"Impossible..." Colonel Jia muttered with a stupefied face, while watching the newly arrived Legion Sergeant strike true and through, while vanishing inside the giant Tier 8 Enemy.

"Stop! For five seconds" The General Spoke just then, making the entire Gap freeze in time, Legion and golith army alike, and even slowing the wounded Hualitep to a crawl.

In a step she arrived beside the monster and simply placed her palm on the wound. 'Analyze!' she demanded inward, commencing her second Skill.

It took merely four seconds to understand the nature of the wound and then complete a similar Skill for her Legion. "Hmmm, a Realm Dimensional Barrier as armor, that was quite clever of you, Hualitep..." she whispered as she released the new Skill onto the monster.

Cracks exploded through the formerly impenetrable armor, tearing through millions of inner universes and obliterating the suffering hells inside.

Another round of Dimensional Slices followed, bisecting the inner folds of Hualitep into smoldering ruins, until the Stop Word came to an end, and the crippled golith leader folded sidewise and inward, vanishing into a single point.

With a dispassionate glance at the remaining golith army, the General stepped back into the headquarters, and gently patted Jia on her armored shoulder. "See that golith army outside, Colonel? Make it go away."

"Yes, Sir!" the Colonel exclaimed, swallowing her surprise and Blinking forward to unleash her own devastating skills.

The General then glanced around, mentally picking the right tools for the job as she scanned her war staff. "Sergeant Hong, take this pill." she decided as a test, then offered one of the rare Tier 5 pills to this loyal subordinate.

The man just nodded and fearlessly snatched the pill. In a second he sat down and ingested the pill, and soon after he began Ascending again, entering Tier 5. Not even a second later, a giant violet tribulation struck the man, burning him to a crisp, leaving only a black and smoking skeleton instead.

After a dozen seconds, however, the skeleton began to twist and move as the flesh regrew. A minute later, a brand new Tier 5 soldier joined the ranks of the Legion, far sooner and much less riskier than shooting a Word at a golith.

The General simply nodded as she rapidly computed more plans to take advantage of this windfall.

"General, Hualitep has fled, can we join the melee as well?" Captain Shan asked in a valiant tone.

"Recall your regiments for now, Captains. We will move soon, closer to the Breach. I want more stable connections with the Great Realm for a while." she ordered instead, while mentally commanding the Tier 8 Beast to chase the last Indigo-class Goliths, as to speed up the clean-up.

Colonel Jia still had problems dealing with the higher ranked goliths, as she had most likely reached the peak of strength, for this life anyways.

As for the miracle kid...he'll be back soon, unless her Skill was mistaken. It had never failed til now, although today it almost did.

With a displeased grunt, Sergeant Hong stepped closer to the General, asking a wordless question about the same thing.

"Yes, Sergeant Hong. Pef Xi died during his daring strike on Hualitep, but he did wound the monster badly enough so it had to flee. But, don't worry, he has already reincarnated, as agreed in the Mirror Compact. He'll return to us soon." she revealed with a smile.

"Hmmm. I owe him a lot. I don't like being in debt." the morose Sergeant grumbled as he sat down to meditate.

The lotus-made-flesh Entity nodded slightly, then called another worthy Soldier forward for their deserved promotion. It won't be long now til she had to spring the trap, and there were many things to arrange in the meanwhile. But as always, she was confident in victory.

--------------------

Meanwhile, in a distant universe, in a fairly normal galaxy, a middle-aged woman cradled a newborn at her breast, while marveling again at the golden aura surrounding the boy.

"Elder Sister, the Grand Elder is here." a voice called from the inner court.

"Please, Elder, come in!" she shouted from her bed. She will be excused for not kneeling due to her condition, but the Elders were always a difficult lot. Especially this Elder.

An old-looking man stepped inside her room, then glanced for a second at the baby. "It is true then, little Rena. You have lost your Holy Maiden status..." the man observed gruffly, then moved to side to brew a teapot, blue flames springing from his hands in a display of skill and power.

The woman shrugged and gently caressed the boy in her arms. That rice was cooked long ago.

"Well, this will delay your ascension by years, and probably will lose you the Sky Pill gift..." the man added in a low and displeased voice.

"I am no longer suited for marriage, Elder. The Yuan Turtle Sect will certainly not gift us any pill, not for me anyway." Rena said in a carefree tone, then freed one hand to hold the tea cup she was just offered.

"This is not a joke, Rena. A mortal father for your child, what were you thinking?" the old man muttered as he sat down and sipped the tea with a frown.

"I was thinking...he had nice shoulders and a rough beard...nobody but us for a hundred li, and a scary forest filled with demon beasts all around. I thought I was going to die a virgin...it would have been a shame." Rena disclosed with a dreamy smile.

"The boy...is cultivating already. A Holy Son instead of a Maiden, perhaps...I'll have to speak with my Master." the Grand Elder said in a gentler voice, as his eyes measured the newborn for a moment. Then he sat down his cup and walked out in a hurry.

"...Little one, did you copy my cultivation method even in the womb?" Rena wondered with a surprised voice, while gently swirling her mana through the cultivation circuit, softly crafting another snowflake to deposit in her core.

The child blinked slowly towards her, then grabbed her breast harder and began suckling hungrily.

'He can't actually understand words, right?' she wondered inward. No way.