Luna and Storm cshed again, transforming themselves into a whirlwind of superhuman strength and speed. Fists met flesh with bone-jarring force, each strike a testament to their extraordinary power. The floor bulked under their feet, the coral cracking and splintering with each movement.

  Storm moved with elegance, her strikes deadly, her movements a blur every time Luna lost sight of her. The deadly Fire Keeper was not even using a fraction of her true strength but she was already an overwhelming opponent. And a tough one to keep up with. Soon, this fight was starting to feel more like a dance with death than a training session.

  On the flip side, at least Luna was learning more and more about hand-to-hand combat. Before this fight, she considered herself one of the strongest martial artists because she was a fast learner and her blood’s mystical trait. It was solely those two factors that contributed to her quick growth as a martial artist.

  At the Feng Sect, she learned complicated moves faster than anyone and left at an early age because of that. Her peers viewed her as a genius for this and often avoided her for that.

  But Luna found soce in being different…

  She jumped to the side, avoiding one of Storm’s torpedo punches. Luna then unched herself at the Fire Keeper and delivered a devastating kick to Storm’s chest, sending her flying across the room.

  She hit the opposite wall with a thunderous crash. Dust and coral concrete immediately rained down to crify that kick was fueled by her monstrous strength. For a moment, the room was silent except for the sound of Luna’s heavy breathing and the sound of wind outside.

  She stared at the destruction their fight had caused and staggered forward. Then, suddenly, her vision blurred in and out. She tried rubbing them.

  But…

  She was immediately overcome by a sudden weakness that made her knees buckle and she colpsed on the floor.

  “W…what’s happening to me?” She asked her voice hoarse and tired. ‘I must’ve reached past 50% to feel like this…”

  “Backsh from using so much of your life essence carelessly. I’m immortal, so I can use mine as much as I was. You, however, are a mortal…and one who doesn’t even have a first gate.”

  Storm’s voice echoed as she emerged from the debris and made a solemn sigh when she saw the damage made to her sanctuary.

  “Why didn’t you warn me?”

  “Well, I never expected you to become this good at controlling the flow of your essence so quickly. It's actually mediocre but it's enough to get the job done.”

  Storm answered as she began clearing the destruction their spar session had caused. The debris floated back to its previous position and dissolved into the wall once she commanded it.

  After a few minutes, Luna stood up feeling fatigued and exhausted. She groaned and rubbed her temples feeling a growing headache. “What next?” she asked with a determined tone.

  “Nothing Lunaris. I need you to recover so I’ll go make us something to eat before I go and absorb essence.”

  ‘Oh right. Her sorcery requires essence that’s not hers.’

  For a moment, Luna wanted to ask how long it took to reach that level of sorcery. It was so different from the one she’s used to seeing in the mortal realm.

  Over the past few days, she learned that the fire keeper had kept a lot to herself when she expined how life essence worked and how she drew power from it to perform her sorcery. Luna had observed how life essence reacted whenever she performed anything reted to sorcery and realized it moved in an orderly manner and usually faded to mean it wasn’t hers and it was weak. It scattered and collected itself each time she commanded it. But when she created something like a fme, the energy that flowed out of her body was usually brighter, meaning she was much stronger.

  Luna assumed that this had to do with the sixth gate in general. The Sixth Soul Gate provided the user with a great pool of life essence to support Auras. But it didn’t do the same for sorcery so Storm Rider drew power from other creatures to fuel her sorcery that didn’t connect to her Auras.

  So basically, the Sixth Gate was a scam.

  ***

  After a good meal of monster meat and stale bread—which she was now getting used to, Luna returned to her chambers as Storm flew out to hunt for cursed creatures.

  While in her room, Luna started to spend some time meditating and trying to control the qi in her body. This was the first step of manipution. And after this step, she would have to start absorbing as much essence as she could to force an awakening.

  Of course, the process would probably take years, months or days…the time frame depended on luck, honestly. If she were a zenshi user, the spark of divinity would always be there to quicken the awakening process. Luna would’ve felt jealous if she hadn’t learned of the fact that zenshi bottlenecked humans when they reached the fourth gate.

  Whoever created it wanted humans to stop somewhere or else they would be as powerful as deities. However, zenshi also made its users completely immune to any corruption of any sort. This alone meant that the being behind all of this still needed humans to survive the apocalypse which was the fall. The corruption had already eaten up the beings of the Divine Realm, so when it descended into the Mortal Realm zenshi already existed to protect many mortals at the time.

  Of course it didn’t protect everyone because so many life forms were affected and transformed into the infected.

  ‘What do they need mortals for in the first pce?’

  Luna opened her eyes and welcomed the sound of the whistling wind outside as she broke out of her meditation. There were no windows in her room, just a small floor bed made from the hide of a white hairy creature, probably a giant por bear, like in the books she used to read.

  Lying down, Luna stared at the white ceiling for a while. While silent, a weird idea of testing her new qi sense. She closed her eyes again but extended her qi sense to the water under the thick ice which wasn’t hard because part of the structure was submerged in water.

  There, she sensed a massive shadow swimming around the barrier. Its life core was burning brightly while pulsing out the life essence that flowed all the way to its many limbs.

  It stopped briefly and Luna almost jumped when she thought the sea creature had sensed her. But it hadn’t. Instead, the Tyrant was reacting to something else in the water that was approaching the Kraken at an incredible speed.

  Then, there was a bst of life essence and Luna’s concentration was shattered. Following that, there was a loud explosion outside and the building trembled in reaction when the shockwave underwater smmed into the building and brought even cracks up to her room.

  Luna’s blood froze as she stood up from her makeshift and ran out of her chamber. She headed for the balcony to see what was happening at the barrier.

  On arriving, her jaw almost dropped as she became one of the first ever people to witness a real monster battle.