Their unexpected visitor clearly wished for peace, and since the man had gone out of his way to approach them, Rowan didn't greet him with a stiff face. He simply nodded and said, "Thank you for protecting us. If Three Axe Mountain ever runs into trouble, send word. We'll come help you."
A favor received must be repaid in full.
Even if Three Axe Mountain had only offered a small kindness, Rowan never liked owing others a debt.
"No, no, you misunderstand," the man replied earnestly. "I admire your courage. Our clan reveres strength, and all of you are strong. Still, be careful. The Imperial Martial Regiment will not let this go."
"You made them suffer an enormous loss. They will retaliate. Lie low for now. If you encounter them, avoid them if you can."
"If you're ever surrounded or things turn dire, notify us immediately."
The man—now renamed Rettar—patted Rowan's shoulder and, after delivering his warning, led his team into the exchange hall.
Rowan and his companions boarded the Black Dragon and continued toward the White Tiger Tower mining zone.
But when they were still a hundred kilometers from their destination, Rowan chose to land beside a long-abandoned ruin.
The area was close to the boundary of the Inner Realm, a place no one would bother searching.
The group burrowed one kilometer beneath the ground.
"Rowan, big brother!" called Roth, handing out three shimmering fruits. "These are the Life Fruits!"
Rowan, Roth, and Holt each took one.
Now that Holt possessed a laser cannon strong enough to blast apart a second-rank cosmic warrior, the Demon Vine's evolution was no longer essential for him alone. Even in its current form, the vine coiled around his armor offered extraordinary defense, and with a laser gun in his hands, his risk level dropped drastically.
As for the weakest among them, Tanner, he too now wielded a laser weapon and wore a Demon Vine battle coating that allowed him to challenge nearly any ninth-rank stellar warrior.
Of course, none of this mattered against elite monsters like Bren, who could have slaughtered them even if they carried a C9-grade laser cannon.
Against truly powerful beings, advanced technology meant nothing.
For Oak, whose primary strength lay in psychic attacks, the Demon Vine bolstered his defenses while his copper shard—a razor-sharp psychic weapon—could kill even cosmic-level warriors in a single strike if timed well.
Each of them carried a Demon Vine. And the vine wasn't just armor. When attached to the body, it amplified the user's physical attacks. A stellar-rank warrior wearing a lower-rank vine could strike with combined power, as if two fighters attacked at once.
It doubled one's destructive force.
Terrifying didn't begin to describe it.
"Eat the Life Fruits," Rowan commanded.
He summoned his Demon Vine. A tendril pierced the fruit, devouring it instantly. In seconds, not even a seed remained.
The vine glowed with a seductive green light.
Roth's and Holt's vines reacted the same way, expanding violently and then shattering, only to regrow, explode, and regrow again.
The ground trembled beneath them.
"Up!" Rowan ordered.
They burst out of the earth, rising high into the air. Each guarded a direction, watching for enemies.
Deep below, the three Demon Vines continued their metamorphosis.
Barta, the AI assistant, monitored the evolution process, ensuring the vines didn't overload and violently rupture from the fruit's immense energy.
Whether the vines exploded or successfully advanced to cosmic rank depended entirely on their ability to endure the Life Fruit's power.
Minutes passed.
Then hours.
The tremors intensified until even a hundred kilometers away, the group could feel it. The ground quaked like a magnitude-four earthquake.
"Will this noise attract enemies?" Holt asked anxiously.
Barta smacked the back of his head. "Idiot. This isn't even strong enough to get noticed. Right now, fighters all over the Inner Realm are battling at stellar level. You humans would call that setting off nukes. Their shockwaves are equivalent to magnitude-nine or even magnitude-ten quakes."
He folded his arms smugly.
"This little vibration? No one will notice. Now sit and cultivate."
Holt drifted into the air and closed his eyes. The others followed, except for Rowan, who chose to keep watch.
Even so, his mind remained sharp, absorbing battle insights as they surfaced from recent engagements.
"I wonder how many among the two million stellar warriors who entered this realm will break through to cosmic rank," Holt murmured.
"Probably many," Barta replied. "Even the combined forces of ten major star systems rarely gather this many peak stellar warriors. Throw them all into life-and-death combat and breakthroughs are inevitable."
He smirked.
"And you? You have laser guns, psychic weapons, and Demon Vines. Even if they reach cosmic rank, so what? A newly advanced cosmic warrior is unstable and weak for years. If they push you, kill them."
Everyone chuckled.
If even one Demon Vine reached cosmic rank, they would already be formidable.
But if all three succeeded…
They would become a nightmare.
The Demon Vine was more than a plant.
It was a cosmic predator.
By the time dawn broke, the three resting warriors jolted awake as a surge of joy rippled through their minds.
"They did it?!" Rowan shouted.
He and Roth sent a command into the depths.
And then—
The world erupted.
The ground bulged upward as if a giant beast were rising beneath it. Dozens of meters. Hundreds. Thousands.
"Holy—!" Holt lost his footing and shot into the sky.
The earth ruptured. A mountain surged upward, covering more than thirty kilometers, and from its depths burst countless crimson-green tendrils.
The Demon Vine had transformed.
Each tendril glowed like molten jade, dazzling and deadly.
Rowan's jaw dropped. "It's… enormous."
Even after shrinking a hundredfold, the vine's tentacles stretched seventy kilometers in every direction. The main tendrils—seventy-two of them—were three hundred kilometers long. Each.
Barta trembled with excitement. "Seventy-two main tendrils. Three hundred kilometers each. This is the peak of Demon Vine evolution. Perfect cosmic rank!"
Holt's vine emerged next, slightly smaller, with seventy tendrils—still terrifying in its own right.
The vines shrank rapidly, wrapping around their chosen hosts and forming battle armor.
Barta scanned the results and nearly burst into tears.
"All three vines reached cosmic rank two. Do you know what this means? You're invincible among stellars now!"
Oak clenched his fists, Rowan's eyes glinted with bloodlust, and even gentle Holt radiated killing intent.
"The treasures of the Inner Realm are ours," Rowan declared. "Aside from the Three Axe Mountain faction, everyone else is the enemy. If they block our path, kill them. Take their ore."
Roth's pupils shifted into the golden eyes of a horned beast. The pressure rolling off the two warriors made even Holt swallow hard.
"Were these two bandits in a past life?" he muttered.
Holt chuckled but didn't deny it.
They boarded the Black Dragon and soared toward the White Tiger battlefield.
Within ten minutes, they arrived.
A White Tiger faction squad—about fifteen hundred strong—was arguing with the Imperial Martial Regiment, who numbered barely four hundred.
The dispute centered around a newly discovered ore field containing several thousand pieces of Realm Ore.
The White Tiger captain shouted, "We found this place first!"
And that was where Rowan's arrival changed everything.