Chapter 142: Supreme Powers

Faced with the Abyssal Hammer screaming toward his face at inhuman velocity, Crown Prince Aurelius did not flinch.

He shifted his weight by a fraction and let the Primeval weapon carve a thunderous arc through the air where his skull had been a heartbeat prior.

"Your physical prowess is remarkable," Aurelius said, "If I were to eliminate you outright, the Empire would lose a valuable specimen. Are you certain you wish to refuse my offer?"

Golden crescents erupted from the Dragonblade in rapid succession—

Each one a compressed shard of Imperial Mandate shaped into a cutting edge, each capable of bisecting a fortress wall!

Theo batted the first three aside with the hammer’s haft. The fourth nicked his collarbone, drawing a line of blood that sealed before it could drip.

"Specimen?" Theo grinned through the sting. "Is that what passes for flattery in the palace? No wonder your social calendar is empty."

Aurelius’s eyes tightened, but his composure held.

He unleashed a cascading sequence of techniques into Imperial Seal formations, each flowing into the next with a mastery that bordered on sculpture.

Golden energy fused with thunderous concussive blasts, reaching a level of precision that silenced even the commentators.

But Theo had resources of his own...

The *Diamond Crucible Form* blazed beneath his skin as Theo met the onslaught head-on a chaotic medley that kept Aurelius from establishing supremacy.

Aurelius’s brow creased.

The world around Theo warped.

Golden light cascaded outward from Aurelius’s irises in concentric rings, reshaping the arena’s reality.

The floor dissolved into a void of compressed Imperial authority... a bounded domain where the dynasty’s will was law.

The Imperial Mandate Dominion.

Within this space, gravity tripled. Aether density inverted.

Theo’s Drake wings seized as if encased in amber, and the Abyssal Hammer suddenly weighed ten times what it should.

"Impressive," Theo admitted through clenched teeth.

*Great Sage*

[Host’s cultivation tier insufficient for sustained domain warfare. Estimated duration before collapse: 47 seconds.]

For a handful of seconds, the two domains coexisted like continental plates grinding against one another at the seam of the world.

Then Aurelius raised the Dragonblade.

A golden dragon materialized behind him, far more concentrated than the one from his earlier display.

It reared back and detonated... a supernova of bloodline energy that cracked the Great Sage’s domain like an eggshell, forcing Theo to disengage on battered wings.

Both domains dissolved. The combatants returned to the arena.

"So that is the Great Sage’s field," Aurelius remarked. "Nothing remarkable. The Obsidian Covenant possesses a similar technique. Since there can only be one true Analytical Sovereign per generation, yours must be a derivative... far inferior to my Imperial Dominion."

He was probing. Needling. Trying to crack Theo’s composure while keeping the pressure constant.

But inwardly, the Prince was shaken...

Aurelius might not have broken free so cleanly.

If the Sovereign reached the Sixth Realm, that prison might become inescapable.

*This man cannot be permitted to grow any further.*

Theo, far from rattled, cracked his neck and grinned.

"You barely escaped despite being an entire tier above me, and you call Great Sage ’nothing remarkable’?"

He surged forward and unleashed the Abyssal Hammer in overlapping forge-enhanced combinations.

Overhead smash. Lateral sweep. Rising uppercut. Each blow carried enough concentrated force to crater a garrison wall.

Yet Aurelius navigated the storm

"Your attacks lack cohesion," the Prince observed, deflecting a hammer strike that would have caved in his ribcage. "You are throwing everything without sequencing. Is this desperation, Sovereign?"

It was, to the trained eye, an accurate observation...

Theo’s offensive had grown increasingly scattered... techniques launched in overlapping clusters without clear tactical structure, as if his concentration was fracturing.

From the stands, Liana’s eyes tightened.

*Is he losing control?*

Aurelius saw the opening.

The Crown Prince capitalized without hesitation... closing the distance in a burst of Imperial Aquila speed, the Dragonblade arcing toward Theo’s throat.

The killing stroke of the Imperial Sword Canon. A technique inherited through forty-seven generations of Emperors.

At this range, against an opponent whose guard was broken, it was meant to be unavoidable.

The Dragonblade reached Theo’s neck.

And Theo smiled.

A genuine, satisfied, *I-have-been-waiting-for-exactly-this* smile.

"Gotcha."

From the center of Theo’s chest a column of light erupted.

A breathtaking aurora that contained every color and none, cycling through the spectrum with the indifferent majesty of something far older than dynasties...

The Genesis Sphere’s power.

Channeled through the Soul-Link. Borrowed from Liana.

"What is this?"

He could not identify the technique. But the Aether signature was unmistakable...

It was the same energy he had sensed in the Sanctum of Somnus.

The same power he had hunted across collapsing tunnels and through miles of buried tomb.

The same relic his Praetorians had been deployed to seize.

The Genesis Sphere!

Here. In this commoner’s chest.

Disbelief flooded Aurelius’s mind. Two supreme powers coexisting in a single cultivator?

It was impossible...

What kind of fortune could produce this?

Aurelius’s battle instincts screamed *retreat*. He pivoted, summoning the full weight of the Dragonblade’s Imperial Mandate as a shield, seeking to disengage and reset at range.

But it was too late...

A colossal hand of light descended from the sky above the arena.

The Hand of Aurora. It was aimed at the Crown Prince of the Eternal Empire.

...

Outside the arena—

The Pontifex was, for the first time in six thousand years, no longer drinking her tea.

The cup hung frozen at her lips. Her eyes, usually half-lidded with boredom, were wide open and locked on the hand descending from the sky above the arena.

A single drop of Lucid Dream Blend trembled on the cup’s rim, fell, and splashed onto her sleeve.

She did not notice.

"That light..." Elder Tiberius gripped the railing. "That Aether signature belongs to the Genesis Sphere. But the Sphere was absorbed by the Empress. How is he channeling it?"

Headmaster Lucius laughed. "He is routing the Primeval artifact’s energy through their shared bond. But that should be impossible..."

"And yet," the Pontifex said quietly, "there it is."