Sensing that it's calm before the climax, Calidora is already ready and on edge.
Rex's spirit energy and lightning mana were already reaching the absolute pinnacle of the eighth-rank realm before they disappears and causes this silence, and it was safe for Calidora to assume that he was at the breaking point.
As she thought, his power burst outward, rumbling the entire castle in one go.
In an instant, Calidora intends to protect herself from the burst of energy but she realized that Delta was also beside her and is exposed. Realizing this, she decided to protect Delta first before herself.
Bam!
No matter how much Rex prepared for this breakthrough, it's always not enough.
Every single time that he was breaking through to the next realm, at least in his Awakened side, the spike of power that burst forth always exceeds his expectations and the preparation that he has done.
But due to his dense mana and spirit energy reserves, he should've expected it.
Compared to normal Awakened, Rex's mana and spirit energy reserves easily exceed them by a wide margin. Devo and Amanir are high-rank spirits, both of them directly impacted his body's spirit energy, and the mana he has is also very high thanks to his talent.
Most of the phenomena caused by an Awakened breaking through will not reach his scale.
In a sense, their power can't simply cause that much ruckus.
Rex, on the other hand, his power was overwhelmingly high that each of his breakthroughs from the sixth rank realm and above is destructive to the surroundings. It was as if the world tries to deny his ascension as hard as it can.
Never once has it failed to cause extreme phenomena.
Additionally, Rex has always prepared to contain the energy that might rampage when he was breaking through. But he always fell to the side of underestimating his power, and there's a reason for that.
Most of the time he was using his Werewolf form to fight his enemies.
It's the main source of power given by the System and also the first power that pushes him up to the pinnacle of the world, and thus he somewhat always underestimated his Awakened power.
Considering there's no Awakened that can match him until recently, this is bound to happen.
Like any other breakthroughs that he experienced before this, this one is also no different as the protective barrier inside the room, the castle, and even Dargena City were unable to contain the concentrated climbs of his power.
Due to that, even Calidora got flung back to the wall as she was too late to protect herself.
Crash!
Under the intensive energy that is now circulated by Rex's own spirit core, a thin stream of energy shoots to the roof and breaks anything in its way. It didn't stop until it reaches the bright sky, instantly turning it dark and cloudy.
Gelmar and the others saw this below, yet this kind of thing didn't surprise them anymore.
Living under the shelter of the Silverstar Pack, they had already seen countless catastrophic events that keeps on surprising them. It was to the point that they are already used to seeing this kind of change.
"I think Lord Rex is breaking through again" Gelmar mutters.
Dindora who is gazing up at the cloudy sky frowns, "How did he get strong this fast...?"
"Remember the ninth-rank realm Awakened that was brought in by Lady Adhara and Evelyn? I saw Lord Rex takes both of her spirit cores out without killing her, and he might've somehow used that to achieve this breakthrough" Gelmar replied, remembering that shocking moment.
Just like that, Dindora's eyes slightly widened when she heard this.
'No wonder that woman came out in a worse state, that happened...' Dindora thought.
While they were watching this phenomenon from below, a circle of black clouds spiraled into a whirling vortex before scores of streaks of black lightning met to create a majestic utopia, followed by thunder that rumbled their hearts.
If not for the barrier surrounding Dargena City, they would definitely be struck.
But this phenomenon didn't have mercy to only cover the castle and Dargena City, it reaches wide, covering the sky for miles and miles, turning the day into a bleak one as the lightning energy inside of it keeps on increasing.
Rex realized this from the inside, and he was struggling to deal with it.
'We need to restrain this energy, Devo! Channel it quicker or we'll be advertising ourselves!'
[I know, I'm trying, this is now in any way easier for me too!]
Out of the knowledge he knows about Awakened's power, he's quite sure that reaching the eighth-rank realm of power is very hard which requires one to reach Spirit Unification which will lead the Awakened to gain the power of the spirit fully.
Spirit Gladiator form is the result of this as their bodies merged and multiply their powers.
Many Awakened fail in this step, and that's because their spirit is a low-rank one.
Low-rank spirit has no to little consciousness in them, in a way, they are mindless puppets that only has the sole purpose of strengthening an Awakened. Reaching unification with an unresponsive spirit is clearly the bottleneck for many.
It's very hard to be united, and most Awakened will be stuck there for their whole lives.
Even if an Awakened managed to barely reach the eighth-rank realm, reaching the next realm poses an even harder challenge. In order to reach the ninth-rank realm, one needs to adapt their mana with the spirit associated with them.
Achieving adaptation means an Awakened mana has evolved into Arcane Mana.
But this process is an auxiliary process to achieve greater results when an Awakened reached the ninth-rank realm, the real path to reach the ninth-rank realm is to expand their spirit core and also the media connecting their bodies to the Spirits associated with them.
If an Awakened achieves that, their power will shoot to the roof.
Compared to an eighth-rank realm Awakened, those who are in the ninth-rank realm has a thousand times more mana than the latter, and the expanded media also helps them generate and fuse more power into their spells.
