The whole platform buckled under the force of the golden-robed warrior's attack. No skills or Cosmic Energy were involved, yet the spear conjured a glistening dragon over twenty meters long as it pierced toward Joanna's forehead. Only scraps remained of her armor, and she was drenched in blood from head to toe. Her aura was like a flickering candle, but the grip on her spear was firm.

Ruthlessness shone in her eyes as she shattered the apparition with a lightning-quick swipe. The true strike within wasn't so easily rebuffed, and a streak of golden death penetrated the chaos and raced toward her heart. Death was looming, telling her it was time to put down her weapon. It was long overdue.

Joanna ignored the stifling feeling, crushed the despair. She didn't retreat from the deadly strike; she welcomed it. Bones broke, flesh tore, and pain raged like a fiery inferno. She was stabbed clean through, her left lung destroyed by the ravening force in the spearman's strike. Even her heart was lacerated, but the flames of war forced it to keep beating.

A flood of destructive Dao poured into the shaft and surged toward her chest, but a bloody hand grabbed on. Joanna dragged herself closer while a storm of her own entered the enemy's weapon. She knew her Dao couldn't compete with the opponent's, but she didn't care. Conviction and desire urged her on, suffocating any thoughts of defeat or surrender.

And like a squad of soldiers erupting with impossible strength as they faced down a far larger army, the enemy's Dao was stalled. It was only delaying the inevitable, but the winds of war could change at a moment's notice. Her companion was seemingly made out of water as it bent at an impossible angle, piercing toward her target's head.

The spearman tried to rid Joanna and parry, but her muscles bulged as she stood rooted to the ground like bedrock. There was still not a flicker of emotions emotion in his eyes as the spear drew closer. Joanna had seen a thousand expressions as her opponents grappled with the realization of their end, but the blank acceptance was not one she'd encountered before. The spear hit true, ending the duel in a flash.

Joanna looked down at the fallen warrior for a minute, each heaving pant feeling like she'd been stabbed all over again. She welcomed the pain. It was a lesson and proof of her path. Finally, she bowed slightly at her opponent before turning toward the gate waiting for her at the arena's edge. Each step was slow and painful, but her heart beat with anticipation as she stepped through.

Not enough.

Despair filled her heart as she found herself at the familiar plateau among the clouds. Like after the previous battle, there were still two staircases on the other side. One led to the next challenge, while the other led back to Earth. Eight victories had been necessary to count as passing, earning her an award and the option to return.

However, the existence of the stairs had urged Joanna on, despite the desperate fight in the eighth challenge. Nine was the utmost and the number of outer courts. She had thought the optional battle against the golden spearman had been the final challenge to claim the real prize—the seal of the Indomitable Court. She walked over to make sure, but the prompts quickly dashed her lingering hopes.

[Continue]

[Return to Earth. Reward: [Kalyndor's Glory]]

A burst of information indicated the reward was a high-quality War Regalia perfectly suited for those walking the path of war. It came with a matching D-grade spear skill and emitted a natural halo that empowered herself and her subordinates. An item of this quality couldn't be bought with money in Zecia, and it would cost far more merit than what she had accrued over the past six months.

But it wasn't what she'd come for.

The storm in Joanna's heart gradually calmed down as she turned toward the glistening stairs that led into the haze. She could vaguely tell a deadly threat was hiding within, like a primordial beast waiting for its prey. Perhaps it was the final guardian before Indomitable Seal. Perhaps it wasn't. There was no way to tell. Joanna was, however, painfully aware of her chances of victory should she ascend those stairs.

There were none.

There was a significant gap in strength between every opponent. She'd swept through the first three within thirty minutes, but the eighth battle had forced her to use every tool in her arsenal. The ninth was even worse. She had been suppressed throughout the battle against the golden spearman. He was just a Peak E-grade Cultivator like herself, but it had almost felt like she'd fought someone like Zac. Each strike of his contained the ferocity and force of a dragon, leaving Joanna unable to mount a counter until the very end.

Yet she didn't immediately take her winnings and leave. Joanna sat down and ate a Healing Pill, calmly dragging pieces of shattered armor from her wounds. She had six hours before she had to make her choice, so there was no point in deciding while the desperate plight of the previous battle still occupied her mind.

The hours passed, and the wounds across her body slowly closed thanks to her top-quality pills and the restorative effect of [Steelspirit Cascade]. Her lung wouldn't fully recover in time because of the powerful intent of her opponent's attack, but the stabbing pain had been downgraded to a dull ache. Eventually, only five minutes remained, and Joanna stood up to face the two roads.

One road led to death and the other defeat. The choice was simple.

The steps of her steel boots broke the silence like funeral tolls as she proceeded toward the next level. Her mood was complex as her thoughts turned to Earth, her subordinates, and her friends. To her Lord. Her choice could be considered a betrayal. She had people depending on her, yet she was about to throw her life away.

