This person was Kurogure’s disciple.

Kanzaki Rei touched the corpse and immediately gleaned the information attached to it.

This man had been a Level 5 Mage.

After graduating as a Level 4 Mage, Kurogure had passed his mage robe on to him.

As for Kurogure’s current location, he was in a place known as the Shattered Void Realm.

Through objects left behind by others, Rei could determine where their owners were.

He could even see the connection linking the two.

However, if the distance was too great, or if they were separated by dimensions or planes, the connection became invisible.

Rei knew the name of the place where Iz and the others currently were, but he did not know its precise location.

Most likely, they were at the World Center Tree.

Once he had raised all of his levels here, Rei intended to go there and take a look.

"Do you want to live?"

Rei asked calmly.

The one-eyed monster beside him nodded frantically.

"Yes! Of course I want to live!"

Heh. Even its pleas for mercy were starting to sound almost human.

"Tell me about Ewinri."

Rei spoke.

The one-eyed monster froze.

Rei projected his perception into it and examined it carefully, only to discover that its sea of consciousness had withered.

Screee—

A piercing noise, like glass being scraped, reverberated sharply.

Its spirituality was withering away.

The creature had lost its mind.

It was clearly no longer capable of answering his questions.

Rei raised a fist and smashed its head apart.

So if they even conceived of betrayal, the spirituality granted to them was erased.

What a cruel method.

It seemed that obtaining information about Ewinri would not be possible anytime soon.

For now, he would clean up the monsters before him.

...

Three hours passed.

Normally, when one of a faction’s high-ranking powerhouses died, it was easy for the others to notice.

If he killed only one every few days, they would likely realize something was wrong and take countermeasures—fleeing, investigating, or searching for the cause of death.

But in less than half a day, Rei slaughtered every Rank 8 monster within the range of his perception.

They had not even been given the slightest chance to react.

When everything was finally over, his Sea of Mana had expanded to a radius of two hundred billion kilometers.

"At last..."

"It’s complete."

He had always felt as if he were just one step away.

Yet even after killing so many Rank 8 monsters and experiencing countless battles, it was only after slaughtering nearly one thousand Rank 8 monsters that he finally completed his true Entry into the Way.

At the same time, Rei vaguely sensed something.

The Way he had entered extended farther than that of ordinary warriors.

Now, after killing the last Rank 8 monster in the Moon Sea, Rei sat cross-legged on a small island.

His eyes were closed.

Yet what he saw was not darkness.

In his perception, there was a straight road stretching endlessly into the distance.

The path was crimson, extending toward a far-off horizon.

Along that road stood vague silhouettes.

They resembled stars adorning either side of the path.

Rei recognized familiar figures among them.

One was a broad-backed man who looked like Akagi.

Another was someone he had only recently come to know—Haruyoshi.

Beyond them were scattered figures he did not recognize.

Then, in the same instant, every blurred silhouette on the road turned around and looked at him.

These were not mere phantoms.

At the moment Rei entered the Way, every warrior in the world who had also entered the Way sensed it.

Their consciousnesses were drawn into this space together.

Just as Rei could perceive their Ways, they had come to perceive his.

All of them were watching him.

"So these are all warriors who have entered the Way."

On this road, Rei could feel the resonance between himself and the others.

And within that resonance—

"What is this..."

A realization arose within his heart.

"Haruyoshi’s Imperial Way."

Way of the Emperor—First Form: Supreme Imperial Body Under Heaven

"What a ridiculously pretentious name."

Simply by walking along this road, Rei comprehended Haruyoshi’s Way-transcendent technique.

And mastered it.

BOOM!

An overwhelming imperial aura erupted from Rei’s body.

It was as though an undying emperor from ancient eternity had descended.

Any king who felt this aura would no longer dare proclaim himself emperor before Rei.

And when that aura manifested—

The distant, blurred figure of Haruyoshi seemed to twitch.

Haruyoshi had also seen Rei’s silhouette.

Rei’s figure remained indistinct.

Yet Haruyoshi recognized him instantly.

This was the warrior who had severed his path to Invincibility only moments ago.

He had only advanced to Level 6 a few hours earlier.

And now he had already entered the Way?

When Haruyoshi himself reached Level 6, it had taken nearly three years before he entered the Way.

Haruyoshi considered his talent to be among the absolute pinnacle.

Otherwise, he could never have become a Level 9 warrior.

But this person before him...

What kind of talent was this?

Entering the Way only a few hours after reaching Level 6?

How was that even possible?

Rei felt the Way-transcendent technique he had just learned from Haruyoshi.

This body-tempering art was indeed powerful and overbearing.

"But this is someone else’s path."

"And my path..."

Everything he had learned—

Magic, martial techniques, death, reincarnation, space, time, soul, phase, forging, alchemy, enchanting, mind, fate, wishes, fantasy...

And in every field, his understanding went far beyond superficial knowledge.

He possessed profoundly deep experience in each.

"A single path cannot contain me. The combat systems that exist today can no longer encompass what I am."

"All of the paths left behind by those before me are no longer suitable for me."

The more he learned, the more he felt the limits.

The martial techniques and magic he had learned from others were gradually becoming insufficient.

Even after surpassing them and elevating them to higher levels, they still were not enough.

Thus, the process of learning magic from others had slowly transformed into creating it himself.

Rei stopped halfway down the road and murmured as he gazed toward its distant end.

"This is my Origin Magic..."

Wait. Origin Magic?

What was this guy talking about?

Wasn’t this supposed to be a warrior’s Entry into the Way ceremony? 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

Every warrior observing Rei’s breakthrough stood frozen in place.

No matter how hard they tried, they could not comprehend what the hell magic had to do with a warrior entering the Way.

If you’re a mage, go comprehend magic!

Why are you doing this here?!

"No... it shouldn’t be called Origin Magic..."

"This is my Origin Arcane Way."

Faintly, another of his god-tier talents—God-Tier · Perfect Law—began to activate.

It surged violently in response to God-Tier · Manifestation of Ten Thousand Ways.

At the far end of the road, there had originally been nothing but empty illusion.

But the moment Rei spoke those words, a crimson fruit blossomed into existence at the distant terminus, as though blooming from the void itself.

In that instant, it was as if ten thousand Ways were integrated into one.