Chapter 557: Three Inheritances at the same time!

The sword didn’t shatter this time. But it trembled. The beam didn’t tear through it immediately—but it pressed, steadily, slowly, with horrifying force, grinding its way forward like a divine needle piercing a mountain.

Max’s feet slid an inch across the cracked temple floor as he maintained control of the sword, pushing his inheritance to its very limits.

It pushed him too even though he wasn’t directly using the sword with his own hands but controlling through the crown.

The sword and beam screeched against one another in midair, locked in a ferocious tug of dominance. Sparks and tendrils of black lightning radiated outward, tearing through the golden trees around them.

The temple walls groaned from the shockwaves, and fissures spread across the ground like a spider’s web.

Max grit his teeth, pouring more energy, more command into the sword through the Emperor’s Domain crown hovering above him. “You will not pass,” he growled, flames flaring from his back like wings.

The sword flared brighter.

The beam pulsed harder.

Then—

CRACK!

The tip of the sword began to break apart, chunks of molten flame flaking off into the wind, but the beam finally halted. The collision point surged in brightness, devouring air, mana, and sound itself. And then—

BOOM!!!

A shockwave burst from the impact site, throwing wind and golden light outward in every direction. Black and gold fire intertwined as the beam finally fragmented and shattered into nothingness, consumed by the violent feedback from Max’s sword.

Max stood breathing lightly, his sword broken into fragments that slowly crumbled into ashes at his feet.

But he was smiling.

He had stopped the beam.

However, one thing unsettled Max the most—a flicker, a moment, a glimpse that haunted the edges of his thoughts even now.

When his thousand black flaming leaves had been destroyed by the elven woman’s beam, he had seen something through the lens of his Three Dimensional Body—something strange.

Just for a fraction of a second, right before they crumbled into embers and vanished, his black flaming leaves had glimmered gold. Not a reflection, not a distortion, but a complete shift—a transformation.

For that sliver of time, they had become golden leaves. Not flaming constructs of dominion and wrath, but radiant, delicate fragments of light. It was almost as if they had been rewritten—converted—into something else entirely, as though their very essence had been peeled away and replaced with something alien to their origin.

And then, they had been obliterated. It was exactly as the elven woman had explained earlier: her attack doesn’t kill you directly—it turns you into a construct of light first, and then slices through that construct with divine precision.

Max had seen it for himself now. Not a theory, not a metaphor, but a terrifying reality. Her Concept of Light had somehow bypassed the normal resistance of his black flames and momentarily overwritten them, leaving them helpless against the follow-up attack.

It wasn’t just power. It was authority—a deeper form of Law. A system of rules that sought to dominate everything beneath it.

And the realization that even his own meticulously forged inheritance techniques could be bent, reshaped, and dismantled like that—if only for a breath—sent a chill down his spine.

“How could your Concept of Light overwrite my Concept of Flames completely?” Max asked, his voice steady but tinged with genuine curiosity. He wasn’t angry, nor was he trying to argue—he simply wanted to understand.

What he had witnessed wasn’t something that could be brushed off as a mere fluke. It was calculated, precise, and frighteningly effective.

For someone who had mastered his inheritance to perfection, the way his black flaming leaves were so easily converted, rewritten at their core, disturbed him on a fundamental level.

The elven woman smiled gently, a glimmer of amusement flickering in her golden eyes.

“Don’t think too much,” she said lightly, her tone almost teasing. “As I mentioned earlier, what you’re calling my Concept of Light isn’t really a concept in the strictest sense. It’s been restricted by the rules of the Nine Dragons Painting to appear that way. Outside this place, in the Divine Realm, it exists in a form far beyond what your realm even comprehends.”

She walked slowly through the golden grass as she continued, the breeze catching strands of her hair as if nature itself paid reverence to her words.

“In truth, it is something greater than a concept—something closer to what your world might one day call a ‘Sovereign Principle’ or a ‘Primordial Law.’ But here, I must wear the mask of ‘Concept of Light’ to keep the balance.”

Her smile returned, faint and wistful. “And so, it wasn’t hard for my light to override your flames. Also my attack isn’t just force—it rewrites the target. Converts it. Breaks down the concept behind it and replaces it with mine. So yes, it’s not surprising it happened. My attacks are designed that way.”

Max stood quietly, absorbing her explanation. It wasn’t arrogance that she spoke with, but truth—a truth wrapped in ancient experience and a power that couldn’t be faked.

“I get it,” Max said with a calm nod, his voice low but resolute. “Let’s continue.”

“Continue?” the elven woman tilted her head, smiling as if she found his resolve amusing. “You barely blocked my last attack. Do you truly think you can stop it again?”

Max shrugged, unconcerned. “I underestimated that beam of light earlier. But it won’t happen again.”

“As you say,” she replied with a soft chuckle, her golden eyes glowing faintly.

But even before her words had fully left her lips, Max’s Three Dimensional Body detected it—multiple spikes of hostile mana converging on his position. His senses flared.

From every direction, beams of blackened light tore through the golden world around him like divine javelins screaming through the sky. Each one was laced with the same deadly fusion of Light Concept sharpened by black flames, a storm of piercing, rewriting energy aimed to end him from every angle.

“Due to my attack turning into a domain, I can also use my attack like a domain as well,” the elven woman said with a gleeful glint, her voice echoing across the radiant forest. She stood there, a figure of luminous calm amidst chaos, watching as her judgment came raining down like divine punishment.

But Max… he only grinned.

“Now we’re talking,” he muttered as his eyes flared with a molten gleam of battle intent. “It’s time I use all three inheritances at the same time.”

A thrill ran through him—not fear, not recklessness, but pure, sharp excitement. He smiled, wide and fearless, then his body tensed, shoulders squaring as the storm within him was unleashed.

Flame Tyrant roared first—black flames erupted from beneath his skin, wrapping his arms and legs in violent, dragon-shaped coils. His veins glowed faintly beneath his skin, like liquid lava flowing in place of blood.

His fists clenched and expanded into black flaming gauntlets that pulsed like living creatures. From his spine sprouted flares of black flames, mimicking the silhouette of wings.

Crimson Reaper followed—silent, precise. Around him, translucent black spheres blinked into existence, layered across every angle like floating orbs of judgment. They shimmered with barely contained force, each one a self-contained prison of heat and control.

Black Sun was still active, the flaming crown above his head casting waves of oppressive pressure down on everything in its range. The giant crown hovering in the air burned hotter, brighter, casting black shadows across the entire golden forest. His authority grew. Constructs began to flicker into being—blades, halberds, shields, serpents, beasts—all within the domain of his will.

The moment all three merged, the air twisted violently. The ground cracked. The sky dimmed.

The Flame Tyrant provided brutal force and body-enhanced dominance, the Crimson Reaper supplied absolute control and protection, and the Black Sun expanded his imagination into pure authority. Together—they didn’t just overlap—they amplified.

Max’s aura exploded outward in a storm of layered concepts, elements, and force. It was wild, suffocating, chaotic—yet strangely beautiful. A perfect fusion of violence, logic, and dominion.

Even the golden forest trembled. Trees of light flickered as if unsure whether to obey their mistress or bow before a new god of flame and power.

The elven woman’s smile faded, replaced by genuine surprise for the first time.

“You… you really are something else,” she whispered, golden eyes narrowing. “So the Mark of Divinity really did choose a monster.”

Your gift is the motivation for my creation. Give me more motivation!