Despite all logic and reason, Joanna's heart was calm as she walked toward her end. The very essence of her being called for her to continue, that the answers waiting within the clouds were more important than living or dying. She had to keep going, even if there was no chance of victory. If she backed down, she would forever be locked outside, seeing the chosen ones drift further and further away.

She would be selfish this one time.

The clouds eventually parted, and Joanna found herself standing atop a tower surrounded by the ashy smoke of war. It was impossible to glean anything from the surroundings, but Joanna could somehow sense that the conflict hidden beyond the veil would make the Intersector war look like a kid's brawl. The air reeked of antiquity and doom.

There was nothing on the stone tower except for her new opponent, whose appearance caught Joanna off-guard. The previous fighters had differed in strength, but they had all been exceptional in some way. Her fifth opponent wielded the power of a thunderstorm, his strikes as swift and fierce as bolts of lightning.

The seventh was steady as a mountain, its spear seemingly able to hold a whole army at bay. Each had their own style and their own comprehension of the spear, and it was proudly on display as an expression of their very existence. This woman was different.

She was a pure human, by the looks of it. She stood silently at attention, the spear in her hand slightly leaning forward. Her weapon and gear appeared very basic, looking even worse than the standard armaments of the Atwood Army. There was no aura of brilliance, no apparitions generated by her Dao. But when their eyes met, Joanna saw seas of blood and mountains of corpses.

It wasn't a trick or even an expression of her Dao. It was the experience of a warrior of a million battles, someone who had peered into the very essence of war. Zac's almost inhuman aura of bloodshed was nothing in front of the blood on this woman's hands, yet there was eerie tranquility to her gaze. The corpses were the proof of her path, the blood the price of her choices.

She held the answers Joanna sought.

"I am Joanna Thompson," Joanna said as she stepped forward. "I'm searching for Indomitability."

"Indomitability," the woman slowly answered. "It's a narrow path that ends in tragedy."

Joanna paused for a moment, surprised that her opponent actually answered. Her previous opponents had almost felt like puppets. They didn't speak, and there wasn't any expression or emotions when they fought. They were just the backdrop to the spears in their hands and the style they exhibited. This woman was different, in more ways than one.

"Even so."

"Then show me."

There was nothing else to be said. Cosmic Energy surged through Joanna's body as she unleashed her [Armament Zone], and one spear became a hundred as steel birthed war. She soared across the tower, forming the vanguard of a river of destruction. Joanna knew there was no holding back. If she did, she'd die before even having a chance to put her path on display.

Destructive weapons imbued with the Branch of the Victorious Spear fell like rain, but there wasn't so much as a ripple in her opponent's eyes. She calmly took a few steps forward, effortlessly avoiding Joanna's deadly gauntlet without using any skills. The scene was shocking, but Joanna knew such a crude attack wouldn't do much. So long as it could give her some clues about her opponent's fighting style, it was fine.

Unfortunately, the spear maiden wasn't giving Joanna anything, forcing her to strike blind. The spear in Joanna's hand glimmered with murderous portent as she stabbed down with enough force to reduce the whole tower into rubble. Her opponent returned a strike that almost looked laughably simple, but Joanna's instincts screamed of mortal danger. Was that enough to make her back down? Of course not.

Joanna split in two, her straightforward strike turning into a pincer. Her opponent didn't react to the sudden change and continued to strike right between Joanna's two halves. Yet Joanna's dread only increased, and she desperately forced herself to move even further apart to create a wider berth.

Her shoulder was still ripped open, creating a painful gash that opened up old wounds. Still, Joanna knew she'd barely survived having her throat pierced. Her own strike fared no better. It was like an invisible force field held her attack at bay. What had just happened? Her opponent had clearly attacked empty air, yet Joanna was bleeding like a sieve. Conversely, the aim of her spears was accurate, but they didn't even reach the opponent.

There was no time to analyze as one deadly calamity replaced the previous. Joanna's heart hammered at how close to death she'd come at the first exchange, and her instincts screamed at her to run for her life. But she transformed the fear into fuel and her spear into a blur as she launched an all-out assault. The dance of death had begun, and there was no stopping until one of them fell.

Joanna fought like an asura, extracting every scrap of power and comprehension she'd arduously accumulated over the past years. The unrelenting pressure let her reach new levels of mastery, like coal turning into diamonds. But what did it matter? Her opponent seemed to be just casually swinging her spear in the basic movements they taught at the Atwood Academy, but every strike was more terrifying than any finishing blow.

They were unstoppable, undodgeable. Each attack was a brush with death. Joanna couldn't understand how she was doing it. She couldn't feel any Dao, and the opponent didn't seem to be using any technique. It was like her opponent's will was bending reality itself, and anything Joanna did could, at best, slightly alter the chosen outcome.

