Recaps

Leo and Alice fled a massive ambush, but their pursuers drove them into a large encirclement. Aidelin revealed that Purple Flame Academy was last in the tournament while Black Skull Academy led, leaving Leo and Alice trapped among thousands of apprentices.

• Leo and Alice escaped from the cave under a barrage of spells, with Leo’s three protective magic items destroyed during their descent.
• Alice and Leo dodged and endured the relentless attacks, but the pursuing apprentices forced Alice back toward Leo.
• The apprentices surrounded them on the ground, and Leo tore open his wounds to remove lingering elemental attacks while Alice stood beside him.
• Leo asked Alice about the apprentice mocking her, and she identified her as Aidelin, a top-tier wizard apprentice from Black Skull Academy.
• Aidelin said fewer than five thousand apprentices remained and that the surrounding crowd made up half of them.
• Alice saw that Purple Flame Academy had the fewest people present, and Aidelin declared that it ranked last while Black Skull Academy led the tournament.

Leo and Alice escaped a spell barrage from more than two thousand apprentices, and Leo’s bomb detonated in a nuclear explosion that devastated the surrounding area. As fire, shock waves, a landslide, radiation, and a fire tornado swept across the landscape, Alice demanded to know what Leo had unleashed.

• Alice realized Black Skull Academy had united the other academies against them, leaving Purple Flame Academy without its top apprentices.
• At Aidelin’s command, more than two thousand wizard apprentices attacked Leo and Alice at once.
• Alice activated a teleportation array, carrying them away as Leo’s bomb remained behind and exploded.
• Leo and Alice watched the blast engulf the gathered apprentices and flatten the land with fire and a supersonic shock wave.
• The explosion’s aftereffects triggered a landslide, spreading heat and radiation, and spawned a fire tornado that forced Leo and Alice to flee.
• Alice demanded that Leo explain what his bomb was.

Leo was interrogated by the Wizard World’s Guardian Wizards over his nuclear attack, then learned that the explosion had won him and Purple Flame Academy first place in the tournament. After Headmaster Alexander released him and gave him a mysterious, impossibly heavy reward, Leo asked who the two surviving apprentices were and whether he could claim the fallen apprentices’ wizardry rings.

• Leo and Alice were captured by ten official wizards after Leo watched the nuclear fireball rise.
• While sealed in darkness, Leo answered questions about his origins, intentions, and weapon, and the interrogators later confirmed the environment was safe.
• Headmaster Alexander revealed himself, released Leo, and told him his attack had earned him first place in the tournament and an extra reward.
• Alexander gave Leo a tiny box so heavy that it crushed his hands until Leo stored it in Shadow Space.
• Leo asked Alexander who the two apprentices who survived the explosion were and whether the fallen apprentices’ wizardry rings belonged to him.

After returning to Purple Flame Academy, Leo reunited with Gru and analyzed the nuclear explosion before opening Dean Alexander’s mysterious reward. He learned the tiny stone was a Planetary Core, which might be essential to his Shadow Talent’s advancement to Level One, and accepted that the Purple Flame Stigmata Wizard had planned for him to use it.

• Leo returned the magic-conducting rings as required, left Dean Alexander, and went back to Gru’s courtyard at Purple Flame Academy.
• Leo told Gru he had hidden during the championship, and Gru urged him to study how to advance to Level One within fifty years.
• Leo reviewed the nuclear explosion data and concluded that his modifications to the atomic bomb had increased its power.
• Leo opened the sealed box from Alexander and found a tiny black stone that triggered an uncontrollable hunger in his shadow and in himself.
• Benji identified the stone as a Planetary Core, and Leo realized the Purple Flame Stigmata Wizard may have given it to him to help his Shadow Talent advance.

Leo delayed fusing with the planet's core while he prepared to advance, spending years evolving his body and studying wizardry. After the shadow absorbed the core and transformed for a year, it fused with Leo and left him suffering severe pain throughout his body.

