From Outcast to Overlord The Unyielding Heir (Leander Ashcroft) novel Chapter 467

Leander's finger flicked—clean, precise. It punched straight through Edis' forehead.

The former Master of the Fable Court—now a Chief Arbitrator—went slack, eyes emptying in an instant.

A dark hole opened at the center of his brow, running straight through to the back of his skull.

Yet not a drop of blood flowed out.

His expression didn't even twist. If anything, a faint smile tugged at his lips.

Leander's eyes narrowed. The wound wasn't a wound at all.

It was hollow—so hollow he could clearly see the mountain ridge behind Edis, like the blow had turned the space transparent.

"Jeff, I'll give it to you—your fighting strength is outrageous. But killing me? You've still got a long way to go!"

The void at his brow began knitting together.

Edis barked out a laugh and sprang back. His body blurred, turning thin and hazy, as if he could scatter into the air itself.

"A wind-element metahuman?" Leander muttered, genuinely surprised.

So Edis was an elemental too, and one of the slipperiest types in the natural line: wind.

Unlike the fire wielders—the Flame Witch and Halia—a wind user could dissolve into formless currents, disappearing into the faintest breeze.

Any wisp of air could hide his true body. He could drift with the wind, flow with the gusts, utterly impossible to pinpoint.

"Jeff, I'll come for you one day. I'll remember this humiliation. I swear it."

His eerie, disembodied voice rolled across the sky as his presence faded farther and farther. The onlookers shivered, goosebumps rising.

Leander stayed still, hovering midair like carved stone. Then his eyes snapped open, and a wicked grin tugged at his mouth.

"No one I decide to kill escapes. Not even a wind user."

Flames bloomed across his hands, weaving and lacing together until they formed a brilliant, otherworldly fire whip.

With a single sweep of his arm, the flaming whip cracked across the sky, stretching over a hundred feet.

Winds howled. A vortex of fire spiraled open in the heavens.

"Argh!"

A scream of pure despair tore through the void.

Shredded currents of wind were sucked into the whirling blaze, dragged tighter and tighter—until they condensed back into Edis' physical form.

Terror twisted his face. He looked like he was staring at a nightmare.

Everyone knew the rule: to deal with elementals who could transform into pure essence, you needed either elemental mastery or rare Profound Force.

But wind users?

Even experts in Profound Force struggled to track them.

To kill one, you usually needed city-level techniques—wide-area cleansers that could wipe out everything at once.

Otherwise, the wind user would break into countless threads and vanish into the world's currents. His true body could split into thousands of pieces.

Hurting him was already hard—killing him was nearly impossible.

Edis knew Leander could kill fire-types, so he assumed Leander understood Profound Force.

But what wrapped around him now was something beyond Profound Force.

The massive firestorm howled with vicious suction, dragging every scrap of air within hundreds of feet into its core.

Even if he scattered into a thousand streams of wind, the vortex would reel him back in. There was no escape.

The blazing heat wrapped around him tighter and tighter. He could feel his limbs, his body, beginning to melt away.

"Jeff, spare me! From today on, I'll be your servant! I'll obey you completely! I'll never betray you—I swear!" Edis' scream cracked inside the inferno.

Pride gone.

But here, on the Aorinth Peaks, he proved it beyond question.

He first beat Halia bare-handed.

Then he killed three top-ranked powerhouses one after another—including the God of Madness, Khaedor, the man who held the No. 1 spot.

And when the Arbitration Office sent its elites—fifteen Chief Arbitrators—he wiped them all out alone.

That kind of dominance? Insanity. A level far beyond any typical Transcendent.

No one doubted him anymore. Tonight, Leander wasn't just "No. 5." He became the symbol of the entire list.

No fighter in the list's history had ever reached a peak like this.

Then Asgard Galen—veteran powerhouse ranked No. 6—stepped forward, clasped his fists, and declared in a ringing voice, "Congratulations, Sovereign—on taking the No. 1 position in the International Combat Units! From this moment on, unless a King Phase arises, you stand unmatched!"

As Asgard bowed, the others followed suit. Even Halia—wild, proud, and born of the natural elements—lowered her head.

"Congratulations, Sovereign!"

The shout rippled through the valley, rising and falling like thunder.

The Aorinth Peaks, once roaring with storms and battling giants, rang with only one name—Leander Ashcroft.

Starlight flickered through Leander's eyes.

He didn't show much emotion.

He simply reached out and pulled—the hot spring below detonated, and a golden beam shot upward into his hand.

The Bloodjadea. A treasure only the strongest could claim.

Leander gazed at the radiant, glass-bright herb and finally smiled.

Then, he looked over the crowd and spoke in a calm, cutting voice, "After tonight, spread this across the international martial world—no one runs wild on Astrian soil while I live. Anyone who offends Astria… dies."

From that moment on, Astria became forbidden territory for martial titans and Transcendent metahumans across the world.