Mystic Eyes: My Eyes Steal the Laws of Cultivation

The hot wind blew across the slope of the Great Volcano.

Ash danced through the air, carried by irregular currents rising from the depths of the mountain. Volcanic stones cracked beneath the constant heat escaping from the crater, some splitting in half with small, dry explosions.

At the center of that circle of death, surrounded by four Spiritual Awakening experts...

Kyrian remained motionless.

Silent.

His orange eyes, with small red flames dancing within his pupils, watched the old man in front of him. The flames swayed slowly, like two living embers in a dark night.

No weapon appeared in his hands.

No sword. No spear. Nothing.

Not because he lacked weapons. His spatial ring contained several.

But they would be useless.

The sword he had used before, a blade of mediocre quality, was nothing compared to the old man’s spiritual spear. The material, the refinement, the Qi infused into the weapon... everything was on a different level.

And the beast blood he had previously used to create temporary weapons, that red, pulsating liquid that obeyed his will... no longer existed.

During the transformation caused by the Bone of the Heavens, during those hours of agony when his body was dismantled and rebuilt, that special blood had simply evaporated.

As if it had been deemed impure.

As if his new body no longer needed it.

’It doesn’t matter.’ Kyrian thought.

’My weapons are different now.’

The old man narrowed his eyes.

He analyzed Kyrian for a long second, his relaxed posture, his empty hands, his glowing eyes.

Then he disappeared.

’BOOM!’

The ground exploded beneath his feet.

The volcanic rock, already weakened by the heat and previous battles, shattered into fragments that flew in every direction.

His speed was far greater than his previous attack. Far greater than the kick that had sent Kyrian flying during the first exchange.

Now, he was serious.

The black spear shone intensely as the old man advanced. Red runes appeared along the shaft, ancient symbols of fire and destruction that Kyrian did not recognize but whose purpose was obvious.

The next instant...

Flames erupted from the weapon.

It was not ordinary fire. It was a directed flame, shaped by the old man’s will. A torrent of fire surged forward alongside the thrust, forming an incandescent wedge that sliced through the air.

The entire atmosphere seemed to ignite.

The other three leaders watched attentively.

Their sharp eyes recorded every detail of the old man’s attack. Every movement of the spear. Every flow of Qi.

None of them believed Kyrian would survive that strike.

It was an attack from the Spiritual Awakening Realm, backed by decades, perhaps centuries, of cultivation and experience.

Against a Core Formation cultivator.

The difference should have been absolute. It should have been insurmountable.

But...

Kyrian’s eyes had already seen everything.

Every movement. Every muscular contraction in the old man’s leg signaled the burst of momentum.

Every spark of Qi gathering within the spear.

Every current of heat that preceded the flames.

The world seemed to slow down before him.

Not because time itself had slowed.

But because his eyes perceived too quickly.

Perception was a gift he had always possessed. Even when his eyes were in their most basic forms, he had already seen more than other cultivators.

He could follow everything.

The spear’s trajectory. The direction of the attack was adjusted within fractions of a second based on his movements.

The exact spot where the old man would place his next step.

Everything.

Kyrian moved.

It was not a fast movement in the conventional sense. There was no burst of speed, no movement technique, and no use of Qi to propel his body.

It was a simple movement.

Natural.

A single sidestep.

The spear passed by him.

’BOOOOOOM!’

The spear tip struck the ground behind Kyrian.

The mountain trembled, a violent quake spreading across the slope, causing rocks to tumble down the mountainside.

Stones exploded into incandescent fragments, launched in every direction like shrapnel.

A pillar of fire shot into the sky from the point of impact, rising dozens of meters before dissipating.

The blow opened a crater dozens of meters wide, a smoking wound in the volcanic rock.

The heat rose violently.

But Kyrian did not even blink.

Fire no longer affected him.

Not anymore.

Neither the heat. Nor the flames. Nor the fiery Qi saturating the surroundings.

It was like walking beneath sunlight.

Nothing more.

The old man immediately twisted his body, the spear tracing a wide arc as he attempted to strike Kyrian in the follow-up attack.

His reaction was fast, incredibly fast.

The experience of decades in battle spoke louder than any instinct.

But then...

Kyrian raised his eyes.

That was all.

He looked.

Nothing more.

And for some reason...

The old man’s heart lurched.

A sense of danger pierced his mind like lightning, sharp, precise, undeniable.

It was not rational analysis.

It was not strategic calculation.

It was instinct.

Pure survival instinct, the kind that saves lives within fractions of a second.

Without understanding why, he abandoned the attack and jumped backward.

At that exact moment...

A wave of fire erupted from Kyrian’s eyes.

It felt like a natural extension of his understanding.

Orange flames, not the pale orange of ordinary fire, but a deep orange, almost golden, spread in every direction.

Consuming everything.

Rocks began to melt wherever the fire touched them, transforming into glowing liquid that flowed across the ground.

Ash vanished, incinerated instantly.

Even the volcanic earth itself, hardened by millennia of heat, turned bright red beneath the intensity of the flames.

The old man barely escaped.

His feet touched the ground thirty meters away, his breathing heavy.

But a small portion of the flames, only a fraction, struck his Qi barrier.

And then...

Something that should have been impossible happened.

The barrier began to melt.

Like snow beneath the sun.

Like ice inside a furnace.

The Qi composing his spiritual defense, the same defense that endured the heat of the Inner Area, simply...

Disintegrated.

The old man froze.

The other three leaders froze as well.

"What?!"

"Impossible!"

"What kind of fire is that?!"

Their voices echoed across the mountainside, filled with disbelief.

The expressions of the three had changed completely.

What had once been arrogance, the certainty that Kyrian was merely easy prey, had become shock.

It made no sense.

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

The difference between the realms was absolute.

It was the barrier separating the ordinary from the extraordinary.

And Kyrian had crossed it as though it did not exist.

To them, it was absurd.

Unacceptable.

Unnatural.

Yet it was happening right before their eyes.

Even Kyrian was slightly surprised.

Only slightly.

Because he could clearly feel the reason.

This was no longer the old gray fire he had possessed before the implantation, the flame that had emerged from his eyes when he first awakened that fire Qi.

It was different.

Very different.

Far more powerful.

Far purer.

Far closer to the true essence of fire.

His understanding of the Path of Fire had reached an entirely new level after absorbing the Bone of the Heavens.

He no longer merely used fire as a tool.

It was almost as though he had become fire itself.

The leaders before him also cultivated fire.

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

But to his current eyes and transformed physique...

Their fire was childish.

Imperfect.

Crude.

It’s like comparing an ordinary campfire, lit with sticks and straw, to the heart of a volcano.

Although Kyrian still could not fully wield the Law of Fire, his body, even transformed, was still too young to withstand such power, his eyes had absorbed a portion of that understanding.

A portion of that authority.

A portion of that power.

And now they could manifest a fraction of it.

Without consequences.

Without damage.

Without destroying his own body.