• Leo sold his championship spoils, gathered eight energy crystals, and asked Green Cottage and Purple Golden Flower Store to search for nuclear weapons.
• Leo told Gru he was ready to advance, and Gru arranged for powerful Fire Elemental Spirits to guard the courtyard.
• Leo absorbed nuclear material through his shadow and spent five years evolving his cells and studying wizard books while postponing his advancement.
• Leo opened the box containing the planet's core, and his shadow consumed it before spending a year transforming into countless shapes.
• Leo's shadow suddenly fused with him, and he began suffocating as pain spread through his kidneys, heart, and other internal organs.

Leo’s body underwent a chaotic transformation that left him out of control and ravenously hungry. After consuming his food and mana reserves, he swallowed an energy crystal and discovered that his evolving body could absorb its released energy.

• Leo’s body and senses went haywire, and he lost control of his consciousness before his organs and brain returned to normal.
• Leo endured ten days of constant hunger, exhausting his six months of stored food as his body digested everything and began consuming its own fat.
• Leo realized his body was evolving too quickly for his energy supply and drained his Black Pearl Potion reserves.
• Leo swallowed an energy crystal despite fearing its released energy would destroy his insides.
• Leo’s organs and cells absorbed the crystal’s energy rapidly, healing any damage and revealing what had caused his body’s transformation.

After ten years of advancement, Leo completed his transformation into a rank-one Hunter, gaining a powerful evolved shadow and abilities focused on damage reduction. Gru and Alexander confirmed his success, and Alexander prepared to report the news to the Purple Flame Stigmata Wizard.

• Leo consumed seven energy crystals before his body began a painful, rapid evolution.
• Memories of death overwhelmed Leo, but he activated the Body Refinement Wizard's First Layer Hunter Bloodline and transformed into a three-meter monster.
• Leo discovered that his evolved shadow could split into ten portions, each able to reduce damage by 50%, and considered how to use its Power of Bearing.
• Gru sensed Leo's rank-one aura and learned that his advancement had succeeded.
• Alexander arrived, confirmed Leo was stabilizing, and left to report his success to the Purple Flame Stigmata Wizard.

After advancing to level one, Leo met Benji within his sea of consciousness and pressed him for a decision about the plan. Dean Alexander then brought Leo through a teleportation array to the Purple Flame Stigmata Wizard’s fiery world, where the wizard was waiting.

• Leo assessed his improved strength and stamina and planned to advance his elemental path alongside body refinement.
• Leo confronted the chained Benji in his sea of consciousness and asked whether Benji’s main body had made its decision.
• Leo met Dean Alexander, sensed the level three wizard’s overwhelming presence, and agreed to accompany him.
• Alexander activated the academy’s teleportation array and took Leo to a fire-dominated world fragment outside the Wizard World.
• Alexander led Leo into a volcano palace and announced his arrival to the Purple Flame Stigmata Wizard, whose gaze Leo had felt since teleporting.

After advancing to a Level One Body Refinement Wizard, Leo endured the Purple Flame Stigmata Wizard’s test and learned he would serve as the anchor for an expedition into the Shadow World. He accepted the dangerous mission, was given ten years to prepare, and received a promise of a permanent share of the conquered world’s proceeds.

• The Purple Flame Stigmata Wizard subjected Leo to thirty-five times normal gravity, and Leo broke free by activating his Hunter Bloodline.
• Leo bowed to the Purple Flame Stigmata Wizard, who canceled the gravity and recognized his rare Hunter advancement.
• The Purple Flame Stigmata Wizard explained that Leo’s Shadow World taint could provide coordinates for an invasion, and Leo confirmed he understood the anchor’s 98.99% mortality rate.
• Leo agreed to infiltrate the Shadow World and open a spatial passage for the Wizard World’s forces.
• The Purple Flame Stigmata Wizard gave Leo ten years to prepare and directed him to seek support from Headmaster Alexander, while noting Benji might help with Shadow World information.
• The Purple Flame Stigmata Wizard promised Leo a permanent 1% share of the conquered world’s proceeds and handed him a wizardry ring.

