Musa had fantasized about encountering Toji Hisami on countless occasions.
He envisioned a fiercely contested battlefield where the two of them would exchange long-range glances, each deploying their respective strategic designs. He pictured formal summits between rival alliances, where the supreme commanders would meet face-to-face across a grand table. He had run through every conceivable scenario.
He had even mentally rehearsed this exact confrontation.
Yet no matter how wildly his imagination had strayed, he had never anticipated why Toji Hisami’s presence carried such overwhelming, crushing gravity.
Despite originating from a commoner background, why did Toji Hisami effortlessly command that profound sense of towering majesty and unassailable poise?
Toji Hisami had not displayed anger, nor had he raised his voice; he merely regarded the assembly with a calm, faint smile, yet every single opponent in his path had instinctively taken a step backward.
In terms of physical mounts, rare equipment, and elite heroic souls, Toji Hisami’s retinue undoubtedly possessed top-tier quality. Holding the crown of the global gold list, nobody expected him to fall short in material preparation.
What truly arrested attention, however, was Toji Hisami’s intrinsic aura.
Such profound presence required years of steady refinement, forged only through sustained supremacy at the absolute pinnacle of power and survival through countless monumental crises.
Only through those crucible-like trials could a human manifest such an internalized, sovereign aura.
Even though Musa had been born within the privileged aristocracy of the Sacred Realm and ascended to a lord’s throne, he had failed to cultivate that level of absolute composure.
He had previously envied that elusive quality, but standing before it now, all he felt was a bitter surge of revulsion.
"Toji Hisami, I must commend your audacity. You actually dare to manifest yourself here alone."
Musa surged forward rather than retreating, his heavy boots striking the earth with the resonance of a war drum that echoed across the plaza.
Beneath his outward display, his chest throbbed with a volatile mix of excitement, impatience, and aggressive adrenaline.
From the dawn of the trial’s first stage when the gold list had first materialized, up through the political consolidation of the sacred leaders, from the exact second Toji Hisami’s name had passed Elara’s lips, Toji Hisami had remained an immovable mountain blocking his horizon.
Musa had desperately sought to contest that supremacy, but the gap had only widened.
Later, upon reading Elara’s public broadcast announcement, he had noticed the attached alliance suffix and briefly wondered if the mastermind behind her confidence was Toji Hisami.
Yet he had found it nearly impossible to believe. At the very threshold of the second stage, Toji Hisami had personally plunged deep into the treacherous, locked territory of the regional mists.
What an insane, reckless gamble.
Elite lords of their standing routinely avoided taking such uncalculated personal risks. Standard operational doctrine dictated sending subordinate scouting units deep into unknown sectors long before a supreme leader risked setting foot there.
Yet Toji Hisami had done precisely that.
In that fleeting moment, Musa finally comprehended the fundamental driver behind Toji Hisami’s meteoric ascent.
This commoner lord seized every opportunity, whether rightfully belonging to him or forcibly wrenched from the grasp of fate, with unhesitating decisiveness.
The deep fog was lethally treacherous, but those who braved its depths first invariably reaped the greatest structural dividends!
Risk and reward remained inextricably bound.
While adopting a cautious, delayed exploration strategy offered safety and simplicity, it guaranteed that one would forever remain trailing in the wake of the pioneers.
Toji Hisami operated like a master tightrope walker, constantly courting catastrophic ruin at every step, yet he invariably navigated the abyss successfully.
How could an individual operating with that relentless drive fail to claim the crown, provided he avoided premature death?
Yet today, Toji Hisami had committed an unforgivable miscalculation by walking directly into the capital of the Holy Spirit Alliance!
This was his domestic stronghold!
Musa concluded that the uninterrupted string of easy victories in the trial’s first stage had severely inflated Toji Hisami’s ego.
"You proclaimed an intent to secure justice for Elara."
"What manner of justice is that? In the Lord’s Trials, it is strictly survival of the fittest, where the weak perish without exception!"
Observing that his own coalition lords remained psychologically paralyzed by Toji Hisami’s presence, Musa moved aggressively to shatter the stalemate.
With a sharp wave of his gauntlet, he ordered the elite half-dragon shock troops to deploy from the rear.
Ai Lan surged forward alongside them, rallying every available allied detachment within the capital sector into a unified offensive line.
There was no room for hesitation or protracted delays. Since Toji Hisami had delivered himself to their doorstep, they needed to secure his survival, or his corpse, before discussing any further terms!
Musa refrained from spearheading the charge personally, keeping his eyes locked downward.
His gaze remained fixed upon Toji Hisami, who sat unhurriedly atop the silver unicorn.
He intended to observe precisely how the legendary Jiuzhou leader planned to extricate himself from an absolute, mathematically inescapable death trap.
Toji Hisami tossed back the edge of his dark cloak with a fluid motion, while the silver unicorn’s front hoof scraped a nervous, eager pattern across the packed earth.
"Hehe, it appears rational dialogue has concluded."
"Elara, rally your people and prepare to force a breakout. Our operational venue for tonight is not located within this courtyard."
"It lies beyond their perimeter."
