Chapter 599: Mark of the Xuan Family

Max’s sword began to blaze, not wildly but with an intense, concentrated heat that shimmered like molten light. The combination was volatile, but Max controlled it with perfect precision. Sparks danced around him as the aura of his sword intensified—blistering and unrelenting.

Then, with a roar of his own, he met Silus’s spear head-on. The collision was cataclysmic. Spear and sword slammed into each other with such raw violence that the floor beneath them exploded in a shockwave of stone and light.

The chamber trembled. Waves of fire and invisible edges of severing force lashed in all directions, incinerating and cutting everything in their path.

Max felt his muscles straining, the air around him twisting from the force, but his blade didn’t break. It held. The flaming edge crackled, severing energy slicing through the aura of the Solitary Spear as he shouted with all his might, pushing against the momentum of Silus’s spear.

For a moment, time seemed to pause. Two wills, two weapons, three concepts—locked in a brutal contest of dominance. And then, with a blinding flare of light and heat, the impact erupted outward, throwing both combatants away in opposite directions like meteors colliding mid-air.

Max landed steadily, panting slightly but still upright. His sword glowed faintly with embers, the flame yet to die out.

“Flame concept? You’ve comprehended two concepts?” Silus gasped, staggering backward as his spear arm trembled from fatigue. His breathing was ragged, and his eyes were wide with disbelief. Sweat dripped down his face, mixing with the dust and blood that clung to his skin.

In all his years in the Middle Domain—where geniuses rose and fell like stars—he had never once encountered someone who had truly mastered two distinct concepts at once. Not at this level. Not with this power. It was rare. Unheard of.

And now, standing before him was a youth from the Lower Domain wielding not one but two concepts in harmony—flame and sword.

What made Silus’s heart truly sink into despair was not just the revelation, but the fact that his strongest attack, Solitary Spear, the ultimate technique of his Spear God Arts, had utterly failed to break through.

The moment it clashed against Max’s sword, he had felt it—that creeping dread of helplessness. The solid wall of superiority that Max had become.

He, a prodigy of the Xuan Family, bearer of the Black Tortoise Bloodline, and the one once feared by all in the Lower Domain… had now became a prey.

Max stepped forward slowly, the embers dancing off his blade, his expression calm but merciless. “Now you can die peacefully,” he whispered. In the blink of an eye, his figure vanished. Silus barely registered the movement, only catching the faint ripple in space before Max reappeared directly in front of him, just inches away.

Silus instinctively tried to lift his spear, to defend, to retaliate, but he was already too late. Max’s sword—now glowing with the condensed fury of the flame concept, the cutting force of the Severing Sword concept, and the warping spatial edges of the space concept—came down in a silent slash.

“Void Severance Slash,” Max murmured, as if the words themselves carried death.

The sword passed cleanly through Silus’s head, slicing downward in one smooth, elegant motion that carved his entire body—armor, bones, bloodline shell and all—into two.

For a heartbeat, nothing happened. Then, the glow of the tortoise shell cracked, splitting down the middle as Silus’s body slowly separated. His consciousness remained for a final flicker, just enough for him to comprehend the impossibility of what had happened.

‘My shell… my armor… even that couldn’t protect me?’ His last emotion wasn’t anger or hatred. It was regret. Regret for underestimating someone from the Lower Domain. Regret for thinking himself untouchable.

And then… silence. The two halves of his body hit the ground with a dull, final thud. Silus of the Xuan Family of Four God Nation was no more.

‘He was strong. Very strong, in fact.’ Max couldn’t deny it. Silus had pushed him harder than anyone he had ever faced in the Lower Domain. His techniques, his bloodline, even his defensive strength… all of it had been at the peak.

If not for Max’s triple concept synergy and overwhelming combat adaptability, the outcome might’ve been different.

Shaking his head slightly, Max exhaled as he stared at the corpse split in two—one half slumped over, the other lying face down.

The battle was over, but the sense of finality hadn’t yet settled.

Max stepped closer, his expression turning focused as he summoned the eerie purple hue of his Ashes of Insight, his purple flame flickering faintly between his fingers.

He was just about to begin the memory extraction process when a chill gripped his green soul core. Instinctively, Max retreated several meters back, every sense on full alert. And then—he saw it.

Above Silus’s body, the air twisted as if reality itself was being pulled apart. A swirling crimson fog began to manifest, forming a vague but ominous shadow of red clouds. The pressure it emitted was suffocating.

And then came the voice—booming, ancient, laced with authority and wrath. “Who dares to kill a direct descendant of the Xuan Family, of the Four God Nation?!” the voice thundered across the hall like the wrath of a god.

Max’s body tensed. Before he could even comprehend what was happening, Blob’s voice rang out inside his mind, sharp and urgent. “Quick! Stay away from the corpse!”

But it was too late. In that very moment, the crimson fog condensed into a streak of blinding light and shot directly toward him.

Max’s instincts screamed, and he tried to dodge, but the speed was beyond what even his enhanced reflexes could fully manage. Pain exploded in his right arm.

His breath hitched as he stumbled a step back, clutching it. He gritted his teeth and looked down—his eyes widened.

A dark-green mark, shaped like a turtle shell with ancient runic edges, had appeared just below his right shoulder. It pulsed faintly, as if alive.

“What the hell is this?!” Max muttered, stunned, staring at the mark that now etched itself into his very body. He could feel it wasn’t just superficial—it had imprinted on a deeper level, like a curse or a brand.

“That is the mark of the Xuan Family,” Blob’s voice echoed gravely in Max’s mind, filled with more seriousness than usual. “Whenever someone kills a genius of their bloodline, the Black Tortoise Lineage marks the killer with a blood seal. It’s rare—some say it’s a myth—but clearly, it’s real. That mark on your arm… it’s their way of claiming vengeance, even beyond death. You’ve been marked by the Black Tortoise Bloodline of the Xuan Family.”

Max’s eyes narrowed, his breath turning cold. The implications hit him hard. Blob continued, “If another member of the Xuan Family ever lays eyes on you, they’ll know. Instantly. The mark can’t be hidden by normal means. They’ll hunt you down, no matter where you are, no matter who you’re with. And they won’t stop until you’re dead.”

Max’s jaw clenched. This wasn’t something he had foreseen. He knew the Four God Nations weren’t just powerful—they were dominant, unshakable pillars of Acaris. But this kind of bloodline vengeance? It was on a different level.

‘No wonder they rule the Middle Domain,’ Max thought grimly. ‘The Four God Families aren’t just powerful—they’re monsters dressed in divinity.’

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