Leo received supplies from the Purple Flame Stigmata Wizard and learned that Alice had advanced to First-Level Wizard nine years earlier. He then forced Benji to accept a Battle Partner Contract, freed him from his seal, and prepared to hear about Benji’s world.

• Leo thanked the Purple Flame Stigmata Wizard for supplies and asked about Alice, learning she had advanced nine years earlier.
• Leo rejected Benji’s demands for native status and a soul partnership, insisting that Benji become an ordinary battle partner.
• Benji agreed after Leo promised to protect him and his people, and Leo bound them with a Wizard’s Oath contract.
• Leo lifted the golden-chain seal on Benji and took him from his sea of consciousness into his room at Purple Flame Academy.
• Benji surveyed the Wizard World while Leo assessed his consciousness avatar and judged its combat power weaker than his own.

After signing a Battle Partner Contract, Benji gave Leo a detailed account of Jeft World, its rulers, and its strengths, offering to help him infiltrate his territory. Leo reviewed the intelligence and the powerful equipment from the Purple Flame Stigmata Wizard, then planned how to prepare for the expedition while confronting the difficulty of advancing on the elemental side.

• Benji explained Jeft World's gods, ruling Dark Night Clan, military strength, map, and other races, then offered to cover for Leo when he descended into his territory.
• Leo gave Alexander a copy of Benji's 253 volumes of intelligence, which Alexander praised as a major contribution to the expedition.
• Leo examined a massive thunder-forged spear, fifty energy crystals, heavy rune-inscribed armor, and potions from the Purple Flame Stigmata Wizard's wizard ring.
• Leo planned to find more nuclear material from Toronto and Skye and to test rune arrays on his ten shadows as potential weapons.
• Leo prioritized learning to fight in his Hunter form and improving his equipment, but he still could not figure out how to advance on the elemental side.

Leo organized his ten years of preparation for an expedition to Jeft World, securing a laboratory and pursuing nuclear material to improve his abilities. He acquired a Russian nuclear bomb, used its uranium to accelerate his evolution, and continued practicing control of his Hunter Form while conducting experiments.

• Leo arranged to modify his shadow, ordered Toronto and Skye to find nuclear bombs, and told Benji to have his main body prepare for the expedition to Jeft World.
• Alexander approved a top-tier laboratory for Leo to use for ten years, with the academy covering its supplies.
• Toronto sold Leo a Russian nuclear bomb for ten energy crystals at a 45% premium, and Leo told him to keep finding more.
• Leo dismantled the bomb and fed uranium-235 to his shadow, which accelerated his body's evolution while filtering out harmful effects.
• Leo kept his Hunter Form active while working in the laboratory, practicing control of its strength through his experiments.

Jiaban Ya gathered with the Gulu Clan at Gloomy Canyon after Benji ordered them to arrive before nightfall, where he witnessed the ancestor open a spatial rift. A powerful being spoke from beyond it, and Benji answered respectfully as he struggled to widen the opening.

• Benji ordered every Gulu Clan member to reach Gloomy Canyon before nightfall or be expelled, and Jiaban Ya hurried there.
• Jiaban Ya found a huge altar replacing Benji’s purple orchids and organized the arriving clan members as Benji prepared for a great being’s arrival.
• At nightfall, Benji transformed into his enormous true form, absorbed energy from Gloomy Forest, and began chanting in an unknown language.
• Thunder and earthquakes shook the canyon, and Jiaban Ya flew toward the altar to find out what was happening.
• Jiaban Ya discovered Benji had opened a widening spatial rift and heard an unknown being address Benji by name.
• Benji replied respectfully to the voice beyond the rift, leaving Jiaban Ya wondering whether the being was one of the two great gods.

