Mystic Eyes: My Eyes Steal the Laws of Cultivation Chapter 389 - 390

The scorching wind swept across the vast expanse of the Great Volcano's slope.

Ash particles swirled and danced in the air, caught by the unpredictable thermals ascending from the mountain's core. Cracks appeared on the volcanic stones, strained by the relentless heat spewing forth from the crater, some splitting open with dry, sharp reports.

At the epicenter of this perilous zone, four cultivators at the Spiritual Awakening Realm had encircled him...

Kyrian stood utterly still.

Silent.

His gaze, with eyes the color of molten gold and tiny crimson flames flickering within his pupils, was fixed upon the elder confronting him. The flames wavered gently, akin to two embers glowing in the deep stillness of night.

No weapon materialized in his grasp.

Neither a sword nor a spear. Nothing at all.

This was not due to a lack of weaponry. His spatial ring held several formidable blades.

However, they would prove utterly futile.

The sword he had wielded previously, a blade of unremarkable quality, was leagues beneath the elder's spiritual spear. The very essence of the weapon—its materials, its forging, the Qi channeled through it... each aspect was on an entirely different plane.

Furthermore, the beast blood he had once employed to forge temporary weapons, that viscous crimson fluid pulsing with life and obedient to his command... it was no more.

During the profound metamorphosis triggered by the Bone of the Heavens, amidst those agonizing hours where his very being was deconstructed and then reassembled, that peculiar blood had simply vanished.

As if deemed unworthy, or perhaps impure.

As if his newly forged body no longer required its essence.

'It matters not,' Kyrian mused internally.

'My means of combat are now distinct.'

The elder's eyes narrowed discernibly.

He scrutinized Kyrian for a prolonged moment, observing the youth's relaxed stance, his empty hands, and his flame-lit eyes.

Then, he vanished from his spot.

'BOOM!'

The ground beneath Kyrian's feet erupted with force.

The volcanic rock, already weakened by the oppressive heat and prior clashes, disintegrated into fragments that scattered like shrapnel. His velocity now surpassed his earlier assault by a vast margin, far exceeding the might of the kick that had sent Kyrian reeling in their initial encounter.

Now, the elder was unleashing his full power.

The obsidian spear blazed with an intense light as the elder surged forward. Crimson runes materialized along its length, ancient glyphs of fire and devastation that Kyrian couldn't decipher but whose intent was unequivocally clear.

In the subsequent instant...

Flames erupted from the spearhead.

This was no common fire; it was a conflagration meticulously shaped by the elder's sheer will. A torrent of inferno accompanied the thrust, coalescing into a searing wedge that sliced through the very fabric of the air.

The surrounding atmosphere itself seemed to ignite.

The other three sect leaders observed the unfolding scene with intense focus.

Their keen gazes meticulously cataloged every nuance of the elder's strike. Each subtle shift of the spear. Every intricate flow of Qi.

Not a single one among them harbored any belief that Kyrian could possibly withstand this onslaught.

It was an attack honed by the Spiritual Awakening Realm, empowered by perhaps decades, or even centuries, of rigorous cultivation and accumulated combat experience.

And it was directed at a cultivator barely in the Core Formation stage.

The disparity in power should have been absolute, an insurmountable chasm.

But...

Kyrian's eyes had already witnessed the entirety of it.

Every subtle shift. Every minute muscle exertion in the elder’s leg, signaling the imminent explosion of force.

Every residual spark of Qi coalescing within the spear’s core.

Every subtle disturbance in the heat currents that heralded the coming flames.

The world appeared to decelerate before his very eyes.

Not due to any actual alteration in the flow of time.

But because his ocular perception operated at an impossibly accelerated rate.

Enhanced perception was a gift he had always possessed. Even when his eyes were in their most rudimentary forms, he had already perceived phenomena beyond the grasp of other cultivators.

He could track every single element.

The spear's intended trajectory. The slight adjustments made within milliseconds to the attack's vector, reacting to his slightest movement.

The precise location where the elder would next plant his foot.

Everything.

Kyrian moved.

It was not a swift movement by conventional standards. There was no explosive burst of speed, no utilization of any movement technique, nor any application of Qi to propel his physical form.

It was a simple, natural gesture.

A solitary sidestep.

The spear whistled past his form.

'BOOOOOOM!'

The spear's tip impacted the ground directly behind Kyrian.

The very mountain shuddered, a violent tremor propagating across the slope, dislodging rocks that cascaded down the mountainside.

