Chapter 485: 485

Taking a deep breath, he finally allowed himself to sit, feeling the weight of everything pressing down on his shoulders. When a truth is laid out so clearly before you, when it calls you out in ways you cannot deny, there is nothing left to do but accept it.

Acceptance, however, did not mean submission.

His eyes drifted back to the book, his mind already shifting. The calculations were inevitable, but inevitability was merely an excuse for those who had already given up. Zephyr was not ready to surrender just yet and besides his grandfather’s book offered solutions.

The cursed clans were not exempt from this decay. Zephyr’s fingers skimmed over the records, his expression darkening as he took in the undeniable truth. Training regimens, once grueling and unrelenting, had softened. The drive that had once burned fiercely in the hearts of warriors had dulled to embers. They still trained, still followed the routines passed down through generations—but it was hollow. The intensity, the hunger, the need to push beyond their limits had faded.

It was not just a matter of declining strength—it was a betrayal of purpose.

Zephyr’s gaze locked onto the next passage in the book, his breath slowing as he absorbed the words. The cursed clans had been created for a singular reason: to be the vanguard, the unbreakable shield and unstoppable sword of the Apeling Kingdom. Their curses were not punishments but gifts—gifts that allowed them to transcend natural limits and wield overwhelming power. They were meant to stand at the forefront, to be the storm that shattered their enemies before war could even take root.

Of course, the normal apeling army still existed. Their presence was necessary, an additional force that could wage conventional battles. But the book made one thing clear—the standard army only mattered on a surface level. They were soldiers. The cursed clans were weapons. When they marched, they were expected to end wars before they truly began. Their presence alone should have been enough to break morale, to instill fear so profound that surrender became the only option.

The cursed clan army numbered between two to three hundred thousands—a formidable force. Among them, twenty thousand warriors had reached the fifth stage of strength, evenly five thousands among the four cursed clans. The vast majority remained at the fourth stage, with the weakest still sitting comfortably in the middle of that tier.

At a glance, they were still strong. But strength without growth was nothing more than stagnation in disguise.

The normal apeling army, by contrast, numbered in the millions. In raw numbers alone, they dwarfed the cursed clans. And yet, despite their overwhelming population, their highest stage warriors could hardly compare with the cursed ones. Only seven thousand of their troops had reached the fifth stage, and while the distribution among lower tiers was still respectable, their lowest members were merely at the peak of the third stage.

This should not have been an issue. Should not have been.

But Zephyr could already see the cracks forming in the foundation.

The cursed clans had become complacent, relying on their inherited strength without striving for more. Their numbers still held weight, but their purpose was eroding. An army without willpower, without ambition, was little more than a lifeless machine.

And that, Zephyr realized, was the true curse.

Not the supernatural gifts bestowed upon them.

Not the expectations placed upon their shoulders.

No—the real curse was the slow, creeping rot of stagnation. The moment they stopped becoming stronger was the moment their purpose began to crumble. If left unchecked, they would be nothing more than relics, warriors in name only, living in the shadow of the strength they should have possessed.

If the two armies were to clash, even with the overwhelming numerical advantage of the normal apelings, Zephyr knew with absolute certainty that the cursed clan would emerge victorious. In his mind, the outcome was undeniable. All it would take was the deployment of ten thousand fifth-stage apelings from the cursed clan—no more, no less—and the battle would be decided with only minimal losses on their side.

The reason for this was not just raw strength or superior combat ability. It was something far more fundamental—a phenomenon that had been observed time and time again among the strongest warriors.

The Power of Domain.

The defining trait of a fifth-stage warrior was the awakening of their domain—a manifestation of their essence, the purest form of their understanding of their own power. Every fifth-stage apeling possessed one, unique to their attunement with their elemental affinity. Fire, earth, wind, lightning—no matter the element, the principle remained the same: a domain was a space where their power reached its absolute peak while minimizing the cost of mana expenditure.

Fighting a single fifth-stage warrior within their own domain was already a daunting task.

Fighting thousands of them at once?

It was an impossible battle.

Zephyr’s confidence in this fact did not stem from arrogance or blind faith. It came from history—proven history.

His father had once conducted an experiment, a simple test that yielded results so overwhelming that it had solidified this truth in Zephyr’s mind forever. In that test, five thousand fifth-stage warriors from the Ember Clan gathered in unison and activated their domains at the same time.

What manifested was not just overlapping fields of fire.

It was an entirely different world.

Normally, when two fifth-stage warriors clashed, their domains would battle for supremacy. If they were evenly matched, their domains would either coexist in a fragile balance or merge slightly in chaotic, unstable ways.

But what happened that day was something else entirely.

The Ember Clan’s cursed gift was fire—an element that was not just wielded, but deeply ingrained into their very being. It was not something they learned or tamed; it was something they were. Each of the 5,000 Ember Clan warriors who took part in the experiment had domains fundamentally built from fire, the only real difference lying in their understanding of its nature.

Domains, by their very nature, were not vast. A newly awakened fifth-stage warrior’s domain was only slightly larger than the size of a room, growing steadily as their strength and control expanded. At the peak of the fifth stage, a domain could reach its absolute limit, stretching only as far as the wielder’s mana allowed.

But what happened when 5,000 fire-aligned domains were superimposed onto each other?

The answer was simple—a world of fire.

It was not merely an inferno that burned everything indiscriminately—it was an entire realm where fire existed in many forms, carrying different meanings for different warriors.

In one part of the battlefield, golden flames surged forward in roaring waves, consuming enemy attacks before they could even land. Elsewhere, deep crimson embers lingered in the air, their heat sharpening the minds and reflexes of those who fought within them. A pale blue fire raged cold as ice, slowing movement and numbing limbs, while flickering green flames clung to wounded warriors, sealing their injuries shut instead of burning them further.There was no ground, no sky, no air—only a plane of pure fire, stretching as far as the combined mana of 5,000 warriors allowed. A true realm of flames, where anything that entered would be reduced to ash before it could even take its next breath.

This was why Zephyr had no doubts about the outcome of a battle between the cursed clan and the normal apeling army. Even with 7,000 fifth-stage warriors among the normal apelings, the result would remain unchanged.

The difference lay in unity.

If those 7,000 warriors attempted to do the same—if they tried to merge their domains—they could. But the result would not be the same. The sheer variety of elemental affinities among them would cause their combined realm to be muddled, unstable, and nowhere near as devastating. Fire, water, earth, lightning, wind—all these forces would exist in the same space, but they would not enhance each other. They would conflict.

Instead of a seamless realm, their domains would collide and resist one another. Some elements would neutralize each other, some would struggle for dominance, and in the end, their combined realm would be nothing more than an unstable mess of competing forces.

Of course, this was not a technique that could be used carelessly. The sheer amount of mana required to sustain such a vast and unified domain meant that it could only serve as a final trump card—one deployed to ensure a swift, decisive victory. Even the most elite of the cursed warriors could not maintain it for long without exhausting themselves.

Yet, to deny the current strength of the apeling kingdom would be foolish. Their power was undeniable, and their military structure was formidable. However, strength alone was not enough. Strength had to be cultivated.

And if there was one truth Zephyr knew well, it was this: complacency is the first step toward decline.

The humans, despite their shorter lifespans, were relentless in their pursuit of progress. Their numbers were vast, their ambition unyielding. They were always advancing, always innovating, their societies driven by an insatiable hunger for more—more knowledge, more strength, more influence. Even now, the gap between them and the apeling race was beginning to shrink.

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