One simple fireball can turn from being able to destroy a small village to a huge city.
Simply, the ninth-rank realm Awakened is incomparable to the eighth-rank realm Awakened.
Rex who is undergoing this process can feel the mana inside of him shifting into an unknown force, the density of energy from Giana's spirit core is potent enough to force his mana to adapt to the lightning element, empowering his mana into arcane mana rapidly.
But the rapid change didn't happen from absorbing Giana's spirit core alone.
In a way, he also needs to thank the Ultimate-grade Lightning Stones he got from the Eye of Elemental that he absorbed. Even though it didn't manage to evolve his mana into arcane mana, it manages to introduce a new height of power.
Due to that, changes were bound to happen as soon as he absorbed Giana's spirit core.
Just like smearing gasoline first before lighting the dry tree branches with fire, his mana rapidly evolved, and it now feels more robust and full while also flowing way faster inside of his body compared to before.
Now he needs to use this overwhelming mana to cultivate his media and spirit core.
Although that is the case Rex's focus started to disperse as if this continues, his enemies would know of his position. It's bad enough that the Witch knows where he is, so he didn't need more to know.
Clenching his jaw tightly, he tries to suppress the energy coming out of him like a maniac.
It was so bad that the blood vessels inside his eyes exploded, turning the white part of his eyes into bloody red. As he was struggling, his pupils then dilated seeing Calidora somehow managed to reach the protective barrier separating them.
Calidora paused for a moment in surprise, putting both of her hands on the barrier.
Seems like she didn't expect that there would be a protective barrier separating them, yet she can't really blame Rex as he's vulnerable in this state. Shaking her head, Calidora then said, "Do what you have to do, don't overthink, I'll handle the excessive energy"
Upon hearing this, Rex looks into her eyes for a brief moment.
Even without being told what he was currently thinking, Calidora seems to be able to know the fact that he was worried and contemplating ways to not expose his position to his enemies right now due to this phenomenon that keeps on getting stronger.
If it reaches wider then the Silverstar Pack would definitely be exposed.
Looking at Calidora's mesmerizing yet convincing purple eyes, he somehow feels that he can trust her just this once. But then again, he doesn't have any choice but to let her try whatever she wanted to try.
Rex gives a confirmation nod before he started expanding his spirit core and media.
Garnering every inch of arcane mana and spirit energy inside of him to supply his spirit core and media, like a torrent of water being forced down to a small container despite already being full.
Seeing that Rex has already started, Calidora quickly makes her move.
Out of nowhere, two black wings sprouted on her back before she quickly flaps them and went through the hole in the roof that was created by the stream of energy that came out of Rex's body earlier.
As soon as she burst out of the castle, her eyes came to view the dark sky.
Just gazing at the sky from the side alone was enough to show how destructive the phenomenon will be if this keeps on going. But right from below it, Calidora was faced with an entirely new view.
The vortex of swirling dark clouds was akin to a worm descending from the sky.
Dozens if not hundreds of black lightning keep on flashing the entire dark sky, almost invisible due to the dark background, yet the thunderous sound it makes were clear enough to indicate that they are there.
Upon flying on top of the castle, Calidora's body started to emit intensive blood energy.
Calidora's eyes glowed with a red hue as the blood energy around her grew stronger, her nostrils flared as she caught the scent of blood in the air that has already turned cold. She then opened her arms to each side, trying to do something difficult judging from her expression.
Immediately after that, blood can be seen floating out of the Humming Damned Forest.
Since the black lightning strikes everything in sight, there are mutated animals and even cursed creatures that are killed. This is the perfect situation for Calidora as she now can draw blood from their deceased carcasses.
Absorbing as much blood as she can, her blood energy grew more and more.
It came to the point that her blood energy started steaming like smoke, and is about 5 feet thick around her body. Knowing that it was still not enough, she then also activated her cursed energy for good measure.
Now her blood energy has become a noticeable presence in the chaotic dark sky.
Gelmar and the others that are watching the sky saw an infiltrating red color coming from above the castle, and they realized that it was Calidora. None of them know what she was thinking.
But Calidora's plan is quite simple, at least to understand not to do.
The plan inside her head is to become an even greater presence than the phenomenon itself.
Achieving this would only make Rex's enemies sense her energy instead of his rampaging energy, and this would give an illusion that it was Calidora who was achieving a breakthrough, not him.
Looking at the sky, Calidora gritted her teeth as she prepared to explode her energy.
"Hrrghh..."
Calidora's eyes bulged wide open as she pulls her blood and cursed energy into her body, condensing them tightly. But it takes a moment to complete. She was closing up her body as she did this.
"Rrrgggh..." She grunted as the energy increasingly grow stronger.
At the peak of her energy, she then screamed powerfully, her voice echoing like an astral entity as she shot both arms to the side alongside the terrifying amount of energy that she managed to amass.
"RAARGGHH!!"
Crack!
Boom!!
In an instant, her blood and cursed energy exploded, dying the air for miles in crimson color.