Leo arrived in the Jeft World through a spatial rift, where Benji submitted to him under a Battle Partner Contract and introduced him to his son. Leo assessed the world and ordered Benji to have potions broken at three major cities, while Two Tails set off to carry out the task.

• Leo emerged from the collapsing spatial rift, and Jiaban Ya challenged him before Benji ordered Jiaban Ya to obey Lord Leo and renamed him Two Tails.
• Benji recalled that his consciousness avatar had returned from the Wizard World with a Battle Partner Contract that bound him to Leo and left him resigned to the Wizard World's eventual invasion of Jeft World.
• Leo assessed Jeft World's conditions and began adapting to its laws, explaining that his strength would recover over the next three days.
• Leo gave Benji three potions and marked the locations of Jeft World's three largest cities on a map.
• Benji passed the potions to Two Tails, who gathered several Saint-level clansmen and left to break them at the marked locations.
• Benji led Leo to his energy-crystal-lined residence.

Leo explained the Race Suppressant and the plan to open a spatial passage to the Wizard World, assigning Benji and the Gulu Clan to defend it from the world’s retaliation. After Benji left to mobilize his clan, Leo reviewed the abilities he had developed during years of preparation for the dangerous three-day opening.

• Leo told Benji that the Race Suppressant could weaken the Dark Night Clan, but its uncertain effects made it only a backup measure.
• Leo explained that he would open the spatial passage the next day and that the world’s retaliation would begin on the second night; Benji agreed to lead the Gulu Clan in defending the passage.
• Benji reported his clan’s forces and offered help from creatures in the Gloomy Forest, while Leo told him the Purple Flame Stigmata Wizard would grant the Gulu Clan favorable treatment if they performed well.
• Benji left to organize his clansmen, and Leo prepared to rely on his own abilities as well as the clan’s defense.
• Leo reviewed his progress, including mastering Hunter Form, completing the ten-shadow modification, and increasing Shadow Jump’s range to five hundred meters.
• Leo demonstrated ten teleporting shadows that could cover the area around him, though each shadow’s attack power was only half his strength attribute.

Leo began activating the enormous cross-world altar in Gloomy Canyon, using an energy-metal casing covered in runic arrays to prepare the passage between Jeft World and the Wizard World. The altar's immense power began drawing energy from the forest and underground, risking discovery before the planned invasion arrived.

• Leo reviewed his preparations, including his experimental shadows and three modified nuclear bombs, while worrying that destroying the altar would leave him trapped in Jeft World.
• Benji reported that Two Tails and the others had carried out their mission without trouble, while the Gulu Clan and other Gloomy Forest creatures took positions to meet the coming attack.
• Leo used Shadow Jump to reach the altar and fitted it with a massive energy-metal mold commissioned by Dean Alexander.
• Benji examined the altar's runes and energy crystals, realizing that the Wizard World's construction consumed resources far beyond anything he could imagine.
• Leo planted a staff atop the altar and recited an incantation, activating its runic arrays and drawing immense energy from the air and earth.
• Benji watched the altar's power intensify, fearing that its violent winds, dimming sunlight, and shaking ground would alert cultivators across Jeft World before the spatial passage opened.

Leo and Benji activated the cross-world altar, whose immense energy consumption devastated the Gloomy Forest and produced a catastrophic tornado and waterspout. As Dark Night clansmen began arriving earlier than expected, Benji ordered the forest’s inhabitants to kill them and buy time for the connection to the Wizard World.

• Benji watched the altar drain the Gloomy Forest, turning the canyon into desert and raising a vast tornado that swept up creatures and battered the land.
• Leo struggled to channel mana into the altar, swallowing repeated Black Pearl Potions as its output neared its limit while its charge remained low.
• A level-one Dark Night clansman entered the desert and was killed by ten level-one Gulu; another intruder arrived soon after and also died.
• Benji realized investigators had arrived far earlier than planned and ordered native life in the Gloomy Forest to kill every Dark Night clansman, promising energy-crystal rewards.
• The forest’s beast tide stopped further Dark Night clansmen from breaking through, while Leo and Benji continued trying to buy time.

