Ethan’s breathing sped up.

He stared at the Frost Phoenix wrapped in Eternal Flame, watching it press the golden torrent down inch by inch, and something like shock flickered through his eyes.

Phoenix Queen Ignara’s power was terrifying on its own. So was Queen Elowen’s.

But once those two forces truly fused, what they unleashed blew past anything he’d expected.

It wasn’t a simple one-plus-one.

It was two completely different kinds of Divine Power, anchored on the same core—forcing their way into a higher tier of attack, ripping the next "shape" of power into existence.

Ethan snapped his focus back. He couldn’t afford distraction.

The golden man was tied up. Ignara and Elowen had seized the initiative.

And Ethan’s job—his only job—was to seal this space before it fully went out of control.

He forced his breathing steady, shoved down the fatigue roiling in his body, and drove every last bit of remaining strength outward.

Transparent energy spread from his back, riding along the edge of the world energy behind him. It stretched outward, then looped around from the front, bypassing the裂口 in the void-world like a needle threading a tear.

A closed barrier took shape.

It tightened a fraction at a time, like he was stitching a new seam between two skies that were about to split apart.

The void-world’s power kept struggling. The world energy behind him kept roaring.

Ethan didn’t give an inch.

At last, the final thread of power drained from his palms.

The moment the seal finished—

the world in front of Ethan went dark.

His body lost support and dropped straight out of the air.

Wind screamed past his ears. He couldn’t make out the battlefield explosions anymore. He couldn’t even see the shattered land below. Everything inside him was bone-dry—so empty he couldn’t summon the strength to twitch a finger.

Just as he was about to slam into the ground, a figure shot in from the side.

Anya plunged straight into his body.

Humm!

Humm!

Humm!

Three rapid vibrations rang out from inside Ethan.

Red lightning crawled across his skin, racing along his arms, chest, shoulders, and back, tearing bright arcs through the air.

At first the arcs snapped wildly—feral, unstable.

Then the color began to shift. The red slowly washed out into white, and the white faded even further, thinning into something almost unreal.

In the end, every bolt turned transparent.

Ethan’s eyes flew open.

His falling body stopped in midair. Transparent lightning spiraled around him, blasting nearby dust and碎石 outward in a clean ring.

Energy poured from inside him in a steady flood—refilling the meridians that had just run dry, yanking his senses back into the fight like a hook to the ribs.

Distant explosions. Warships roaring. Enemy soldiers shouting in panic—

all of it snapped into sharp focus.

He glanced down at his palm.

Anya had fused with him.

Ethan didn’t pause. He didn’t ask why.

Transparent lightning detonated under his feet. He turned into a streak of light cutting across the sky, shooting straight toward the enemy warships.

This war’s outcome was already decided.

Emerald Castle had the enemy main force pinned down. Phoenix Queen Ignara and Queen Elowen had also locked the golden man in place.

But there were still plenty of diehards aboard the enemy ships—especially after the golden man appeared. Their fighting spirit had been dragged back to life. They weren’t just running anymore.

Under the coordination of some unseen force, they were reorganizing and pushing back.

If Ethan let them keep dragging this out, it would only mean pointless casualties for Emerald Castle.

Transparent lightning carved through the sky, slipping between crisscrossing energy cannon fire, and slammed down onto the deck of an enemy warship.

Boom!

The spot where Ethan landed caved in. Transparent arcs burst from under his feet and raced along the cracks in the deck. The thick metal plating was sliced into hair-thin lines by the electric light—

then the whole section detonated into shrapnel.

Nearby enemy soldiers didn’t even get their weapons up before the shockwave flipped them off their feet, slamming them into broken railings and energy cannon mounts.

In an instant, a wide patch of deck was cleared.

Ethan stepped out through the raining metal fragments. Transparent lightning coiled tight around his body, and wherever he passed, the air popped with fine, rapid crackles.

A few enemy soldiers tried to rush him.

Then they caught the cold light in his eyes—and froze.

Weapons raised. Feet planted. Nobody dared be the first one to close the distance.

Ethan’s gaze slid right past them and locked onto an old man not far away.

The old man stood near the center of the warship, the power rolling off him more violently than anyone else on deck.

Even with the ship already battered half to pieces, a ring of intense energy fluctuations still pulsed around him, linking nearby soldiers and ship systems together like they’d been stitched into a single unit.

A snow-white energy gem was embedded in his forehead.

Inside it, dense threads of light flickered nonstop. And every time it flickered, the enemy troops aboard the ship moved in the same rhythm—like they were being tugged by the same string.

Ethan’s steps slowed.

That wasn’t some decoration.

The strange signal coming out of the gem was spreading outward—through the deck plating, through the energy conduits, through the ship’s command systems—twisting the ship’s remaining strength back into one coordinated fist.

And because it existed, these soldiers who should’ve already collapsed were still able to fight together. 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

Ethan lifted his eyes to the old man.

If he could get that white gem, he might even be able to take control of the warship beneath his feet.

When the power inside Ethan fully erupted, the entire deck started screaming with metal warping under stress.

Transparent lightning slid along his shoulders, back, and arms. The air was cut open by the electric glare, leaving a tight, staccato ripping sound behind it.

Centered on him, the surrounding space dimpled inward in ring after ring.

The soldiers who’d been trying to swarm him didn’t even have time to scream—their bodies were dragged into that warped space like they’d been caught by an invisible whirlpool.

The next second—

blood mist exploded across the deck.

Shattered armor, snapped weapons, and mangled chunks of flesh were ripped apart by the spatial ripples, then whipped outward by the transparent lightning.

The crowded deck emptied out in one brutal sweep. Only a handful of enemies farther away were left—collapsed on the ground, faces drained white, their weapons trembling in their hands.

The old man at the ship’s center went pale.

He’d been counting on that white gem in his forehead to keep commanding what was left of his troops—but watching them burst apart around Ethan with zero resistance knocked the ground out from under him.

He stumbled back several steps, slamming into a metal pillar before he managed to steady himself.

The old man threw both hands up. The white gem on his forehead began flashing faster.

An extremely eerie energy seeped off him. It flowed along the deck first, then rose, twisting in midair into one jet-black dimensional vortex after another.

The edges of those vortices kept contracting and expanding. From inside came a piercing grinding sound, like something was forcing its way out from another space—squeezing through by pure violence.