Ethan didn’t hesitate for even a second. He whipped his arm back and hurled it with everything he had.

Bzzz—!

The energy sphere cut across the sky, and the space in its wake shattered like glass.

At the same time, on the other side—

The golden giant brought his spear down in a brutal swing.

Ruuuumble—!

The instant the two forces slammed together in midair, the entire world lurched. Heaven and earth trembled as if they were about to come apart.

At the point of impact, a ring of annihilating shockwave exploded outward.

Space rifts erupted everywhere at once, black裂纹 spiderwebbing in every direction. The blast churned into a violent storm of chaotic energy, hammering the tangled dimensional zone where the two worlds were locked together.

The connection point—the one both sides had barely managed to stabilize—started shaking again, harder than ever.

Ethan’s brows knotted.

There were more and more fractures ripping open in the high sky.

The power of the two worlds was crashing head-on without mercy. Elysion’s remaining Primordial Force kept grinding against that golden void, squeezing and shoving like two continents trying to occupy the same space.

Every collision caved in another patch of reality around them.

If this kept going...

The barrier meant to keep the dimensional entanglement quarantined between the two worlds was going to collapse completely.

And when that happened, the fallout wouldn’t just be bad. It would be unthinkable.

Then—

A blaze of fire erupted behind them, shooting straight into the heavens.

BOOM!!!

A phoenix’s presence swept across the world.

The sky—choked in chaotic energy—was suddenly torn open by a massive wash of red-gold flame.

Heat rolled through everything. Even the edges of the space rifts glowed hot, burned to a furious red. The air screamed with sharp, crackling detonations.

A figure appeared directly in front of Ethan.

Phoenix Queen Ignara.

She lifted her chin. Her red-gold hair whipped in the flames, and deep in her eyes, the Eternal Flame burned like twin suns.

"You," she said, staring straight at the golden giant, her voice flat with ice, "are nothing but a beast that crawled in from another world."

"What makes you think you’re qualified to wage war against Emerald Castle?"

Her gaze didn’t waver.

"Now... I’m the one who kills you."

The moment the words left her mouth, the phoenix power behind her detonated at full force.

Ruuuumble—!

A colossal phoenix silhouette rapidly took shape between heaven and earth.

It wasn’t some flimsy energy projection.

It looked like an ancient phoenix forged from the Eternal Flame itself—real, weighty, alive.

The instant its wings spread, the sky bled red-gold. Space around it groaned and cracked, splitting under the pressure.

The next second—

That phoenix phantom slammed straight toward the golden giant.

And Ignara moved with it, her body turning into a streak of living fire as she shot forward.

Too fast.

The golden giant and Ethan had just finished another round of forced balance—most of their power tied up in keeping the worlds from tipping and in suppressing each other. Neither of them had time to rebuild a complete defense.

Ignara’s arrival shattered the deadlock in one strike.

Boom!

She flashed in front of the golden giant.

Eternal Flame compressed and spiraled around her fist, layering into a scorching, near-solid sheath of heat and force. Then she drove her punch into his shoulder like a hammer.

A shriek ripped out—high and vicious.

Golden energy exploded in sheets.

The giant’s entire arm was blasted clean off, blown away in a spinning arc.

No blood sprayed from the torn joint—only a flood of savage golden light.

That energy twisted and writhed, trying to pull itself back together, trying to re-form—

Ignara didn’t give it a chance.

She didn’t stop.

Phoenix power poured from her like a tide that wouldn’t run out.

Up in the sky, one massive phoenix silhouette after another formed in rapid succession.

They dragged long, blazing tails and came crashing down from different angles, one after the next.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Red-gold fire detonated over and over.

The golden giant’s body was smashed apart in sequence—chunks of ruined limbs and splintered golden energy scattering through the air.

Before long, his whole frame was wrecked beyond recognition, only half a body left floating there.

But something about it was... wrong.

He wasn’t actually falling apart.

The shattered pieces didn’t fully dissipate.

Instead, streams of golden energy began gathering from the world around him, converging back toward the damage—flowing in to patch the missing parts, filling the gaps as if the heavens themselves were rebuilding him.

Ethan’s gaze sank.

This guy’s body wasn’t normal flesh and blood.

It was some kind of extremely unusual mass of condensed energy.

"My body is immortal—unbreakable!"

The golden giant roared, and the sound hit like a physical shockwave, making the space around them tremble.

"You idiots could never be my match!"

The next second—

he jammed his hand straight into his own chest.

And then, by sheer force, he tore out a golden sphere.

The instant the sphere appeared, the surrounding space convulsed violently. Countless golden patterns spread outward from within it, and even that stretch of void-world began to resonate in response.

Then—

he crushed it in his fist.

Boom!!!

Golden energy, so dense it was almost suffocating, erupted in a violent torrent and fused into his damaged body in the blink of an eye.

Right after that...

the massive body began to split apart.

Not from destruction—

but from deliberate collapse.

Layer after layer of golden energy peeled away. The gigantic form rapidly compressed, caving inward as if it was being folded down into something smaller and sharper. When all the energy finally finished drawing back in, a man—no bigger than a child—slowly stepped out from the core.

But the moment he appeared—

the pressure in the world became even worse.

There was no visible aura exploding off him.

And yet the space nearby started collapsing on its own.

Void rifts kept blooming around him and blinking out again, over and over. Even Elysion’s world-energy, the moment it drifted too close, was automatically repelled as if it couldn’t stand to touch him.

As for the void-world behind him...

it looked like it had completely merged with his existence.

He only had to move a finger—

and power from that void-world would surge out like a tide, wave after wave, meeting Ethan head-on.

For the first time, Ethan felt real pressure bearing down on him.

He hadn’t expected the enemy to have another form like this.

And in the split second he lost focus—

Phoenix Queen Ignara had already launched herself forward again.

She’d clearly sensed the danger too.

High above, phoenix fire went wild as it gathered, condensing around her into one scarlet-gold Energy Disc after another. The rims of each disc burned with thick Eternal Flame, and as they spun, they kept slicing the nearby space open, shredding it into jagged cuts.

Then—

every single Energy Disc swept out at once.

The entire sky was swallowed by scarlet-gold fire.

Eternal Flame churned violently, the temperature spiking in an instant. The surrounding space even began to show signs of melting; along the edges of certain rifts, the flames burned so hot they scorched everything into nothingness.

But the golden man’s face held only contempt.

He didn’t even retreat.

He simply raised a hand—

and flicked it, almost lazily.

Boom!

A much more massive power exploded outward.

The Eternal Flame Energy Discs, the instant they touched that force, were shaken apart—shattered by brute impact.

Scarlet-gold fire detonated midair, bursting into countless specks of light that sprayed in every direction.