Stones detonated into incandescent fragments, launched outward in all directions like deadly shrapnel.

A towering pillar of fire surged skyward from the impact site, ascending dozens of meters before gradually dissipating.

The strike gouged a crater several dozen meters wide, a smoking wound upon the volcanic rock.

The ambient heat intensified dramatically.

Yet, Kyrian didn't even flinch.

Fire no longer held any dominion over him.

Not anymore.

Neither its searing heat. Nor its destructive flames. Nor the fiery Qi that permeated the very atmosphere.

It felt akin to strolling casually under the midday sun.

Nothing more imposing than that.

Instantly, the elder twisted his body, the spear tracing a wide, menacing arc as he attempted to intercept Kyrian with a follow-up strike.

His reaction was astonishingly swift, honed by an instinct forged in decades of relentless battle.

But then...

Kyrian's gaze lifted.

That was the extent of his action.

He simply looked.

Nothing further transpired.

And for reasons entirely inexplicable...

A profound tremor shook the elder's heart.

An overwhelming premonition of danger pierced his consciousness with the sharp, unerring precision of lightning.

This was not the result of logical deduction.

Nor was it born from calculated strategy.

It was raw instinct.

The primal urge for survival, the kind that dictates action in mere fractions of a second.

Without a conscious grasp of the reason, he withdrew his attack, leaping backward.

In that precise instant...

A torrent of fire exploded forth from Kyrian's eyes.

It felt like an innate extension of his comprehension.

Fiery orange, not the muted hue of common flames, but a profound, almost golden shade, expanded in all directions.

Consuming everything in its path.

Rocks began to liquefy where the inferno struck, morphing into molten streams that cascaded across the earth.

Ash ceased to exist, eradicated in an instant.

Even the volcanic terrain itself, hardened over ages by intense heat, turned a brilliant crimson under the inferno's might.

The old man narrowly evaded its full force.

His feet landed thirty meters away, his breath coming in ragged gasps.

Yet, a small part of the blaze, a mere sliver, grazed his Qi barrier.

And then...

An occurrence that defied all logic took place.

The protective barrier began to dissolve.

Like snow succumbing to the sun's embrace.

Like ice yielding within a furnace's heart.

The Qi that formed his spiritual defense, the same Qi that had withstood the searing heat of the Inner Area, simply...

Vanished.

The old man stood frozen.

The other three leaders were equally petrified.

"What impossible power is this?!"

"This cannot be!"

"What manner of fire do you wield?!"

Their voices reverberated across the mountainside, laden with utter disbelief.

The expressions on the faces of the three had undergone a complete transformation.

What was once haughty arrogance, the conviction that Kyrian was mere easy prey, had devolved into stunned shock.

It defied all reason.

A cultivator in the Core Formation stage should not command flames capable of eroding the defenses of a Spiritual Awakening expert.

The disparity between the realms was absolute, a fundamental chasm.

It was the demarcation line separating the mundane from the extraordinary.

And Kyrian had breached it as though it were insignificant.

To them, the sight was preposterous.

Unacceptable.

Unnatural.

Nevertheless, it was unfolding before their very eyes.

Even Kyrian himself experienced a modicum of surprise.

Only a slight degree, however.

For he could distinctly perceive the underlying cause.

This was no longer the muted, gray fire he had possessed prior to the implantation, the flame that had manifested from his eyes upon his initial awakening of that fire Qi.

It was distinctly different.

Profoundly different.

Immeasurably more potent.

Immeasurably purer.

Far closer to the very essence of fire itself.

His grasp of the Dao of Fire had ascended to an unprecedented echelon after integrating the Bone of the Heavens.

He now transcended the mere use of fire as a tool.

It was as if he had become one with fire itself.

The leaders before him also practiced fire cultivation.

They had trod the Path of Fire for decades, perhaps even centuries.

But in the eyes of his current transformed physique...

Their manifested flames appeared childish.

Flawed.

Rudimentary.

It was akin to contrasting a common campfire, kindled with twigs and straw, with the fiery heart of a volcano.

Although Kyrian could not yet fully command the Law of Fire, his body, despite its transformation, remained too young to contain such immense power; his eyes, however, had absorbed a fragment of that profound understanding.

A fragment of that authority.

A fragment of that potent energy.

And now, they could unleash a fraction of it.

Without repercussion.

Without self-inflicted harm.

Without devastating his own being.