With an effortless pivot, the silver unicorn turned its body and began pacing away in a leisurely, unhurried gait. The massive Xuanwu Guards formed an immediate box formation around their lord, with the elite swordsmen seamlessly melting into their protective blind spots.
Having participated in prior joint engagements, Elara’s forces executed their transition with drilled familiarity.
Every combatant instantly unholstered their weapons, compressing their formation into the secure interior corridor of the Xuanwu Guards’ square perimeter.
Senior professionals and heroic souls like Lin Yifei mirrored the movement, dropping into covered positions within the core.
By contrast, the newly rescued allied lords stared at the surrounding sea of enemies with horror, their hearts plunging straight into the abyss.
Dense, countless waves of hostile troops packed the horizon in every direction, the overwhelming majority bearing verified elite classifications.
The massive Elephant Man shock troops blocking the rear avenue towered over the landscape, forming an impenetrable wall of steel and muscle.
Lacking the courage to question Toji Hisami directly, the rescued lords turned frantic, questioning eyes toward Elara.
They desperately needed to know what madness had possessed Elara to march them straight into this suicidal execution block.
Yet Elara merely offered a calm, dismissive wave of her hand in response to their panic.
"So long as my lord is present, I dare to tread anywhere."
"???"
The three elven lords and the surviving Blood Spirit leader stared at her with identical rows of question marks floating across their expressions, while sheer despair washed over their souls.
They felt entirely helpless in the face of Elara’s unshakeable blind faith, inwardly lamenting: Elara, what has transformed you into such a reckless fanatic?
Where had her legendary composure and tactical brilliance vanished to?
Had her judgment been completely blinded by romantic infatuation?
Toji Hisami was undeniably striking in appearance; his raw combat statistics, personal charisma, and physical elegance matched every impossible fantasy associated with the gold list’s undisputed crown.
Yet they were standing in the heartland of the Holy Spirit Alliance’s capital domain, surrounded by an endless tide of hostile reinforcements!
If Toji Hisami genuinely believed he could waltz in, issue an arrogant declaration, and stroll out unhindered tonight, the entire political structure of the Holy Spirit Alliance would shatter overnight, and the coalition’s collective prestige would be reduced to dust.
Consequently, Musa’s faction would mobilize every ounce of their military assets, launching an assault far more vicious and absolute than any previous engagement.
Could Elara and Toji Hisami honestly survive this magnitude of onslaught?
Though consumed by despair, the rescued lords had no alternative but to fall in line, drawing their weapons with grim, resolute expressions.
They harbored a singular, shared determination: if they were destined to be slaughtered here tonight, they would exact an astronomical price in enemy blood before drawing their final breaths!
"Roku! Seal all forward and lateral exits!"
"Ai Lan! Launch the primary assault wave with your forces immediately!"
"Half-dragon phalanx! Stand ready for the decisive breakthrough strike!"
Musa barked his directives from an elevated knoll overlooking the plaza. Acknowledging the command, the Elephant Man lord roared an order for his massive infantry to compress the enemy’s operational space without pause.
Ai Lan simultaneously consolidated the remaining aquatic units under Ike with her primary loyalists, forming a surging wave of charging combatants.
The half-dragon shock troops anchored the second echelon, holding their momentum in reserve to exploit any fractures in the enemy’s defensive box.
Musa had accorded Toji Hisami absolute, maximum tactical respect.
Even when facing a trapped garrison numbering barely a few hundred combatants, he committed his forces with unreserved, 100% lethal intent.
Nearly ten thousand alliance troops ringed the sector, locking down every approach.
Every minor patrol path that had previously been left unmonitored to permit Elara’s initial entry had now been plugged with elite battalions, transforming the plaza into an inescapable dragnet, a textbook definition of a dead-end kill zone.
Even if Musa placed himself in Toji Hisami’s position, he could conceive of no viable geometric vector to achieve escape and ascendancy.
"Hubris breeds fatal blindness, Toji Hisami. You severely underestimated the collective might of the world’s true heroes."
Musa glared down from his vantage point.
Because Toji Hisami remained elevated upon the silver unicorn, he served as the visual anchor of the retreating column.
On multiple occasions, hidden sniper bolts whistled toward Toji Hisami from shadowed windows, only to be systematically intercepted and batted out of the air by Lyra’s raised spear.
Recognizing the futility of ranged potshots, the hidden archers abandoned stealth attempts and concentrated their efforts entirely on the massed legion’s forward charge.
Positioned beside Toji Hisami, Lyra conducted a rapid, holistic assessment of the tactical topography closing in around them.
"All units, execute defensive transition!"
"Xuanwu Guards lock seven parts rear, three parts front! All elite swordsmen pivot to cover our rear flank! Elven marksmen, concentrate your charging mana and unleash a cascading, wave-patterned saturation strike!"
"Understood!"
The disciplined response echoed instantly through the ranks as the formation adjusted with fluid precision.
The column’s velocity dipped momentarily while units shifted seamlessly into a heavy-rear, light-front defensive posture.
At that exact second, Ai Lan’s massive shock wave smashed into their rear guard, prompting the Xuanwu Guards to drive their massive steel towers downward into the bedrock in unison!
Boom!