One wound after another was added upon the ones before, and the fight only grew more lopsided as the opponent's aura grew. Bones shattered and muscles tore, and the ancient tiles drank their fill of Joanna's blood. Joanna's mind grew hazy from pain and blood loss, but her strikes only grew fiercer. She knew she'd failed, but she wanted to leave at least one mark on her opponent before it was over. One mark that could act as proof of her existence, of her path.

Nothing else mattered. Nothing else existed. There was only her spear and her unbreakable desire to embed her spear in her enemy. She stumbled after a hole was punched through her thigh, but she turned her fall into a lunging strike that continued the war. Her heart was running out of blood to pump, but its beats only grew louder, like a war drum rousing the exhausted soldiers.

She stabbed, she swiped, she parried. When a slash severed her forearm and she lost her weapon, she switched to punches and kicks. She didn't relent even when muscles were severed and sinew snapped, and her limbs failed her. Joanna's vision was red and blurry, but she gathered her last vestiges of energy for a desperate leap fueled by sheer force of will; her teeth bared in defiance as she aimed for her opponent's throat.

Even now, there was no emotion in her opponent's eyes. No pity, no contempt. There was only fire and blood as her spear stabbed forward, its gleaming tip containing a will capable of crushing mountains and moving seas. Joanna sighed, knowing that was it, the disappointment far greater than the fear of death.

'Couldn't even touch her clothes.'

The spear pierced her forehead, but a shattering sound like breaking glass echoed through the tower. It wasn't her skull that had fractured, but her opponent's spear. Joanna knew she was thickheaded, but her bones weren't strong enough to break her opponent's weapon. Something else was going on, but her brain failed to grasp it. She'd already stepped through the gates of hell, and the matters of the living world felt distant and confusing.

The destruction continued from the broken spear into the woman's arm, and she broke apart piece by piece. She wasn't angry or scared. She smiled, like her death was nothing. The unbreakable conviction was still present in her eyes, to the point Joanna expected her will alone would subvert her body's collapse.

However, the reversal didn't happen. The spear maiden was soon reduced to nothing but a swirl of white dust while her own body mended with impossible speed. Joanna's mind was a mess, blankly looking at the spectacle until a blue screen blocked her vision.

[Time: 5 minutes 12 seconds. Passed.]

It took Joanna over a minute to drag herself back from the other side and digest what the prompt said. Time? Passed? She was never meant to defeat her opponent? She was just meant to hold on long enough? The miracle she'd silently prayed for had arrived.

Also, was that really just five minutes?

The prompt faded, but Joanna realized no new gateway had appeared. Instead, the swirling dust was rapidly gathering into another shape. It was a broken spearhead. It looked almost identical to the one her opponent had used. However, it was covered in cracks, scars, and dark spots that emitted such terrifying auras that it almost knocked her out. Joanna was forced to take a stumbling step back before stabilizing her mind and turning toward the spearhead.

It had to be blood. Ancient blood, from the looks of it. The spearhead emitted such an archaic aura that there was no doubt in Joanna's mind of its origins. Zac had told her about his vision of the Left Imperial Palace, the damaged walls that had withstood an unimaginable assault. This spear emitted that kind of monstrous will. And only the blood of the ones who could threaten the Left Imperial Palace could create such an impact.

Just what kind of enemies had the woman fought that the power of their blood remained to this day?

"I was called Indra Eyler, but the world knew me as the Emperor's Spear. Right or wrong, I followed my beliefs to the end."

It was her opponent's voice, but it grew with force and grandeur with every word. After the first sentence, Joanna could no longer stay upright even if her flesh and bones had been restored. The conviction in Indra's voice was so overwhelming it could crush stars.

"Indomitable will, unbreakable spirit! Sweep the Six Directions and suppress the Eight Hells! Subdue the Dao and pierce the Terminus!"

Each word was like a bomb going off in Joanna's head, filled with such resolve that reality didn't seem its match. Each syllable held a mountain of meaning and experience, like the condensed essence of millions of battles. Each sentence was compounded and superimposed until something was born in the depths of Joanna's mind.

An impartment?

Joanna's heart trembled as she was filled with a burst of information. At first, it was just short snippets of memories. Memories of struggle, of starting as a lowly soldier that no one would remember. Of fighting against one's unimpressive talent on the road of cultivation. Of never giving in, of never using their lacking providence as an excuse to stop or settle. Of looking death in the eye and not backing down.

The timer might have been the System's test, but Joanna's response had been the mysterious spear maiden's. If Joanna had given up, fled, or stalled, she wouldn't have gained Indra's recognition. Now, she'd left something behind, a piece of her legacy for someone walking the same path.

Unfortunately, Joanna didn't have time to investigate the gift sent across time as three white lights had appeared in her soul. Utmost truth and certainty filled every corner of Joanna's being. She had worked herself to the bone for so long, pushing herself to the breaking point and beyond. It was time to harvest. Joanna looked at the glowing lights, understanding her path better than ever.

"The Emperor's spear…"