Chapter 201: Grandmaster

Riven didn’t move right away. The last shockwave from Valeria’s surge of power rolled across the devastated landscape, scattering ash, dust, and fractured stone like the aftermath of a storm that refused to pass completely.

For a fleeting moment, the world hung in a delicate balance between collapse and silence. In that fragile stillness, he stood several paces away, watching her.

The relaxed grin that had lingered on his face through the chaos of slaughter and carnage was gone. Gone was the mocking amusement, the casual cruelty, and the detached curiosity of a man observing an experiment unfold. In its place remained something far more dangerous, solemn focus, sharpened and cold.

What stood before him was no longer just a runaway weapon; it had transformed into something else entirely. Valeria slowly rose from the fractured ground, her posture straightening despite the damage that still ravaged her body.

Her armor had long since shattered, most of it melted away or torn apart in the relentless violence of battle. Only the tight inner garments remained, clinging to her frame, darkened by blood and soot. Her skin bore the marks of war, cuts, burns, bruises but the presence emanating from her made those injuries seem irrelevant.

A thick cocoon of blood-red aura enveloped her form. It didn’t merely glow; it pulsed with a heavy and oppressive force, like liquid power coiling around her. The air distorted visibly around her, stretching and warping as if the world itself struggled to contain what she had become.

The ground beneath her feet cracked continuously, fissures spiderwebbing outward as her mere presence pressed down with unbearable weight.

Stones trembled. Debris lifted from the ground, slowly rising into the air before grinding into dust under invisible pressure. Gravity itself faltered; the land could no longer support her existence.

Riven watched intently, his eyes narrowing slightly as he took in this transformation. Even from a distance, he felt the pressure pushing against him, heavy and suffocating, like standing before a collapsing mountain.

Valeria’s crimson hair fluttered upward defiantly, drifting like strands of blood suspended in water. Her eyes, those deep crimson wells, burned brighter now; they were no longer merely filled with rage but sharpened with clarity and control, a far more terrifying sight. Faint runic symbols flickered into existence around her.

They appeared and vanished in rhythmic pulses; each flicker resonated like a heartbeat. With every manifestation came a ripple that surged outward, a wave of pressure rolling across the battlefield that forced even the air to shudder.

Each pulse grew heavier than the last.

With every flicker, Valeria’s presence became more defined.

Riven inhaled slowly as he absorbed this sight; for a brief moment, only a fleeting one, tension creased his expression.

“I didn’t expect this,” he finally said in a low voice that lacked its usual casual tone and instead carried deliberate weight. “You were always fast… always efficient… but I never thought you’d go this far.”

Valeria tilted her head slightly, a small movement that seemed almost curious. The aura surrounding her rippled with motion as she sank further into the ground under sheer density.

Her lips curled into a sly smile, and her hair danced around her face like a tempest of crimson threads. Her voice emerged low and steady, tinged with something wild.

“You just realized?” she asked, an edge of amusement in her tone. “I thought this was your specialty, using people, breaking them down, sharpening them until they cut exactly the way you want.”

Her gaze locked onto his. “How does it feel,” she continued softly, “to be used the same way?”

Riven’s eyes flickered as he processed her words. He didn’t answer right away; instead, he studied her intently. His gaze traced the fluctuations in her aura and the patterns of runic symbols dancing around her. He noticed how the blood-red cocoon surrounding her compressed and expanded with each breath.

Understanding began to dawn on him, accompanied by a subtle tightening at the corners of his eyes.

“…You used me,” he murmured.

Valeria offered no denial. She simply stood there, her aura roaring around her like a silent inferno.

Earlier, she had absorbed the blood of the Crimson Abyssal Lion, a sixth-order Lord Beast whose very existence symbolized dominance and catastrophe. That blood was more than just a physical substance; it was essence, condensed mana distilled from years of absorption and evolution into raw, volatile liquid.

Typically, no warrior would dare absorb such essence directly. Even high-level knights risked rupturing their mana veins or worse as that unstable energy surged through them. That’s one of the reasons why alchemists existed, to refine, dilute, and stabilize these potent substances.

But Valeria had chosen another path, a far more perilous one: refining essence through battle. She transformed pressure and conflict into a forge for power. When she first absorbed the Lion’s essence, she intended to seal it away to let it settle slowly and draw from it cautiously. However, Riven’s arrival disrupted that process before she could stabilize it.

So she adapted; she forced refinement upon herself using every clash and strike from Riven and his soldiers as a hammer against the volatile essence within her, compressing it, tempering it until it submitted to her will.

For five years, Valeria had hovered on the brink of breakthrough, a 5-Star High-Level Knight circling endlessly around the barrier of 6-Star mastery while searching for comprehension and clarity regarding her Law.

Now, with the Lion’s bloodline merging with her understanding… With essence refined through combat… And Riven himself serving as the final pressure, the barrier shattered.

Before him stood not merely Valeria Steelheart, a high-level knight shaped by war but rather a 6-Star Grandmaster Knight: a calamity capable of ending wars single-handedly.

Riven exhaled slowly as he regained his composure piece by piece. The solemn tension dissipated but was replaced by a familiar calm that now bore an added weight.

Riven exhaled slowly, feeling his composure return piece by piece. The heavy tension that had filled the air began to dissipate, replaced once again by a familiar calm, though this time, it carried a different weight.

He smiled approvingly. “So that’s what happened,” he said. “You used us as a forge… refined the Lion’s essence… pushed yourself over the threshold.”

His gaze met hers once more. “Well done.”

Valeria’s aura flared violently at his words. “I’m not your experiment anymore,” she replied, her voice low and steady.

Riven shook his head slightly. “You never stopped being one,” he responded calmly. “Breaking through doesn’t change that. At best, you’re a newborn Grandmaster. You haven’t stabilized your Law or mastered it yet. You’re merely standing at the doorway… nothing more.”

He stepped forward, and the pressure between them intensified instantly; cracks spread through the ground as their energies collided invisibly.

“You’re still coming with me,” he stated firmly. “Whether you like it or not.”

Valeria laughed, her aura surging again, denser, heavier, more volatile, as the runic symbols around her flickered faster and brighter.

“Try,” she challenged, pointing her sword directly at him.

And then she vanished without a trace.

Riven’s instincts kicked in immediately; he pivoted mid-step just in time to see Valeria standing behind him.

So close that her breath brushed against the back of his neck, her sword hovered inches from his throat, the crimson blade humming faintly as its runes flared in unison, sending a low ripple across the battlefield.

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