Chapter 537: Ethan Intervenes. Death of the Sol, the Dragon Ruler of Earth

The silence didn’t last. It never did.

Jerry’s gaze lingered on the space where the mutated dragon had ceased to exist, his mismatched eyes dimming slightly as the chaos around him settled into something deceptively calm.

But then, the ground shifted. It moved. Like something vast beneath the surface had decided that the world itself was too small to contain it.

Jerry’s head tilted slightly.

"Here we go."

BOOOOOOOOM!!!

The earth erupted.

Entire mountain ranges surged upward in an instant, jagged pillars of stone tearing through the sky like the fangs of some buried god. The land folded over itself, continent-wide lands grinding, tectonic forces weaponized and unleashed without restraint.

And from within it, he rose.

Sol.

The Earth Dragon.

His form was immense, not as grotesquely large as the previous abomination, but denser. Heavier. Every inch of him radiated stability and overwhelming force. His scales were like layered continents, etched with deep golden-brown lines that pulsed like flowing magma beneath hardened crust.

His eyes burned with ancient authority and rage.

"You," Sol’s voice rumbled, not spoken but forced into the air itself through sheer presence. "You erased one of ours."

Jerry didn’t react. He didn’t step back.

"It attacked," he replied simply.

The ground behind him rose into a wall instantly. A continent’s worth of stone compressed into a single, devastating mass, and then it fell.

Jerry vanished.

The impact erased everything beneath it, miles of land compressed into nothingness under Sol’s will.

Jerry reappeared behind him, already moving. Wind screamed into existence, forming a spiraling blade infused with chaotic distortion that carved downward toward Sol’s neck.

CLANG!!!

It stopped.

The blade shattered on contact with Sol’s scales, the chaotic wind dispersing violently as if it had struck something immovable.

Jerry’s eyes flickered slightly.

"Oh."

Sol’s tail came next.

CRAAAAAACK!!!

The hit landed.

Jerry’s body shot across the sky like a bullet, tearing through multiple rising stone pillars before crashing into the ground miles away, the impact sending a shockwave that flattened everything in its radius.

Dust rose.

Silence followed...

BOOM!

Jerry reappeared again, blood trailing lightly from the corner of his mouth.

"That had weight," he muttered, wiping it off.

Sol didn’t give him time. The earth responded again.

Hundreds... no, thousands of stone spears erupted upward, each one infused with compressed gravitational force, warping space around them as they shot toward Jerry from every direction. Jerry raised his hand, and wind surged, and chaos followed.

The spears twisted mid-flight, their trajectories bending unnaturally as space itself distorted around him.

Some collided, some shattered, and some still got through. One pierced his side, another grazed his shoulder, and a third slammed into him, detonating on impact and sending him crashing downward again.

BOOOOM!!!

The ground caved in beneath him. Sol descended, slow and heavy, each movement bending the land beneath him as if gravity itself answered to his will.

"You rely on distortion," Sol’s voice echoed. "But the earth..."

He raised his claw. "...does not distort."

It fell. Jerry caught it barely. The force drove him knee-deep into the ground, cracks spreading outward for kilometers, his arms trembling from pressure.

"Yeah..." Jerry muttered through gritted teeth. "...I noticed."

Sol pushed harder.

The ground beneath Jerry collapsed further, swallowing him into a growing crater.

"You are strong," Sol admitted. "But unstable."

His eyes narrowed.

"And instability..."

The pressure increased.

"...breaks."

CRACK.

Jerry’s stance faltered.

His aura flickered for the first time... he was being overpowered. His chaos twisted wildly, trying to compensate, but Sol’s power wasn’t something that could be redirected easily.

It was absolute, grounded, and unyielding. Jerry’s red eye flared, but it wasn’t enough, not like this, not against something so... solid.

"Heh," Jerry exhaled faintly. "Might actually lose this one."

Sol’s claw pressed down further, and then, everything stopped.

Sol’s eyes widened because something had entered the space... something that did not belong to the flow of the battle. Something that did not belong to the clash of forces... did not belong to this level.

A presence, calm and silent.

"That’s enough."

The voice wasn’t loud, but it overrode everything. Jerry blinked once, and the pressure vanished. Sol’s claw... lifted, not by his will, but because the concept of it pressing down had been... removed.

Ethan stood there between them. Black armor traced with gold rested naturally over his form, his long hair tied back, silver-golden eyes glowing faintly with something deeper than before. He didn’t radiate power. He didn’t need to, because the space around him acknowledged him.

Sol recoiled slightly, instinct screaming louder than logic.

"You..."

Ethan glanced at Jerry briefly.

"You did well, brother."

Jerry exhaled, dropping back slightly.

"He hits hard."

Ethan nodded once with a smirk.

"I can see that."

He looked at Sol, and everything changed, because for the first time, Sol felt something he hadn’t felt in a very long time. It was not a danger, not a threat, but irrelevance.

"You came too far," Ethan said calmly.

Sol roared. The ground surged again, rising, crushing, folding inward as he unleashed everything he had in a single, overwhelming attack.

The world itself became his weapon.

Ethan didn’t move. He simply raised his hand.

"Return."

The word settled, and the attack collapsed. It simply... returned to where it had come from. The earth flattened, the sky cleared, and the force disappeared as if it had never been released.

Sol froze. Ethan stepped forward.

"You are strong," Ethan said, his voice calm, almost thoughtful.

His eyes shifted deeper.

"But you are built on something that can be removed."

Sol attacked again in desperation this time. Everything he had left poured into a final strike. Ethan reached out and touched him.

"Origin."

The word wasn’t spoken. It was applied. Sol’s body froze, his power halted, and his existence paused. Ethan’s fingers pressed lightly against his scales.

"You were never meant to exist like this."

And then, he pulled conceptually.

Something unseen tore free, something fundamental, something that defined Sol as Sol. His identity.

"So you won’t."

Sol didn’t scream. He couldn’t resist, nor even understand, because in that moment his origin was erased as if it had never been written.

His body flickered, his power vanished, and his presence collapsed. And then, he was gone.

No remains, no energy, no trace.

Nothing.

Silence fell

Jerry stared for a moment.

"That’s... cheating."

Ethan lowered his hand slowly.

"It’s efficient."

His eyes lingered on the space for a second longer.

Then he looked toward the distance. His gaze sharpened slightly.

"Now he’ll come."

Because something like that could not go unnoticed, and this time, it wouldn’t be a lesser piece. It would be the king himself.