Ethan hovered in midair, his brows drawing down.

Something was wrong.

The power that pale figure was releasing wasn’t just Primordial Force and void energy.

In the instant of that collision, Ethan had sensed a familiar trace buried deep inside the silver-white radiance. It was hidden well—but it couldn’t slip past the Infernal Primordial Power in Ethan’s body.

The aura of the Infernal Abyss.

As the two gigantic projections kept wrestling, more and more cracks opened across the sky. Dimensional power seeped from those wounds, carrying chaotic spatial storms that repeatedly scoured at the foundation of the world around them.

Even the rock strata beneath the mine started to make fine, brittle noises. Several fractures crept outward along the mountain like spreading scars.

If this went on, the mine Emerald Castle had just taken would be dragged straight into a spatial collapse.

Ethan didn’t hesitate anymore.

He reeled his outward power back in, pulling everything tight to the surface of his body. Ghastly white lightning flowed along his skin and through the patterns of his Powered Combat Armor, forming a close-fitting shield that clung to him like a second layer.

Then he shot forward.

He punched through the violent energy turbulence created by the clash between the golden giant and the silver-white phantom, driving straight at the pale figure’s true body.

The pale figure lifted his head. A cold glint flashed in his eyes.

Void energy immediately wove itself in front of him, stacking into several irregular barriers. Each layer shifted constantly, changing angles like a living thing—trying to divert Ethan’s charge into the dimensional rifts yawning beside them.

Ethan didn’t dodge.

He raised his fist. Ghastly white lightning compressed onto his knuckles and slammed forward head-on.

The first void barrier shattered.

The second was pierced clean through by the lightning.

The third didn’t even get a chance to tilt—

Ethan was already through it, fist crashing into the pale giant’s shoulder.

Crack!

Silver-white light fractured across the shoulder in spiderweb lines. From inside the break, a wisp of brown flame and a thread of gloomy, abyssal aura sprayed out together.

The pale figure’s body tilted to the side, and the massive phantom behind him staggered hard, shaking the sky.

Ethan’s eyes narrowed. 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

At the same time his punch landed, he’d already opened the system and scanned the bastard’s panel.

Data spilled out in fast lines—energy source, body status, soul fluctuations, foreign-occupation traces, Infernal Abyss aura origin...

And then the system highlighted a name.

Ethan lifted his gaze and stared coldly at the pale figure.

"Xarvok!"

His voice cut across the battlefield, overpowering the explosions and roars around them.

"You’re shameless. You’re nothing but a soul fragment now, and you still had the nerve to hijack someone else’s body. You think nobody could tell?"

The pale figure went rigid.

The cracks on his shoulder kept spreading, silver-white light bleeding outward—but his eyes changed completely.

That composed "obedience," that fake calm, every trace of it vanished in an instant, replaced by the chill shock of being exposed.

"Who the hell are you?" Xarvok hissed, staring Ethan down. "How do you know so much?"

At the edge of the battlefield, the silver-lit army rippled with unrest.

A lot of them clearly hadn’t known the "core" pale figure among them had already been possessed by a remnant soul from the Infernal Abyss.

Several silver soldiers instinctively pulled back—

And Emerald Castle’s formation immediately seized the opening, pressing forward and crushing into the gap.

Ethan let out a cold laugh and eased back a single step.

He didn’t explain.

Ghastly white lightning surged out of him. Transparent electric light and dark ghost-blue patterns lit at the same time.

Arcs crawled over his body. Wherever they passed, space cracked like thin ice. He didn’t even have to attack—just the spill of his aura tore open a nearby dimensional rift that hadn’t fully closed yet, widening it with a sharp rip.

Xarvok ground his teeth, a harsh, grating sound slipping out.

He knew he couldn’t hide anymore.

Since his origin had been exposed, he stopped pretending with that silver-white Primordial Force. Brown flames burst from within him and spread rapidly across the body he’d stolen.

The fire coated skin, chest, and limbs, then gathered behind him into a heavy curtain of brown flame.

It carried the unique oppression of the Infernal Abyss... but it wasn’t as pure as Ethan’s ghastly white lightning.

Ethan watched the brown flames without much reaction.

Xarvok raised a hand. The brown fire rolled in his palm.

"So after all that," he said, hatred barely contained, "you’re from the Infernal Abyss too."

His eyes sharpened.

"In that case, we’ll settle this the Infernal Abyss way—one-on-one. A duel!"

Ethan chuckled.

He didn’t bother answering the "duel."

He simply let the ghastly white lightning flood outward completely—

Then he lunged.

Xarvok moved at the same time.

Their bodies collided in the high air. Ghastly white lightning smashed into brown flames, and the impact erupted in a deep, crushing boom.

That first shockwave pushed several nearby spatial cracks wider. Void storms spat out of the rifts—only to be forced back in by the two clashing Infernal Primordial powers, pressed down and sealed by brute dominance.

Ethan’s fist drove toward Xarvok’s chest.

Xarvok formed a flaming bracer with brown fire and blocked, then his other hand shot for Ethan’s side. Flame licked from his fingertips, trying to pierce Ethan’s shielding layer and inject the brown fire straight into his body.

Ethan twisted aside. Ghastly white lightning detonated along his elbow and sliced for Xarvok’s wrist.

Lightning and flame slammed together again.

Energy blasted outward between them, making the surrounding space howl and rumble.

The battlefield above the mine was forced to spread farther back. No one dared approach their clash zone. Even a stray thread of lightning or a drifting clump of brown fire was enough to burn through ordinary shields like paper.

For a stretch, the two of them fought to a stalemate.

Tier-wise, and in the Infernal Primordial Power they were releasing, they were on roughly the same level.

Ethan’s lightning was purer, with brutal penetration; Xarvok’s brown fire was darker, better at corrosion and entangling.

Each collision birthed new cracks in the sky.

Each time they separated, the energy around the mine would pause for an instant, like the world was holding its breath.

Emerald Castle’s soldiers watched from a distance, faces tight and grim.

The silver-lit army wouldn’t come close either. Plenty of them used the chaos to retreat farther away, terrified of getting dragged between two Infernal Primordial powers.

This wasn’t a joke.

In other worlds, plenty of "strong" energies looked fragile in front of Infernal Primordial Power. It didn’t just destroy the body—it crushed the soul, polluted energy sources, and could even twist the local rules of a space into something else.

Xarvok’s face grew uglier by the second.

The brown flame he controlled was only second-rate in the Infernal Abyss. In the past, he’d relied on experience, soul-fragment tricks, and a stolen body to keep the upper hand—but facing Ethan now, he was feeling the pressure at the level of essence for the first time.

Ethan’s lightning was too tyrannical.

Again and again, the ghastly white arcs tore open Xarvok’s brown flame curtain and drilled into his body.

At first, they only opened tiny wounds. But soon, the lightning was slipping along his internal energy channels, pressing deeper—forcing its way toward the connection between his remnant soul and the body he’d occupied.

Xarvok slammed a palm out and knocked Ethan back, trying to create space.

But he’d barely retreated half a step when a violent pain lanced through his chest.

A thread of ghastly white lightning had already burrowed inside him—and detonated.

The brown fire snapped inward, trying to wrap and smother it, but that strand of lightning cut through the flame like a blade and kept advancing, closing in on the fragment of his soul.