Her name and distinction rang out across the skies, and anybody who heard it could not help but pale in comparison.
The True Magitech Throne paled, feeling as if her very soul was howling, the very essence of her core reverberating with the ancient, majestic authority that poured from the words of this Ancient Millennium Acheron Phoenix.
She- who stood tall as a Luminblood Stage Astral Core Ascension Phoenix, was just one of many.
And on the floating Kingdom of Neon, the figures of King Darrun Flamewake and the other Titan Dwarves had their expressions twist into shades of absolute dread as they shook their heads slowly.
The moment one heard of the Nine Supreme Forces, they should tread with caution- no, with reverent terror. One did not provoke them. One did not challenge them. One simply existed around them and hoped to remain unseen.
For a skirmish to occur with one was nearly impossible.
For a battle to escalate into the binding of a being from such a faction… it was beyond folly. It was disaster incarnate.
If this were the ancient times, if those traditions still held dominion, then the moment her name and title were uttered, the battle would have ceased. Immediately.
Their side would have bowed. Apologized. Pleaded ignorance. Claimed they didn't know whom they were facing.
They would have begged for understanding, for clemency, for the tiniest flicker of grace.
And if fortune smiled, such grace might arrive in the form of a pact. A deal. An understanding that often meant submission or enslavement under one of the Nine Supreme Forces.
That was how things were handled then.
Back when the names of the Supreme Forces carried weight strong enough to make the mountains kneel and the skies tremble.
Back when the mere sight of their floating continents blotting out the sky would drive entire civilizations to prostrate themselves in prayer.
King Darrun Flamewake remembered those days.
And this—this was now.
And now, this Ancient One had proclaimed her title. Declared the Supreme Force to which she belonged. She had issued an ultimatum, stark and clear.
She told a man- a man she did not yet understand- that he needed to stop. Right now. And that if he did, he and his people would be spared.
Everything he knew, everything he stood for, would become nothing but ash.
And she truly, deeply… should not have said that.
"You actually threaten… again?"
Achilles' voice erupted, booming like thunder across the skies.
It came from his immense winged form- one wrapped in sparkling rivers of purple and gold. A celestial figure. A manifestation of something regal and alien. His voice was not merely a sound. It was a pressure, a presence, a declaration.
Bound by a purple-gold halo, and now wrapped in curling chains of violet-gold vines, the Ancient Millennium Acheron Phoenix stared forward with the chill of ancient royalty in her flaming emerald eyes.
And yet, in the next instant...
"You think the name of the power behind you protects you?"
Achilles' radiant, winged figure drew closer.
Until he floated directly in front of her towering frame, until he stood at the height of her head, his glowing gaze meeting hers, unwavering.
He looked deeply into her incandescent, green-flaming eyes.
"These… are no longer the Ancient Times you once knew."
"And I… am not one of the enslaved humans who once bowed before your flames."
"You threaten to turn everything I know into ash? Then I… will show you ash."
A hand cloaked in celestial flame.
He placed it on the blazing, radiant, incandescent green beak of the phoenix—on her majestic, ancient body, something revered and untouchable for eons.
An aurora of violet and gold erupted outward.
And from within came the horrified, disbelieving scream of a Phoenix Queen.
Because in that moment… she felt it.
The power that defined her.
The essence that was her.
It was being pulled. Extracted.
Her flames. Her feathers. Her identity. Her self.
They poured outward like an endless green river into him.
It was horror given shape.
It was agony in its purest form.
The agonized cries of a phoenix boomed out for hundreds of miles, piercing across the floating Kingdom of Neon, reaching the ears and hearts of millions.
Even the one hundred Dharma Manifestation Phoenixes standing opposite of Rose shuddered. Their very bodies recoiled, as instinct urged them toward their once-supreme.
In front of them stood Rose, a vision of royalty and purity, radiating the unfiltered lineage of the Millennium Acheron Phoenix. Her posture was calm. Her gaze—icy and decisive.
She looked like a Queen of Phoenixes. Like a sovereign of flame and legacy.
"Remember the purity of the lineage you desire. Remember who you are. Think of your own survival. Do not end up like her."
Her head tilted up. Her emerald eyes flared with inner fire.
And then- she said just one word.
The Phoenix Legion stared at her, then turned to look at the being behind her—the celestial entity wreathed in purple and gold, who was actively suppressing their leader and causing her to scream.
In the face of that power, they did the only thing they could.
Because assimilation—especially while still alive—was a brutal, mind-breaking process. It meant having every thread of your soul unraveled. Every memory, every breath, ripped out and passed to another.
It was like being devoured from within.
And Ayan… Ayan saw it all. Felt every sliver of her identity slip away.
This creature that looked like a man, this Achilles...he was not human. Not truly.
He didn't care where she came from.
Didn't flinch at the weight of her title.
Didn't even pause at the name of the force behind her.
And when she looked into his glowing, calm, pitiless eyes… his voice whispered to her alone.
"I will assimilate your mind last—so that you can feel everything. Clearly. Completely. And with perfect clarity."
Those words were a sentence worse than death.
Her phoenix cries grew louder. Stronger.
They pierced through the clouds, echoed for more than an entire minute—across the skies, into the hearts of all who listened.
The Ancient Dharma Manifestation Beings near the Holy Hyacinthus Mountain Flower and scattered across the Cenotaph Wild Lands watched, utterly frozen.
Some among them knew of phoenixes. Knew of the power and reverence of the Everburn Aerie Continent.
They never imagined they would see a commander from such a force being unraveled before their eyes.
Some Ancient Ones could not bear to watch.
They fled. They ran as if chased by death itself.
One such being- a certain Golden Scorpion- burrowed into the ground, clawing his way into the Evolutius Catacombs, tumbling through the earth as if escape were the only thing that mattered.
Calm. Composed. Radiant.
The green rivers of assimilation surged into him from above.
The purple rivers from the Holy Hyacinthus Mountain Flower surged from below.
He had just entered the realm of a Land Dharma King, and already, the continent forming within him expanded at an impossible rate.
A continent of essence.
A land born from power.
The being who absorbed the full essence of an Astral Core Ascension Phoenix now stood alone in his magnificence.
No other on this plane could compare.
And soon… he would build an ocean within him.
He would become a Sea Dharma King.
All while absorbing the Organic and Inorganic Terrestrial Planetary Body.
All while his power ascended to new heights—extracting a living phoenix, taking in her essence and soul into the Nirvana of the Sun and Moon Assimilation.