Tianming had made quite quick work of Fang Taiqing. Their encounter was an unavoidable one, and only one man was left standing. The twenty-four days of hard training with the guidance from the caeli of Great Emperor Xuanyuan and the specters allowed him to reach the eighth-level death phase. Now he was just a step shy of rising to the next life phase, mostly thanks to the new insights he had gained from the ascendant caeli.

Killing Fang Taiqing meant that he was now among the strongest fighters on the continent as a whole; at the very least, he was the strongest on Archaion's side. If it weren’t for the specters, the battle today would have focused entirely on Dugu Jin and Tianming alone. Even so, he wasn't the slightest bit proud of it.

"All of us are still in deep trouble."...