CHAPTER 43: The Cleansing of Black-Mist Pass
(ARC 6: THE EXTINCTION TRUTH & THE GLOBAL RECLAMATION)
The Black-Mist Mountain Pass had been a jagged, gaping wound on the map of the continent for three centuries. Stretching over two hundred miles between the Central and Northern Realms, its sky was perpetually choked with toxic, pitch-black clouds that blocked out the sun.
Beneath this oppressive gloom lay dozens of active Grade-5 Dungeon Anchors, constantly spewing mutated beasts, shadow vipers, and armored obsidian gargoyles onto the jagged rock crags below. No merchant caravan or noble army had dared traverse the pass without losing half their ranks.
Today, however, the toxic fog was violently sliced in two.
A sleek, white-and-silver tactical airship bearing the golden dragon emblem of House Sterling glided through the sky, coming to a dead stop directly above the central rift zone.
On the open drop-deck stood Ethan and Elena, their dark navy-and-silver coats whipping in the howling gale. Behind them stood fifty elite cultivators from the newly formed Sterling Imperial Guild Vanguard, all clad in uniform dragon-scale leather armor.
"Young Master, Lady Elena!" the Guild Commander reported nervously, pointing down at the valley floor through his spyglass. "Our spatial scanners have locked onto twelve Grade-5 Dungeon Anchors clustered in the lower gorge! Over ten thousand mutated shadow beasts are congregating near the main anchor pool!"
Ethan looked down at the swarming sea of black-scaled beasts below. He didn't draw a blade or put on armor, casually unstrapping his linen-wrapped wooden spear shaft from his back.
"Ten thousand beasts?" Ethan grinned, his dark eyes glowing with a scorching, golden dragon heat. "Good. That means we don't have to waste time hunting them down one by one."
Elena stepped up beside her brother, her fingers resting lightly on her azure sword hilt. Her spatial dragon steps hummed softly, creating faint, blue ripples in the surrounding air.
"Remember what Dad said," Elena reminded him smoothly, her voice calm and sharp. "Don't just kill the beasts. We need to shatter the Vorathian core crystals inside the anchors to neutralize the atmospheric toxins."
"Right!" Ethan's posture shifted into a low, athletic crouch. "Last one to shatter six anchors buys the spirit tea!"
BOOM!
Before the Guild Commander could even react, Ethan leapt directly off the five-hundred-foot drop-deck without a parachute or gliding rune!
Elena executed a spatial shadow step a microsecond later, vanishing into thin air!
Down in the rocky gorge, a thirty-foot-tall Obsidian Gargoyle King—a Late-Stage Martial Scholar level beast—let out a deafening, gravelly roar as it sensed human life descending from above. Thousands of shadow vipers and black wolves turned their glowing red eyes toward the falling figure.
BOOOOOOOOOOM!
Ethan slammed straight into the center of the beast horde like a falling meteorite!
The raw, physical kinetic impact of his Imperial Sovereign Dragon-Physique detonated upon landing, creating a hundred-foot crater that instantly vaporized three hundred shadow beasts into red mist!
"GRAAAAGH!"
The Gargoyle King lunged forward, swinging its massive, stone-crushing fist down toward Ethan’s head!
Ethan didn't dodge. He raised his left hand bare, catching the Gargoyle King's massive, ten-ton obsidian fist mid-air with his fingers!
BANG!
The shockwave blew away the surrounding fog for fifty yards, but Ethan’s arm didn't even tremble!
"Too weak," Ethan muttered flatly.
Ethan stepped forward, driving the blunt, linen-wrapped wooden butt of his spear straight into the Gargoyle King's chest!
CRACK-SHATTER!
The stone beast's chest plate exploded into fine dust! The physical shockwave traveled straight through its giant body, shattering its internal core into fragments as the gargoyle collapsed into a lifeless heap of stone rubble!
Simultaneously, across the valley...
SWISH—SWISH—SWISH!
Elena materialized mid-air directly in front of the first thirty-foot-tall Vorathian Dungeon Anchor—a jagged obsidian spire pulsing with a sickening, dark purple aura.
A pack of two thousand winged shadow drakes swooped down toward her, their jaws dripping with toxic venom!
Elena drew her azure sword by half an inch.
SOVEREIGN DRAGON SWORD STEPS — SPATIAL CLEAVE!
A hundred-foot arc of razor-sharp, blue spatial sword Qi erupted from her sheath!
The spatial blade sliced through the sky with silent, absolute perfection. All two thousand shadow drakes were severed in half mid-flight, and the thirty-foot Vorathian Dungeon Anchor behind them was clean-cut in two!
BOOM—CRASH!
The purple core crystal inside the spire exploded, releasing a wave of purified, golden spiritual energy that instantly neutralized the toxic black mist in a half-mile radius!
Down in the gorge, the fifty Sterling Imperial Guild members dropped from their ropes, staring in utter, jaw-dropping shock at the scene before them.
In less than ten minutes, two teenagers had completely dismantled a Grade-5 rift zone that had terrorized the realm for three centuries—without using high-tier Qi arrays, heavy artillery, or expensive defensive talismans!
Ethan stood atop the shattered remains of his sixth dungeon anchor, resting his spear shaft over his shoulder, a bright grin on his face as the black clouds above the mountain pass began to part, revealing clear, blue sky for the first time in three hundred years.
"That's six anchors for me, Elena!" Ethan called out, laughing.
Elena sheathed her blade smoothly, looking up at the sunlight breaking through the mountains. "Check the scanner again, Ethan. I cut the seventh one while you were fighting the gargoyle."
Ethan blinked, his jaw dropping. "Wait... what?! That's cheating!"
Above the pass, Gabriel sat inside his spatial observation pavilion on the Floating Cloud Island, watching his children through a spatial mirror. A proud, warm smile played on his lips as he took a slow sip of spirit tea.
"The reclamation of our world," Gabriel whispered, his golden dragon pupils gleaming with absolute confidence, "has officially begun."
(End of ARC 6: THE EXTINCTION TRUTH & THE GLOBAL RECLAMATION)