Benji and the Gulu Clan tried to protect the altar as it absorbed the Gloomy Forest’s energy, but the Dark Night Temple discovered them and sent an army to destroy the supposed heretics. As Benji fought the army’s Demigod, Leo watched the Gulu struggle against the Dark Night forces and feared their losses.

• A Dark Night squad found the altar, and Benji killed all five members before they could report back.
• Benji learned that a ten-thousand-strong Dark Night army was approaching to avenge its holy son, whom the squad had accidentally included.
• The Dark Night army reached the desert and attacked the Gulu Clan after declaring the altar proof of heresy.
• Benji confronted the level-three Samayev while Two Tails and four other level-two Gulu faced five Dark Night experts.
• Leo watched the battles and worried that the Dark Night army’s coordination would overwhelm the Gulu on the ground.

Leo used his modified shadows to instantly kill fifty Level One Dark Night soldiers who charged toward the altar, while Benji kept Samayev occupied. The battle continued with the Gulu Clan suffering heavy losses from the Level Three fighters’ shock waves, and Benji struck at the Dark Night Army in fury.

• Fifty Level One Dark Night soldiers broke through the fighting and charged toward the altar, forcing Benji to hold Samayev back.
• Leo sent his modified shadows to attack the approaching soldiers, freezing half and crushing the rest before they could detect the assault.
• Samayev was stunned by the deaths and paused, allowing Benji to injure him and knock several teeth loose.
• Leo explained that the shadows’ attacks had drained his mana, so he drank a Black Pearl Potion to recover.
• The Gulu Clan overwhelmed the Dark Night Army on the ground, while the Level Two fighters fought to a draw and Benji maintained the advantage over Samayev.
• Samayev kept his battle with Benji above the ground, letting its shock waves kill many Gulu; Benji could not move him away and retaliated against the Dark Night Army.

After the Gulu Clan defeated the Dark Night Army’s first assault, Leo supplied Benji with two nuclear bombs, which Yaofengla and Zhengqianya detonated to devastate the enemy and buy time. On the third day, the surviving pontiff returned with a three-hundred-thousand-strong army divided into four forces, and Benji prepared the Gulu Clan for a final stand around the altar as Leo gave him a strange smile.

• The Gulu Clan won the ground battle, while Samayev escaped the tier-three battlefield and Benji killed the remaining tier-two Dark Night fighters.
• Leo used his shadow to give Benji two nuclear bombs, and Benji sent Yaofengla and Zhengqianya to plant and detonate them.
• The nuclear explosions destroyed the pontiff’s palanquin, killed or injured much of the Dark Night Army, and forced its surviving forces to retreat.
• Benji learned that the pontiff had survived and gathered three hundred thousand soldiers to attack the Gloomy Forest from four directions.
• Benji stationed the Gulu Clan within a thousand meters of the altar and called on them to fight to the death, while Leo smiled strangely.

The Gulu Clan faced the Dark Night Army after disasters devastated the Gloomy Forest, while Leo continued charging the altar with energy. The battle began with the altar at 88% reserves, and the Gulu defenses were already breaking as Leo waited for his hidden plan to unfold.

• The earthquake and storm subsided, and a massive flood destroyed the Gloomy Forest, leaving the Gulu grieving for their ruined home.
• Benji learned the Dark Night Army was delayed by the flood, but he and Leo sensed that an outside force had slowed the altar’s energy absorption to 25% of its original rate.
• Dark Night Demon Elephants cleared a path through the ruins, and the Dark Night Army arrived to attack the seventy thousand remaining Gulu.
• Benji organized the Gulu into three defensive lines while Leo continued chanting and drinking Black Pearl Potion as battlefield deaths raised the altar’s reserves to 88.5%.
• Dark Night squads broke through the Gulu defenses in two places, but Benji, Two Tails, and the other level-two fighters stayed back instead of entering the battle.

