Chapter 333: Warm Smile
**Chapter 331: The Greedy King’s Court**
**[Timeline: Days After the Scorched Ridge]**
**[Location: The Neutral Zone – Jagged Canyons]**
The silence in the canyon was absolute.
A moment ago, the narrow pass had been a localized dimension of incinerating heat, a 6th-Order Purgatory designed to melt bone to ash. Now, the air was freezing. The jagged obsidian walls, flash-cooled by the sudden erasure of thermal energy, groaned under the suffocating weight of the 8th Order.
Lord Pythios, the Master of the Flame Tower, knelt in the dirt. His jaw trembled, his crimson robes clinging to his shaking frame. He tried to summon his mana, to reignite the spark of his Arch-Mage core, but the ambient mana in the atmosphere refused to answer him. It was completely subjugated by the figure standing before him.
Damien Voss didn’t move aggressively. He stood with the effortless grace of a man taking a stroll through his own courtyard. His mismatched eyes—one a void of pitch-black shadow, the other a blazing, tyrannical gold, both split by the cross-shaped pupils of the Eclipse Core—looked down at Pythios.
High above, hovering near the shattered rift in the sky, Theron and Elizabeth Voss watched their son. They didn’t descend to intervene.
"Look at him, Theron," Elizabeth whispered, her silver-white hair catching the ambient light of the dimensional tear. A proud, radiant smile graced her flawless features. "He isn’t just surviving anymore. He is conquering."
Theron Voss, the King of Darkness, crossed his massive arms. His deep blue eyes gleamed with profound satisfaction as he looked at the flawless fusion of Shadow and Dragon Aura swirling around Damien.
"He has refined the darkness," Theron rumbled, a rare, genuine chuckle vibrating in his chest. "He took my shadows and the Emperor’s gold, and he forged them into a crown. Let’s see how he handles the Empire’s lapdogs."
Down on the canyon floor, Pythios finally found his voice. It was a pathetic, cracked wheeze.