously.
The assembled Morning Star Wizards looked at one another. Seeing Leilin standing proud and defiant despite his injuries, and the distant Stuart red-faced with fury, they all fell silent.
Leilin and Welles exchanged a glance, both wearing smiles that said the matter was settled.
……
The great battle that had erupted within Sky City continued to spread outward with the speed of a storm.
Among the countless retellings, Leilin — who as a Morning Star had stood his ground against a Radiant Moon, and ultimately captured another Morning Star Wizard alive from the enemy's hands at the cost of nothing more than minor injuries — naturally emerged as the figure mentioned time and again, while Stuart was reduced to a mere footnote.
The storm of discussion grew ever larger, overshadowing even the upcoming Sage Deliberation.
And at that very moment, at a private docking port, Welles was watching a black airship depart from Sky City, his face wearing a peculiar expression.
The one leaving was, of course, Leilin. Although he had successfully eliminated a Jupiter's Thunder wizard and humiliated Stuart in the process, he had also thoroughly earned the ire of Sky City.
After all, he had dealt a crushing blow to one of their powerful elders — on their own territory!
Had it not been for Welles's faction absorbing the pressure on his behalf, the entire body of Sky City's wizards might well have declared war on him.
This help, of course, had not been offered for free — it had been part of their prior agreement. Otherwise, Leilin would never have charged to the front with such brazen confidence.
But even so, keenly aware that he had drawn far too much attention recently, Leilin no longer dared remain in Sky City. He accepted Welles's proposal and, through back channels, quietly underwent the baptism of the Mystic Energy Scepter. After his constitution increased by twenty points, he departed in secret, skipping the Sage Deliberation entirely.
As long as he secured the real benefits, Leilin cared little for hollow fame, and he cast the entire conversation with the Sky Throne completely from his mind.