The surrounding space was sealed in an instant. Even though his opponents possessed no spatial movement abilities, Kanzaki Rei still took the precaution of locking down the entire area.

With a casual lift of his hand, he also concealed and blocked all perception within this place.

To ordinary observers looking from outside—

Unless an extraordinarily powerful watcher with extreme specialization in perception deliberately focused on this location, they would notice nothing at all.

"Who’s there?!"

"Is it a human?!"

The two monsters turned their heads simultaneously.

But the instant they did, their bodies split apart.

"Second Form of the Way—Dissolution of All Things."

The moment contact was made, they began to disintegrate. An incredibly insidious force had already slipped into their bodies.

Terror filled both monsters’ faces.

But their reactions were astonishingly fast as well.

"Die!"

With a furious roar, the very winds and clouds changed color.

Yet before either of them could make another move—

Kanzaki Rei had already vanished once more.

At the same time, his right hand returned the blade to the sheath at his left side. It was still a sword forged through magic.

"Way of the Primal Slash—Fifth Form: Cleaving the Gap."

Crack—

The two monsters were decapitated.

Their enormous heads, eyes devoid of life, plunged toward the sea.

Splash—

Accompanied by two bursts of water, two insignificant sprays rose from the raging ocean.

The two Rank 8 monsters had died in complete silence.

Way-transcendent techniques.

They did more than simply allow Rei’s own Azure Sky Flow to transcend into a Way.

The other combat techniques he had learned could likewise be elevated to the same miraculous level.

After mastering the Manifestation of Ten Thousand Ways, his mind felt incomparably clear.

He had always learned others’ techniques quickly.

But never like this.

Now, a single glance through perception was enough to fully master a technique.

And after mastering it, he could effortlessly deduce an even stronger version.

He could even elevate it directly into a Way-transcendent technique.

The reason the unique class Sword Saint was so powerful was because it could comprehend the Sword Way at an early stage, making the acquisition of Way-transcendent techniques dramatically easier.

As the two corpses fell, Rei took another step.

And arrived at an island three hundred million kilometers away.

Pfft!

Boom boom boom boom—

The moment he appeared, the colossal monster before him—vast as a mountain—was suddenly riddled with crater-like depressions.

At the same time, boulders condensed into a fist as immense as the heavens themselves.

It smashed down toward Rei with overwhelming force.

BOOM!

Standing upon the earth, Rei merely raised his right fist upward.

The gigantic stone fist collided with the tiny fist of a human.

The ground shattered, splitting into countless fissures.

But Rei did not move an inch.

"Azure Way—Tenth Form: World-Stilling Impact."

"Way of Invincibility—Seventh Form: Thousandfold Overlap."

Akagi’s Invincible Flow had also granted him enlightenment, allowing Rei to develop it into the Way of Invincibility.

BOOM—

The mountain-like creature before him shattered and collapsed at incredible speed.

This mighty Rank 8 mountain monster was reduced directly into innumerable broken stones that could never regenerate.

The shockwave from the burst of martial techniques alone

obliterated every living creature on the island.

Blood and flesh splattered across every corner of the land.

There were no humans left here.

No intelligent races of any kind.

Only monsters remained on this island.

"Another one down..."

"It feels... closer."

He was only one step away from complete entry into the Way.

Which meant he needed even more battles.

One step...

Another step...

And another...

Azure Way

Way of Invincibility

Way of Tempered Life

Way of the Primal Slash

...

If any other warrior who had entered the Way were to witness Kanzaki Rei now, they would be profoundly shaken.

Even for those who had stepped onto the Way,

it usually required years of arduous cultivation to comprehend their own Way-transcendent techniques.

Some geniuses who had only just touched the threshold might spend their entire lives mastering only a single move.

Even so, that one move would become an absolute trump card.

At Level 6, it would allow them to look down upon Level 7 class-advancers, proclaim invincibility, and gain hope of one day stepping into the ranks of Level 8 warriors.

By Level 8, if a warrior could elevate even half of their combat techniques into Way-transcendent techniques, they would possess the qualifications to challenge Level 9.

But Kanzaki Rei—

With every breath, he was comprehending the Way.

Every strike he unleashed was a Way-transcendent technique.

Perfect mastery.

Even in battle against Rank 8 monsters, a single touch meant either death or grievous injury.

In only the time it took to drink a cup of tea,

dozens of Rank 8 monsters had already died by his hand.

And the number of Way-transcendent techniques he had comprehended had risen to dozens.

Beyond his own Azure Way, he had gained extensive insights into swordsmanship, blade arts, the Invincible Flow, and various body-tempering methods.

Slash!

Another one died.

After exhausting itself by unleashing several powerful abilities against Rei, the monster was cut down with a single stroke.

Rei withdrew his bloodstained blade from the monster’s skull.

The only reason he allowed these monsters to attack at all

was to observe their combat methods and seek further enlightenment from their moves.

"Rank 8... First Metamorphosis, Second Metamorphosis."

Monsters of the First Metamorphosis were essentially instant kills.

Those of the Second Metamorphosis could exchange two or three moves with him, but were still dispatched with ease.

As for monsters specializing in curses and laws—

Heh...

Those types were actually the most vulnerable in close combat.

The fact that Rei could appear at their side without warning was already the greatest possible counter.

As for their attacks actually taking effect on him?

"Azure Way—Fourth Form: Enigmatic Phase Void."

It was no longer a simple shift into nothingness.

Nor did it retain any time limit of a few seconds, or any cooldown at all.

Through his understanding of Unsolvable Enigma and Phase,

this technique had been sublimated through the Way.

It concealed his existence within phased space itself.

To locate him, one would first need to know his corresponding phase coordinates.

And Rei’s phase coordinates were hidden by Unsolvable Enigma.

This technique fused all of those principles into one.

At this moment, although Rei walked through the material world,

he also did not exist within it at all.

Visible, but untouchable.

The vast majority of attacks no longer affected him.

Battle after battle, the countless and seemingly disparate forms of knowledge he had acquired were continuously recombined through the Manifestation of Ten Thousand Ways.

He drew his sword and went to meet the next monster.

Before him stood a creature wearing a crimson mask.

Its humanoid form resembled the gray-masked monster he had killed not long ago.

BOOM!

The instant Rei appeared before it, countless slashes materialized across his body.

And yet—

Whoosh!

It was as though a gale had swept across an empty plain.

The slashes that appeared from nowhere failed to injure him in the slightest.

Rei casually swung his blade.

Slash slash slash slash—

In an instant, all six of the monster’s arms were severed.

Bzzzt—

At the moment the strike landed, an extremely powerful surge of magical energy erupted nearby.

Rei glanced to the side.

There stood a monster in crimson robes.

It even wore a pointed mage’s hat.

The monsters had now learned how to use magic...

"Rank 8 Ice Magic—Zero-Shatter Frost."

Ding!

In a single instant, Rei’s body was frozen solid within a block of ice.

A perfect instantaneous freeze, with absolutely no warning.

This was Rank 8 magic.

As formidable as ever.

However...

Rei walked out of the ice as if nothing had happened, passing through it without the slightest resistance.

It was as though the ice and Rei existed on entirely different layers of reality.

The ice remained where it was, perfectly intact.

Rei, meanwhile, had already stepped beyond the frozen area.

Two more steps later, he appeared directly before the monster wearing the mage’s robes in the sky.

The monster mage tried to cast another spell—

Only to discover that it could no longer mobilize its mana.

Rei seized the humanoid cyclopean monster by the throat with one hand.

"I have to say... that robe looks a little familiar."

"That’s Loren’s mage robe, isn’t it?"