As the Dark Night Army pressed the Gulu Clan toward Leo’s altar, Leo deployed destroyer close-in weapon systems to stop the assault and let the battle continue feeding energy to the altar. When the Gulus retreated within five hundred meters, Leo’s Gravity Shadows and Ice Shadows weakened the pursuing troops, turning the tide of the immediate fight.

• Benji refused Two Tails’s plea to charge out, keeping the Gulu Clan’s defenses in place while they waited for Leo to succeed.
• Leo’s two close-in weapon systems opened fire on the Dark Night Army, clearing the breaches and carving bloody corridors through its soldiers.
• Leo saw that the altar’s accumulated energy had reached 88.9 percent and held back from escalating the battle, needing another hundred and ten thousand deaths to reach 90 percent.
• As casualties mounted, Benji withdrew the Gulu Clan inside five hundred meters of the altar after Leo signaled him to do so.
• Dark Night soldiers who pursued the Gulus within five hundred meters were struck by Leo’s Gravity Shadows and Ice Shadows, allowing the Gulu Clan to kill them with ease.

The Dark Night army sent overwhelming forces against Benji and Leo, but Leo’s shadow attacks and battlefield weapons devastated their troops as the altar neared 90% energy. The chapter left Leo surrounded by level-two fighters who had realized his Shadow Talent surpassed anything they had seen.

• Over a thousand level-one fighters, three hundred level-two fighters, and three level-three fighters joined the battle, while Benji fought the three Dark Night Demigods in the sky.
• Two Tails and the other two Gulu fighters were obliterated, while Leo’s hidden attacks killed most of the troops sent toward the battlefield.
• The Dark Night experts discovered that anyone below Saint strength would die within five hundred meters of the altar, but the command center ordered them to press on.
• Leo’s shadow attacks and the close-in weapon systems slaughtered more Dark Night troops, pushing the altar’s stored energy close to 90%.
• Jialuolou survived Leo’s Shadow Jump attack and identified Leo’s Shadow Talent, estimating that Leo possessed at least four such talents.

Leo completed the altar ritual and faced Jialuolou and the second-level dark night powerhouses, who attacked him in an attempt to stop it. With the altar providing him endless energy, Leo used his Shadow abilities to kill eight attackers and continued the battle.

• Leo offered Jialuolou a chance to pledge allegiance, but Jialuolou refused and ordered the dark night powerhouses to kill him.
• Leo activated his first-stage Hunter bloodline, equipped his armor and thunder spear, and revealed his Shadow Space.
• The dark night powerhouses attacked Leo and the altar, but the altar absorbed their strikes and remained intact.
• The attackers realized the altar was absorbing their attacks and decided to kill Leo at close range.
• Leo used Gravity Shadows, Ice Shadows, and Spatial Shackles Shadows to immobilize eight second-level powerhouses, then killed them with Thunder Plow Sweep.

Leo held the altar against waves of Dark Night powerhouses, using his shadows and overwhelming defenses to survive while the altar gathered energy from the fallen. When the Pope, a Demigod whose strength rivaled a Level Three Great Wizard, arrived, Leo realized he could not withstand an attack from him.

• Leo killed Dark Night powerhouses restrained by his shadows while enduring repeated attacks, and the altar absorbed the fallen to raise its accumulated energy.
• More than a hundred second-level Dark Night powerhouses launched continuous assaults, but Leo's defenses, healing, and spear strikes let him keep fighting as their numbers fell.
• Leo's shadows absorbed damage up to their limits, forcing him to switch them repeatedly; he had already endured about 180 attacks and killed 37 Dark Night powerhouses.
• As the altar neared 95% energy, the Pope arrived and the remaining Dark Night powerhouses stopped to greet him.
• The Pope declared that Leo would die in the name of the God of Dark Night, and Leo recognized that the Demigod's power exceeded anything he could defend against.