Nexus Ascension: My Comprehension Defies the Heaven-Chapter 363: You are painfully weak for a 4th ranker.

"What happened, Grey? Why did you stop?" The fragment shot toward Grey, who had paused at the space transformation level.

"There are some problems," Grey said with a thoughtful look.

"Hey, Fragment, I’m sure that the governing force of heaven has a direct law, doesn’t it?"

"Nope." The fragment merely shook his head. "The Heavenly Dao is called the Heavenly Dao because it’s the master of all paths. It doesn’t have a specific law. The heavenly elemental laws, like heavenly fire and heavenly tribulation, are what it uses to enforce rules in the mortal world."

"Then, what am I missing?"

Suddenly, Grey’s instincts flared.

Boom!

A multi-colored beam seared the air where he had stood a microsecond before. Grey reappeared ten meters away, the afterimage fading as a man in heavy metallic armor slammed into the ground from the sky.

"I wondered who was dirtying my kingdom," the man said, his phoenix eyes narrowing as he scanned the intruder. "Just a stray demon."

He wasted no time. A greatsword of pure light materialized in his grip, causing the atmospheric pressure to drop instantly.

"[Excalibur]!"

He brought the blade down. A torrent of golden energy drowned the street, dissolving buildings and vaporizing the cobblestones. The shockwave rattled the entire city, tearing a massive trench through the district.

"Flashy," Grey whispered, his voice right beside the man’s ear. "But you missed."

The man didn’t freeze; he reacted instantly. Abandoning the sword construct, he whipped around with a vicious backhand. Grey ducked under it, the wind of the blow tugging at his hair. 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

The man pressed the offensive with a spinning heel kick, a jab to the throat, and a knee to the solar plexus. Grey flowed through the barrage, parrying the knee with a shin check and swaying past the fists with minimal movement. It wasn’t a fight; it was a rhythmic dismantling.

"Is that it?" Grey asked, looking bored.

"DIE!"

The man roared, channeling all his energy into a glowing white straight punch aimed directly at Grey’s skull.

Grey stopped moving. He raised an open palm.

Thud.

The fist, heavy enough to crush a tank, stopped dead against Grey’s hand. No shockwave, no pushback. Grey absorbed the kinetic energy entirely.

"Y-You..." The man tried to retract his arm, but it wouldn’t budge.

"I was hoping for more," Grey said, his grip tightening until the gauntlet began to whine under the pressure. "For a 4th Ranker at the 1st Level, you’re painfully average."

Snap.

Grey twisted his wrist. The man’s forearm spiraled in an unnatural direction.

"ARGH!" The man crumpled to his knees, clutching the mangled limb.

"I didn’t even use Nexus Overclock," Grey said, looking down at him. "No Primordial Amplification. No Saint Halo. You are weak."

"I AM NOT WEAK!" The man screamed, and a dense, violent aura exploded from his body.

The armored man’s silhouette swelled. His muscles gorged on the atmospheric energy, and the metal of his armor groaned as his physical form began to resonate with the frequency of the planet itself.

"Is this the Boundary Realm?" Grey smirked, watching the air distort around his opponent.

To transcend by forming a contract with the world meant borrowing power like a parasite. Grey looked down on it. It was nothing like his Nexus Overclock, a power he had engineered from scratch.

"[Armament]."

Grey didn’t move to dodge. His skin flickered, instantly hardening into a deep, light-devouring black across his chest and arms. It wasn’t just armor; it was the absolute physical defense of an Abyssal Lord, a texture so dense and sharp it looked capable of slicing a planet if touched wrong.

The man vanished.

Crack!

A fist the size of a boulder slammed directly into Grey’s sternum with the momentum of a derailed train.

Boom!

The impact shattered the tectonic plate. A terrifying mushroom cloud punched through the stratosphere, consuming the horizon. Silver Pellet City, a sprawl of civilization comparable to half the surface area of the Southern Region, collapsed into a crater of molten glass. Millions of lives were extinguished in the blink of an eye.

Silence followed the roar.

"How cruel."

The smoke swirled and parted. Grey stood in the center of the crater, feet hovering inches above the magma. His chest was pristine; the Abyssal black skin hadn’t even been scratched. The white robe that had disintegrated from the attack returned, though now it was black.

"You attacked me because I’m an Otherworlder," Grey said, his voice filled with coldness. "Yet you didn’t hesitate to erase the people you’re supposed to be protecting?"

Right now, he no longer looked human. With the horn, his saint eyes, and the golden rings of the lesser heaven between his iris and sclera, it made sense why the other party would attack him. But to go as far as killing millions was just psychotic.

"You do not need to concern yourself with the matter of the Azure Origin Planet. Go back to your damn planet!" The man bellowed as he attacked once more, moving just as quickly as before.

...

Taihong City.

"What? Silver Pellet City was destroyed?" The City Magistrate of Taihong, a Boundary Realm expert himself, looked concerned.

"Yes, it was General Chen of the Yellow Dragon Empire. He sensed an illegal demon inside the city."

"I think it is related to the commotion earlier."

"Let’s go there." The City Magistrate of Taihong, along with his servant, rose into the air.

He was a retired general and a powerful Boundary Realm expert who didn’t want more casualties. He would join forces with General Chen and defeat the demon swiftly.

...

"How is this possible?" General Chen stared, his voice trembling with genuine disbelief. "How are you fine after all this?"

Grey floated amidst the smoke, his robe and hair fluttering gently in the wind. Sunlight naturally gravitated toward him, his presence stabilized by the Yin-Yang Transformation Realm. He looked less like a combatant and more like a force of nature.

"There were days when I dreaded 4th Rankers," Grey said, his voice flat. "But I have already taken that step. I have reached new heights. And it feels great."

"You! I will kill you, or else it will tarnish my reputation!" General Chen screamed, abandoning reason as he charged forward once again.

Grey’s figure suddenly split.