The High Speaker was deeply concerned that Lance had only managed to slay the Tier 4 Cinder Demon by forcing a premature breakthrough to the [Grandmaster] stage. If that were the case, it would be a tragic waste of a once-in-a-century foundation.

  "I truly hope that isn't the case for you, young man," The High Speaker sighed, tapping his terminal to pull up Lance’s combat data.

  "He only has a single video file? What on earth is he doing?" The High Speaker muttered, momentarily bewildered. It was standard practice for candidates to leave their recorders on to maximize point verification.

  The High Speaker immediately opened the file.

  The footage played. He watched as Lance, with a display of raw, overwhelming power, practically deleted the Tier 4 demon in a single strike.

  As the video concluded, The High Speaker’s entire countenance shifted. His face, normally a mask of composed authority, buckled into a look of sheer, unadulterated shock.

  "This... this is impossible!" The High Speaker shrieked.

  The exclamation sent a ripple of confusion through the ship’s bridge. Every officer and warrior present froze, their eyes darting toward the old man.

  In their eyes, The High Speaker—the most powerful being in the Solaris Intermediate Sector aside from the Emperor himself—was the pillar of the region. To see him this shaken was terrifying.

  "What happened? Has there been a catastrophic event?"

  "Did the other Great Races launch an invasion!?"

  "Could be. The last time I saw The High Speaker this stunned was when the [Tartarans] wiped out one of our intermediate star systems."

  "Gods, I hope the frontlines are holding."

  The bridge crew—all veterans and [Grandmasters] in their own right—felt a cold knot of anxiety tighten in their chests.

  "Fifteen... he’s only fifteen!" The High Speaker’s mind was racing, the data scrolling behind his eyes. "His combat output... his age... an SS-Rank Genius. He’s a genuine SS-Rank Paragon!"

  The realization was a hammer blow to his senses. In the Solaris Intermediate Sector, an S+ Rank genius only appeared once every several centuries. That was the primary reason he had come to proctor this exam—to see if the current leaderboard leader would actually manifest S+ potential.

  But "Lance" hadn't just hit the S+ ceiling. He had smashed through it into the mythical SS-Rank.

  If this news broke, the entire human Federation would be thrown into a frenzy. Geniuses of this caliber were so rare that they had practically vanished from human history since the era of the first Martial God.

  "No. This must be handled with absolute secrecy. An SS-Rank asset cannot be exposed like this!" The High Speaker’s expression turned grim.

  He knew all too well that if the other Great Races learned an SS-Rank human had emerged, a fleet of [Planetary Class] assassins would be dispatched within twenty-four hours to erase him. Not even the Solaris Emperor would be able to stop them all.

  Lance had to be reported, but only to the highest echelons of the Federation, and through the most secure channels possible. He didn't even trust the Solaris Emperor with this information yet—telling too many people was a death sentence for the boy.

  "I have no choice. I must personally return to Ancient Earth," The High Speaker commanded, turning to his terminal. "Intellect, use my highest administrative authority: delete this video file from the local server immediately."

  [System Alert: Deletion successful.]

  As the proctor, The High Speaker had the authority to manage local exam data. If this video had reached the Central Intellect’s main terminal for formal evaluation, not even the Solaris Emperor would have been able to scrub it.

  "Lance... let’s hope your luck holds until I return," the old man whispered. He then engaged a secondary lockout, banning Lance from uploading any further combat footage until the end of the trial.

  "The bridge is yours," The High Speaker said, addressing his officers with regained composure. "I have an urgent matter to attend to at the capital. While I am away, should you encounter any threats while escorting these candidates back, you are authorized to engage at full tactical capacity!"

  Before they could ask for clarification, The High Speaker boarded a Tier 5 High-grade courier ship and vanished into a slipstream toward the heart of the Federation.

  Lance, meanwhile, had no idea that a single uploaded clip had nearly triggered a sector-wide war.

  Rumble!!!

  On Pyre-7, a massive Cinder Demon was cleaved in two by a blinding arc of silver light. In a violent explosion of heat and noise, the beast’s magmatic body detonated, turning into a rain of molten slag.

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  The Tier 4, 5-Star demon had spent centuries reigning over its territory; it died without ever understanding how a human girl could delete it in a single breath.

  "The power of [Ethereal Sword] hasn't reached the [Master] stage yet. The cut through that demon wasn't smooth enough," a white-clad girl muttered, looking at her blade with a frustrated frown. "Where is the bottleneck?"

  This was Sienna, the Rank 1 student of Solaris Academy’s 7th-grade class. She was a master of the A-Rank [Speed Affinity] and had pushed her sword techniques to the [Peak Proficient] rank. She was a single epiphany away from the [Master] rank.

  Once she achieved that, she would be qualified to challenge the 8th-grade leaderboard. But she had been stuck at this threshold for ten years. Though she looked only a few years older than Lance, she was actually ninety-one—yet in the eyes of a [Grandmaster] with a thousand-year lifespan, she was still in her early youth.

  "Forget it. I’ll find a Tier 4, 7-Star demon to practice on," Sienna sighed. She tapped her foot against the void, and her longsword shot into the air. She hopped onto the blade, flying through the sky with graceful precision.

  BOOM! RUMBLE!!!

  Suddenly, a thunderous explosion echoed from over three hundred kilometers away. The shockwave was so powerful Sienna felt it vibrate in her own sword.

  Boom! Boom! Boom!

