Neva felt a foreign force envelop her. But sensing no malice from this force, she allowed it to drag her. The next moment, she was thrown into an unknown, dark place with no physical objects present around. But from her newly developed senses, she felt the massive amounts of elemental energy surrounding her. Her heartbeat quickened, and her thoughts felt too sharp. Neva deliberately slowed her breathing, anchoring herself before they spiraled.

  This massive energy had twisted the laws and rules of this place. Last time she was here with her teacher, he had to use a special covering on her to protect her. At that time, she was not able to see or sense anything and felt only darkness around her.

  The energy all around rushed towards her body, trying to destroy it. But her body, which had partially transformed into an energy lifeform after ascension, was able to sufficiently defend itself. A very thin layer of ice elementals enveloped her body.

  At that moment, she felt her thoughts slow down, and her body was also refusing to obey her commands. The ice elementals under her command had also stopped obeying her. She thought that she had not yet adapted to the environment around her.

  Her Ascension Spell was Life or Death Gamble. It produced either a cyan or a red gem once per day. The cyan gem would save the user once per day if it were on their person from a life-threatening situation. And the red gem would condense into a single attack that consumed half the user’s energy, but the produced attack was twice what was originally possible with that energy. One granted life to her while the other granted death to her enemies.

  In the process of her ascension, Neva had used Life or Death Gamble and obtained a cyan gem, which had saved her life at the last moment by rebuilding her body from the ice elementals around her. She thought that this slowing phenomenon was a side effect of that miraculous reconstruction. In her excitement, she had completely ignored the possibility that it must be an Ascension Spell from her enemy.

  She simply uttered the word, “Break.”

  The ice elementals regained their previous momentum and began to circulate in her body. “Now it seems fine,” she muttered.

  Nel’s husband coughed out a mouthful of blood from the rebound of his broken Ascension Spell. His cyan eyes had turned blood-red from anger. The girl had just uttered a single word, and the spell he had honed for his whole life was broken.

  He felt anger first, which was followed by a deep sense of fear.

  Finally, after feeling she had acclimated enough, Neva decided to deal with her enemy. Looking at him, he was still coughing up blood. Thinking he was taking time to adapt to the Void Realm’s pressure, she waited for him to recover. When he finally gazed at her, she raised her hand and made a welcoming gesture. The man suddenly clenched his fists tightly.

  But Neva still waited patiently for him to make his first attack. She had just ascended and had no experience fighting at her current rank. And by the looks of it, her opponent was also a Rank Three. She was going to properly use this training dummy.

  At that time, Nel’s husband was trying to activate his Ascension Spell again, but to no avail. It was simply not working on this girl. Finally tired of waiting, Neva said in her plain voice, “If you are not going to attack, then I will go first.”

  The next moment, she disappeared from her place and appeared beside the man, punching at him. All the elementals surrounding her fist shot out at that instant.

  Nel’s husband just had time to raise a shield, which was easily broken through, and he was flung back. Just when he thought he had created a distance from the girl, she appeared behind him and punched him once again. This time, he was late to respond, and the punch directly hit his back, breaking his backbone. He was again flung in the other direction.

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  This time, Neva did not chase after him. She gathered a pre-formed spell in one hand and manipulated raw elemental particles with the other, keenly observing both. With the same energy, the spell was giving twice the effect as if she used direct elemental manipulation to do it. She felt she was still lacking a lot compared to her teacher and other seniors.

  After the first two hits, Nel’s husband had regained his composure and stopped using his Ascension Spell and tried to fight back using elemental control. But to his horror, he discovered that the girl had taken control over all the elementals in the area around him. No matter how much he tried, he could only move a few at a time. He was barely able to survive, and that was also because the girl wasn’t trying to kill him. The girl was observing him struggle and learning from it.

  The beating of Nel’s husband continued. Being an Ascender, as long as his body and soul were not destroyed, he would regenerate with the help of the surrounding energy—just the thing Neva needed right now. Slowly, her skills were also improving. She easily identified how to properly use the elementals as well as how much energy to exert in every moment. For her, it felt more like conducting a live experiment than a fight.

  After feeling satisfaction from her training session, Neva decided to free the poor soul. Catching his neck, frost spread over the man’s body, and he was frozen into an ice sculpture. Then cracks started to appear all over the statue, and it broke into very small particles at the atomic level.

  At that moment, Neva began to feel large energy fluctuations coming from deep within the Void Realm. It was most likely her teacher. She decided to go and watch him fight.

  While Neva moved inside the void, due to her carelessness, Nel’s husband had been able to split off a small part of his soul at some point and send it away. By the looks of it, the girl had not realized that.

  Monster! That was the only word that could describe her. She had ascended just moments prior and had already nearly killed an older ascender. It meant all that the ascender had learnt in all his years after ascension, she had grasped in a few moments of breathing. Luckily, she didn’t know many of the Ascenders' escape methods, or he would really be dead.

  He was celebrating his escape when a large maw appeared in front of him and devoured the soul fragment. His last regret was that he had not run away as soon as the attack on the city had occurred. There was no love between him and his wife; both used each other for their own benefit. In such circumstances, his curiosity had led to his death.

  When Neva was approaching the heart of the Void Realm, a man with cyan hair and eyes appeared in front of her. Realizing it was an acquaintance, her body relaxed. Ulrich moved closer to her and, under her unsuspecting stance, smacked her head. Clutching her head, Neva looked at him with an angry expression, a small tear streaming down her face.

  “Next time, make sure your opponent is truly dead. And don’t play around under such circumstances,” Ulrich said sternly.

  Neva could only swallow her grievances.

  “Also, don’t go ahead. You have just ascended to Rank Three. A single misdirected attack from the battle between Rank Ones is fatal.” He then just stood guard to make sure this young girl did not do anything foolish.

  Looking at the current Liam, Lex let out a chuckle. Liam’s hair had grown down to his waist. His eyes were glowing a bright cyan. The elemental particles were swirling around him as if bowing to their sovereign. He stood there like the center of all attention.

  “You could have attacked before I completely merged with the shard. Why didn’t you?” Liam asked.

  “There was no need. I will teach you how this power, for which you betrayed us, is just like a mirage,” Lex replied sarcastically.

  Looking at the girl who had just emerged from the ice and ascended, Liam commented, “She is talented.”

  “Yes, truly talented,” Lex’s voice softened. “The most talented child I have ever taught in my whole life. But she also works harder than anyone I have ever taught.”

  “I would like to see her face after I present your head to her,” Liam commented.

  “You won’t have to worry about it. It will never happen.” Saying so, Lex punched Liam. A large fist made of densely packed ice elementals shot forward. The area where the fist passed was completely frozen, creating a road-like structure of solid ice.

  Liam just raised his hand and touched the incoming attack with his finger. The fist dissolved back into harmless elementals under his control.

  “Since the time I got this shard, I was not able to properly use it until now. No opponent needed me to use it on. But looking at it now, it was truly overkill. A Rank Two Ascender can face off against a Rank One with just a broken shard. Just how much stronger must the whole godhood be?” Liam ruminated on his current power.

  Lex just shook his head. Being a Rank One, he keenly understood that the shards not only gave power but were also a burden. Steadying his stance, he began to fight in earnest.