Ethan pulled up the system scan immediately.

The panels snapped open, his focus locking onto Queen Seraphine’s internal energy structure.

Her power hadn’t split into opposing halves. Instead, with Primordial Divine Power as the core, she’d wrapped the newly absorbed Primordial Death Energy and integrated it straight in.

It wasn’t opposition.

It was more like two different expressions of the same source.

Ethan’s breathing finally eased. In that moment, he understood—Queen Seraphine’s Light Force had always been the surface.

What she truly commanded was a higher-tier Divine Power, and that power didn’t "hate" darkness or death. It didn’t repel them.

It unified them.

At this level, holy and dark weren’t enemies anymore.

As long as it belonged to the same primordial order, it could be absorbed.

Ethan’s eyes brightened.

With that kind of power guiding her, the range of energies Queen Seraphine could take in would explode. Maybe even the Angel King’s power... wouldn’t be impossible to fold into it.

While everyone was still trying to process that shift, a pressure rolled down from above.

A figure slowly took shape in the sky.

The thing was covered in scales, and every single scale had a gemstone embedded in it.

Inside each gem, strange energy churned—different colors, but vibrating in a unified rhythm. Layered together, those energies warped the space around him just slightly, like reality was being tugged out of alignment.

Ethan rose into the air at once.

Transparent lightning spread over his skin, the electric glow crawling through the air and expanding into a growing domain. He locked onto the newcomer, body settling into a steady, pre-strike stance.

The other guy didn’t speak.

He drew both arms inward. Every gemstone flared at the same time. Energy flowed between the scales and converged at his chest. The light there hardened, condensed, stretched—forming a long spear made of pure energy.

The instant the spear finished forming, he hurled it.

It didn’t fly in a straight line.

It carved through the air on a twisting, rotating trajectory, forcing a clean corridor open through space itself. The spear shot down that path, aimed straight for Ethan’s chest.

Ethan didn’t retreat.

Transparent lightning gathered in his palm into a dense sphere, then he drove it forward. The moment it left his hand, the lightning expanded into a semi-transparent impact sheet—slamming head-on into the incoming spear.

Boom—

On contact, the air compressed into arcing ripples that blasted outward.

Lightning fragments scattered. Space caved in for an instant. The shockwave swept the ground, rolling gravel and broken stone outward in a wave.

But the spear didn’t fully shatter.

It kept pushing through the lightning. The spearhead’s eerie energy gnawed at the transparent bolts, forcibly ripping a channel open. Ethan’s attack started to get suppressed, the lightning sheet buckling and sliding backward.

The enemy’s power was clearly stronger—and the structure of it was frighteningly stable.

The Infernal Abyss lightning began to break down.

Ethan’s body drifted back a fraction. He was about to adjust his energy structure when a holy pulse spread in from the side.

Queen Seraphine appeared beside him.

She raised a hand. Divine Power rolled outward.

It didn’t strike.

Instead, it formed a sealed domain that wrapped the figure completely inside.

The instant the curtain of light dropped, space locked.

The enemy’s movement halted mid-flow. He lifted his head, gemstones across his scales flashing as he tried to break the suppression.

"Who are you?"

It was the first time he’d spoken, his voice carrying a clear tremor.

"How can your energy hold such powerful Divine Power... and still control the death aura here?"

He detonated his energy outward. The gemstones blazed together, power slamming against the walls, trying to punch through the holy field enclosing him.

But the Divine Power didn’t budge.

The light curtain began to contract.

Pressure from the outside folded inward. Space narrowed. His room to move was shaved down again and again, forcing him into the center. Energy between his scales started to snarl and destabilize.

No matter how violently he erupted, he couldn’t tear open that layer of sealing. 𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦

Ethan hovered in the air, watching it happen.

For the first time, he understood—clearly—just how terrifying Queen Seraphine’s suppression had become.

The enemy’s struggle grew weaker and weaker as the holy domain kept tightening, boxing him into a space so small he could barely move.

The fight didn’t spread any further.

Ethan pulled his gaze away, turned, and led the Emerald Castle army deeper toward Varkharr.

This space was unbelievably vast. During the march, they saw almost no enemies in any kind of formation. The few figures that did appear weren’t strong and got wiped out quickly.

But Ethan didn’t relax.

His senses stayed pinned down, like a weight on the back of his neck. The air carried a persistent, locking ripple—like something far away was watching, waiting for the right moment.

When the column reached a jagged field of scattered boulders, the ground suddenly shuddered.

The earth split. Massive stones around them began to shift. Broken rock slid toward the center, locking together piece by piece, building into a towering Stone Golem.

Its body was still made from raw rock, but a black energy gemstone was set into its chest.

Inside that gem, Primordial Death Energy churned.

But mixed into that death aura was something else—sharper, more corrosive. The two energies spun together inside the gem, fused, then bled outward.

Humm—

The Stone Golem raised both arms.

Black energy overflowed from the gemstone, crawling along the golem’s stone veins until it covered its entire body.

Death aura and a force of destruction merged into a more violent pulse. The air got eaten away in seconds, and tiny cracks began to spider across the surface of space.

When the two powers fully combined, the space around the Stone Golem started to fracture. Black energy spread outward. Wherever it passed, air collapsed, and the rocks underfoot corroded and split apart like rotten wood.

Ethan exhaled slowly, forcing the rise and fall in his chest back under control.

He slid half a step back, his boot grinding a shallow mark into the broken ground as the transparent lightning in his hand snapped inward.

The arcs that had been scattered around his palm compressed into an extremely dense mass of light. It trembled nonstop, releasing a fine, piercing crackle—so sharp it twisted the air in front of him.

Then he thrust his hand forward.

The condensed ball of transparent lightning shot out in a straight line.

It tore the air open as it flew. Loose gravel on the ground got flipped and blasted aside, carving a clear trail of destruction as it slammed toward the Stone Golem.

The Stone Golem’s face didn’t change at all—if anything, it wore a hint of open contempt.

It only lifted its palm.

The black gemstone in its chest flared. Violent death-and-destruction aura surged through its rock body, raced up its arm, and poured into its hand.

A heavy, gloomy force pressed down from above, spreading out to smother Ethan’s transparent lightning head-on.

The instant the two powers collided, the entire boulder field roared.

A blinding shockwave ripped out from the point of impact. The sky split with dense, spiderweb cracks, like someone was hammering space itself inch by inch.

The ground couldn’t take it. It detonated in bursts—one after another—until more than a dozen craters were punched out in the blink of an eye. Different sizes, edges scorched black. The rocks didn’t even have time to fall before the leftover energy ground them into powder.