A shadow black hole blossoms into existence before the crashing spout.

The torrent bends, twists, and is devoured whole, vanishing into the abyss as if it had never existed.

From within the darkness, a figure steps out.

Lin Yu.

His robes ripple in the distorted air as he lands lightly, standing between the turtle’s might and Shadow Town.

Isolde, seeing his back, exhales in relief.

Her voice cuts sharply, yet weary, “If you had opened my seals, nothing like this would have happened.”

Lin Yu doesn’t turn, his gaze fixed on the beast above.

“Even if your seals were all released, you wouldn’t be her match.”

His tone carries no doubt, only fact.

Isolde snorts, her words slipping into his mind like a whisper of blood.

“Can you handle her? You’re only Tier Six.”

She knows she shouldn’t have asked—knows too well the truth of the higher tiers. Beyond Tier Six, each step becomes a chasm, a gulf between heaven and earth. A Tier Eight magic beast stands on an entirely different plane.

And yet… she feels it. A strange certainty lodged in her chest. That Lin Yu could face anything.

“Just watch,” Lin Yu says, his shadowed voice unwavering.

He ascends, climbing higher until his feet rest upon a cloud, his form unshaken by the turtle’s vast aura.

Now he and the beast stare into each other’s eyes, man and monster locked in silence.

The turtle growls, a sound like oceans breaking.

Its power surges, waves forming from thin air, a tidal wall rising to drown him whole.

Lin Yu lifts his hand.

Shadows bloom behind him, spreading like endless night, forming a colossal dam.

The roaring tide crashes into it—and stops.

Darkness holds the sea at bay.

The turtle roars, the sound shaking heaven and earth.

Her true Tier Eight might burst forth, the sky itself bending under the crushing weight of her aura.

Water surges like an endless ocean, ice spears condensing in midair, each one gleaming with death.

Lin Yu exhales, his own original strength erupting, shadows spilling outward like a black sea.

Bolts of shadow lightning crackle through the darkness, arcs of destruction tearing the clouds apart.

The turtle’s tidal waves rise, only to be split apart by jagged streaks of black lightning.

Her ice spears rain down, but vanish into the gaping maws of shadow black holes before they can touch him.

Each clash shatters the heavens, yet below, not a single drop of water nor sliver of ice falls.

The battle remains confined above the cloud layer, too far beyond the reach of ordinary lives.

The townsfolk tremble, staring upward, seeing only flashes of dark and cold light in the clouds.

But in a quiet chamber, the bishops of the thirteen churches watch everything clearly.

A massive magic mirror shimmers before them, showing the battle as though they stood at its edge.

They sit calmly, their faces unreadable, gazes fixed on Lin Yu’s figure.

One bishop murmurs, “He has consumed his original strength… to reach Tier Eight.”

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Another answers without concern, “Then he is no threat to us now. Later, perhaps. But the future belongs to others, not us.”

Their calm eyes remain locked on the battle as shadows and ice tear the skies apart.

The turtle’s might spreads endlessly across the heavens, the ocean rising where no sea exists, her body glowing with deep blue radiance.

Torrential waves tower higher than mountains, churning with divine force, their crests tipped with shards of frozen death.

She roars, and the waves descend like the fall of a world.

Lin Yu answers with silence, his shadow surging upward to meet the flood, black tides eclipsing blue waters.

Shadow lightning splits the darkness, lancing into the frozen spears as they descend, shattering them into mist and glittering dust.

A whirlpool of shadows yawns open, devouring the waters that try to crush him, twisting the very laws of nature into a spiral of oblivion.

The turtle’s fins sweep, sending another oceanic tide through the clouds, layers of ice forming walls within the water, doubling its weight and power.

Lin Yu’s hand rises, shadow blades burst forth in countless numbers, like a storm of daggers.

They meet the frozen tide, piercing it until each blade snaps, but in their destruction, they disperse the weight of the water.

The heavens scream as the two forces collide, neither giving ground, the balance holding sharp and perfect.

The clouds become a battlefield of annihilation, shifting between dark shadows and frozen blues, with no victor emerging.

Every clash splits the sky, lightning and ice falling into voids before they touch the earth, the world below eerily undisturbed.

