Chapter 2260
Luna’s heart skipped a beat under Kyrie’s furious questioning, but her face only grew colder. She looked at him with icy calm.
“General Harding, everything I said falls within my duty. Whether I have history with the Dragon Prince or not has nothing to do with this. What matters is that as long as I am here, no one can strike him down at will.”
Kyrie exploded. “Fine! Then watch me kill him today. What will you do about it?”
His uniform trembled as a wave of raw power burst from his body, his aura pressing heavily over the floor.
Luna’s eyes flashed a pale green as she, too, began to circulate her energy. “If you insist on this path, then forgive me, but I’ll have to stand against you.”
Kyrie was exasperated. With the woman he craved standing before him, he could not fully tear off the mask, as he still dreamed of one day sharing her bed.
Yet before he could act further, Andrew’s cold voice cut through their standoff. “Are the two of you done? General Phelan, if you want to handle this fairly, I don’t mind. Kyrie, if you think you can avenge your brother, I don’t mind either.”
Andrew’s knuckles cracked as he clenched his fist. He smirked and added, “This is the Martial Tower, a place forged for battle. Here, strength decides everything. Ten years ago, Kyrie, you were nothing to me. Ten years later, you’re still nothing.”
Luna’s eyes flickered at the sight of Andrew’s defiance. The Andrew she remembered was rarely this fierce, rarely this domineering. Yet perhaps this was his true self, the Dragon Prince who had returned to Chetvine alone, fearless of everything.
“But…” she tried to interject, her voice uneasy.
Andrew’s cold distance struck her harder than she expected. He had called her ‘General Phelan’, not Luna. The invisible wall between them seemed to widen with every word, and it left her with an ache she could not name.
“There are no buts,” Andrew cut her off sharply. “My business is mine alone. And besides, last time you must have heard from Conrad what kind of man I am. Let me make it clear today. Martial Tower belongs to me as much as anyone. I’ll do as I please here. Whoever dares to block me? I’ll crush them.”
His eyes burned with lethal coldness, all warmth gone.
Kyrie let out a furious roar and launched forward. “Bastard, die!”
His palms surged with earthen-yellow energy, condensing into two heavy disks that slammed down toward Andrew.
Andrew did not even flinch. “So you’ve managed to condense your aura into form? If that’s your trump card, then you’re pitifully weak.”
He unleashed his Inferno Strike with a single palm.
The raging heat of true energy surged wildly through Andrew’s meridians, making him feel an unbearable blaze in his chest as a violent urge to kill erupted within him. He had already begun to realize that mastering this Heavenly-tier martial art to the Tides of Hellfire realm might depend entirely on his state of mind when striking.
If he stayed calm and restrained, the power of Inferno Strike would always be limited, shackled by control. But if he let himself go, allowed the bloodlust to rise unchecked, and embraced the violence within, the technique’s force would erupt at its peak.
The truth was proving itself.
Andrew had touched the core of it. His aura crashed forward like a flaming beast slamming into flesh and bone.
Kyrie felt his whole body swell with searing heat, as if he would explode on the spot. The burning pain racing through his meridians was unbearable, his face flushing crimson until he looked like he had been dragged from a vat of boiling oil.
At the final moment, the emerald talisman on his chest flared to life, trembling violently as it released a surge of protective energy.
Andrew remained rooted to the spot, unmoved.
Kyrie, however, staggered back several heavy steps, barely keeping himself upright thanks to the talisman’s shield. When he looked at Andrew again, his eyes burned with hatred and fury, twisted into a grim, feral glare.