  The detonations followed in rapid succession, causing the very earth to buckle and groan under the strain.

  "That aura... it’s a Tier 4, 10-Star beast! Who the hell is fighting a demon of that caliber!?"

  Sienna’s eyes sharpened. Without a second thought, she willed her sword to accelerate, hurtling toward the source of the noise.

  Three hundred kilometers away, above a churning sea of magma, a gargantuan, thousand-meter-tall Cinder Demon was roaring in fury. It swung massive fists of liquid fire, smashing them into the void with enough force to shatter the surrounding mountains.

  But every strike met only thin air.

  Darting between the titan's blows was a youth in a black combat gi, a long spear strapped to his back. He moved with the effortless grace of a ghost, weaving through the storm of fire with terrifying speed.

  What was more terrifying than the youth’s speed was the fact that he was fighting with his eyes closed. It was an absurd display of arrogance, yet he looked completely untouchable. Beneath his feet, two divine dragons woven from pitch-black fire surged through the air, carrying him across the void with spectral fluidity.

  ROAR!!!!!

  Lance’s casual avoidance finally pushed the Cinder Demon over the edge. In a fit of primal rage, the titan let out a bone-chilling howl. The magma coating its body erupted, spraying into the sky in a chaotic geyser. In mid-air, these globs of molten rock solidified into hundreds of thousands of gargantuan, flaming fists.

  ROAR!!!

  With a command from the Tier 4 Peak demon, the fists began to rain down like a localized meteor storm, obliterating everything in a fifty-kilometer radius. Their sole target: Lance.

  Boom! Boom! Boom!

  The horizon turned into a series of blinding detonations as the earth buckled under the kinetic bombardment.

  Watching the carnage from the periphery, Sienna’s face went pale.

  What is wrong with this demon? Why is it this frenzied? Who the hell is it fighting?

  Sienna’s heart hammered against her ribs. A Tier 4 Peak Cinder Demon possessed enough destructive power to ensure that even she, the top student of her grade, wouldn't survive a single exchange. Only the graduates of the 9th and 10th grades—those who had stepped into the [Legendary] status—would stand a chance of escaping. As for defeating it? There probably wasn't a single student in the entire Solaris Academy capable of the feat.

  Driven by a mix of fear and morbid curiosity, Sienna focused her gaze on the center of the impact zone.

  What she saw made her pupils contract to the size of pinpricks.

  A lone youth was weaving through the sea of falling meteors with mind-numbing speed. He didn't just dodge; he danced through the gaps of the explosions, moving so fast he left a trail of afterimages behind him.

  My God... what kind of monster is this? Sienna thought, a wave of shock crashing over her. His bio-signature... he’s less than a hundred years old. Is this some SS-Rank Paragon from a hidden star system?

  She stood there, paralyzed by the sheer impossibility of what she was seeing.

  "Hmph!"

  A cold snort vibrated in Sienna’s ears, snapping her out of her stupor. Her heart skipped a beat as she looked up.

  The Cinder Demon had vanished from Lance’s location and was now hovering directly above her. Its molten eyes burned with a murderous glare.

  "Human... die!!"

  Infuriated by Lance’s games, the demon decided to vent its frustration on the small fry watching from the sidelines. It opened its massive maw.

  BOOM!!!

  A pillar of incandescent, crimson fire erupted from the demon’s throat. The beam, several kilometers in diameter, turned the sky into a sheet of blinding white heat. It tore through the void with the speed of light, hurtling directly toward Sienna.

  The realization hit her too late. Even with her A-Rank speed affinity, the attack was too vast and too fast to evade.

  It’s over...

  Despair washed over her. The sheer pressure radiating from the demon’s strike had already shattered her resolve. She couldn't even bring herself to move her sword.

  BOOM! RUMBLE!!!

  The fire pillar slammed into Sienna’s position and detonated. A gargantuan mushroom cloud rose tens of thousands of meters into the stratosphere. The resulting shockwave swept outward, liquefying the basalt plains and turning everything in its path into a sea of churning lava.

  The ground was scooped out, forming a crater nearly a thousand meters deep. The blast radius extended for thousands of kilometers.

  On Ancient Earth, an attack of this magnitude would have instantly erased a medium-sized country. Here, on Pyre-7, it merely vaporized thousands of examinees who had the misfortune of being in the vicinity. They were reduced to ash before they even realized they were in danger.

  "Hmph. Pathetic apes," the colossal demon sneered, staring down at the wall of fire and smoke.

  With the nuisance out of the way, it could finally focus all its attention on crushing Lance.

  "Wait... what?"

  The demon’s expression shifted. It peered into the heart of the inferno it had just created, and its magmatic brow twitched in confusion.

  The youth it had been hunting was no longer where he was supposed to be. Lance had appeared in the center of the blast zone, standing calmly amidst the flames. He had somehow intercepted the impact and was now holding the unconscious Sienna in his arms.

  "Hey, watch it," Lance said, looking up at the demon with an annoyed expression. "Don't go getting distracted while we're fighting."

  He had been so close to pushing his movement techniques to the [Master] rank. He just needed a few more minutes of high-intensity dodging, and then the demon had suddenly decided to go after the girl. It was incredibly irritating.

  ROAR!!!!!

  The demon didn't care about his complaints. It lunged again, unleashing a flurry of molten strikes.

  Lance gave a faint, weary smile. Holding the limp Sienna securely against his chest, he blurred into motion, vanishing just as a massive fist pulverized the space where he had been standing.

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