The turtle grows brighter, her body suffused with the radiance of deep-sea pressure, a crushing power that makes the sky sink lower.

Lin Yu’s form flickers against that weight, his aura trembling as if close to collapse.

The clash locks, wave against shadow, ice against lightning, their strengths equal, frozen in stalemate.

Moments stretch into eternity, and then Lin Yu closes his eyes.

Deep inside, he reaches again for his original strength, a power he had already consumed once.

The shadows around him quiver, their edges fraying as though the cost is too great.

Yet he forces it higher, burning what more of his origin, until his strength swells once more.

The trembling ceases, the flickering vanishes, and the blackness around him deepens to an abyss that devours even light.

The deadlock shatters as his aura surges past the turtle’s pressure, the equilibrium tipping.

The clouds howl, the sea of water above breaking apart, shadows pressing down with newfound dominance.

The turtle thrashes, waves rising again to engulf the heavens, but each crest dissolves into nothingness as they touch the abyss Lin Yu commands.

Her ice spears scatter before they fully form, melting into mist under the weight of his shadow lightning.

Every strike she hurls is swallowed, every tide undone, the pressure she exerts pushed back step by step.

The deep-sea radiance that once ruled the sky begins to dim, its glow drowned beneath the advancing void.

Lin Yu rises higher still, his body a silhouette within a whirlpool of annihilation, the abyss expanding outward until it seems to blot out half the sky.

The turtle roars, her soundwaves splitting the clouds, but the shadows close around her, chains of black lightning coiling through the storm to bind her movement.

Her massive form writhes, straining against the abyssal weight, yet each motion grows slower, each attack weaker, as if the sea itself is sinking beneath him.

The clash of two mighty beings that had shaken heaven and earth now bends under Lin Yu’s force, the balance broken, his shadows smothering the last remnants of her tides.

And in the distance, far from the battlefield, thirteen bishops stand before a vast mirror of light.

Their faces are solemn, their gazes fixed on the image of the sky where the abyss consumes the ocean.

None speaks.

The silence is heavy with the weight of what they witness—Lin Yu, unmistakably fighting with the power of Tier Nine.

Finally, Élodie Dufresne speaks, her French lilt sharp against the still air.

“What are we going to do?”

According to the sacred rule the thirteen churches set long ago, anyone who reaches Tier Nine must be banished to the Dark Continent, the sealed land where the void demon slumbers.

But in the depths of their collective knowledge, a single loophole exists.

The law does not bind those who break into Tier Nine before their hundredth year.

It was a clause no one ever imagined would matter, for in their entire history, no one had ever reached such a height so young.

And yet Lin Yu stands before them, shattering precedent.

William Blackthorne, Bishop of Light, leans forward, his voice cool and edged with steel.

“Contact the Judgement Knight—if he has not already gone too far.”

At once, the chamber brightens with unspoken understanding, eyes gleaming with a mixture of fear and opportunity.

The Deep Sea Turtle’s presence is no longer a mystery.

She had not come of her own accord—she had been compelled.

The Judgement Knight, servant of the Church of Knights yet belonging not to any single order, holds the authority of the Overseer’s Department.

That shadowed branch was tasked with the eternal watch: to hunt demons that escape the Dark Continent, to cull abominations before they spread.

But those knights also carry out the church’s unspoken will.

Assassinations, suppression, the quiet removal of threats that cannot be allowed to rise unchecked—dirty work dressed in holy mandate.

William’s words fall like a decree.

“Request the Knight to force Lin Yu into the Dark Continent.”

No one protests.

Whispers of invocation ripple as contact methods are activated, missives of light flashing outward to seek the knight’s presence.

All the while, the mirror shows the heavens trembling.

Even with Lin Yu’s abyss pressing down, even with the advantage leaning his way, the battle does not conclude quickly.

The turtle shifts her stance, no longer striking in fury but curling into defence, a bastion of deep-sea resilience.

Her shell gleams with the weight of ancient tides, her waves reduced to barriers thicker than mountains, harder than steel.

Every shadow bolt that hammers her is smothered, every abyssal chain that binds her is broken with slow, stubborn force.

She will not win, but neither will she fall easily.

Above the clouds, abyss and ocean grind endlessly against one another, and below, the bishops watch, waiting for the Judgement Knight to answer their call.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep