King Valen Ashbluff, the strongest necromancer in the world and current Rank 1 among all rulers, stood amid the twilight ruins of his domain and felt something he had not experienced in over two decades of absolute dominance.
Fear.
Not the tactical concern of facing a dangerous opponent, nor the calculated wariness of political maneuvering. This was primal, existential terror at witnessing power that operated beyond the fundamental laws he had spent his entire life mastering.
Arthur Nightingale stood before him, grey wings spread in casual majesty, and Valen's enhanced senses screamed contradictory information that his analytical mind could not reconcile. The young man's mana signature registered as quasi-Radiant-rank—powerful certainly, but still technically beneath Valen's own Mid Radiant-rank classification.
