Ethan’s expression hardened immediately.

He didn’t force his way forward. Instead, he released his power first.

Transparent lightning spilled off his body, spreading outward until it formed a heavy energy barrier around him and Queen Seraphine. Arcs crawled across its surface like living veins, a semi-transparent shell that sealed them off from the surrounding space.

Queen Seraphine lowered her stance at the same time. Divine Power unfurled from her in a slow, steady spread—like an invisible tide washing outward, taking the area layer by layer under her control.

Her holy pulse overlapped with Ethan’s lightning barrier, making the already too-quiet wasteland feel even more suffocating.

Neither of them spoke.

The quieter this place was, the less "simple" whatever was hiding inside it could be.

Time dragged on. Deep in the wasteland, nothing moved—until far in the distance, a patch of gray-white ground rose and fell slightly, like something had finally been stirred awake.

Then that region started acting up in a continuous tremor, and the air above it warped along with it. Before long, a figure stepped out from the deepest part of the wasteland, walking toward them one slow step at a time.

The instant he appeared, the direction of energy flow changed.

The scattered aura between heaven and earth rushed toward him, gathering faster and faster, until it formed a massive energy phantom around his body.

The outline was blurry, but the sheer size was oppressive. Just standing there, it made the entire wasteland behind him feel lower, heavier—like it was being pressed flat.

A strange energy radiated off him—both weighty and razor-sharp, as if it could churn the surrounding space into pieces with barely any effort.

"Who the hell are you two?"

When he spoke, his voice hit the wasteland like a heavy object slamming down, making the ground tremble faintly.

"You actually dare barge into Varkharr? You tired of living?"

Before the curse even finished dropping, he raised his hand. The huge energy phantom around him twisted and collapsed inward, all of its power compressing toward his palm. In only a few breaths, a small energy sphere formed in front of him.

It wasn’t big, but it dimmed the light around it.

The destructive might inside was so dense it was frightening. Tiny cracks kept opening across its surface, like even space couldn’t handle what it was holding.

If that thing truly came down, it wouldn’t just erase the wasteland at their feet—everything in a massive radius would get flattened into nothing.

Ethan’s breathing quickened.

The enemy’s hostility came too fast, too vicious—no probing, no room to maneuver.

He didn’t have time to think. Transparent lightning condensed into a sphere in midair, the glow compressing hard in front of his palm before he threw it out in a straight line.

The transparent lightning sphere met it head-on.

The moment the two spheres touched, the space around the collision point dipped inward—then began collapsing in a wide swath.

A dull, continuous tearing sound rolled across the sky. Two huge dimensional vortices formed on either side of the impact zone, their edges spinning at high speed as they dragged in the leaking energy.

But Ethan felt it almost immediately.

Something was wrong.

The transparent lightning sphere he’d thrown could hold the line for a moment, but it was clearly losing.

The opponent’s destruction sphere kept pressurizing, pushing wave after wave forward, forcing Ethan’s attack to retreat inch by inch.

At this rate, if the bastard added even a little more power, Ethan and Queen Seraphine would both get dragged in.

That was when Queen Seraphine stepped forward.

She didn’t move fast, but the instant her foot touched down, a thick Light Force had already spread from her body.

It didn’t rush straight at the enemy. Instead, it rose in front of them in an instant—forming a heavy barrier. Radiance flowed across its surface like water, steady and unbroken as it planted itself between them and the incoming destruction.

The next second, the opponent’s power slammed into it.

The explosion everyone would’ve expected never came.

The barrier—supported by Light Force and Divine Power together—only rippled once. Its surface shivered lightly, then stabilized again.

That force that should’ve been able to wipe the entire wasteland off the map... was stopped cold.

Not even a real crack was left behind.

Ethan flicked a look at Queen Seraphine, a jolt of disbelief flashing through his eyes.

He’d known Divine Power had brutal suppression over this world, but seeing the enemy’s attack get stopped this cleanly still hit him like a punch to the ribs.

The guy across from them clearly hadn’t expected it either.

All of his output was jammed into Seraphine’s barrier now—destructive energy pouring out at full throttle. His hand was locked in place, his force pinned with no slack to spare.

And in that instant, Ethan saw the opening.

He steadied his breathing fast, and the power inside him rolled up again.

Transparent lightning flooded down his arm into his palm. A fresh lightning sphere condensed in his hand—light tightening, shrinking, sharpening—until it was only fist-sized, yet it pressed the air around it into clean, visible ripples.

Ethan didn’t give him time to react.

He snapped his arm up and threw.

Humm!

The moment it left his hand, it moved so fast it became a thin, stretched beam of light.

It shot through the gap beside Seraphine’s barrier—the slit that had been forcibly torn open by the clash—and cut straight into the enemy’s attack path.

Right now, all of the enemy’s power was stacked on that destruction sphere. Even the massive energy phantom around him was still feeding forward. His front was exposed for a heartbeat.

The lightning sphere punched straight through.

RUMBLE!

RUMBLE!

RUMBLE!

A chain of explosions tore across the wasteland sky. Nothing intercepted it. The transparent lightning bored through his body—drilling from the front of his chest and blowing out near his abdomen, leaving a clean, gaping hole. Residual arcs snapped and writhed along the edge of the wound like starving insects.

He dropped his gaze to his own stomach.

The viciousness and rage in his eyes shattered into pure disbelief.

His body started to shake violently.

And the huge, oppressive energy phantom around him dimmed just as fast, fading like a torch thrown into water.

The power that had been rolling across the wasteland moments ago—strong enough to make the ground tremble—was suddenly cut in half, withering inch by inch.

Light flared in Ethan’s eyes.

After that strike tore through the enemy’s abdomen, the crushing pressure around him had plainly fallen off a cliff.

The massive energy phantom began to wobble, its edges collapsing and shedding apart like a giant that had lost its bones, ready to cave in at any second.

Ethan didn’t give him a single breath to recover.

Transparent lightning erupted from Ethan again, spreading from his shoulders and back down his arms and into his palms, layering outward until it unfurled in midair—a huge net woven from pure thunderlight.

It slammed down from above.

The enemy was still hovering when he tried to pull himself together, to stabilize—

But the air around him collapsed inward first.

Then his whole body—along with that broken, flickering phantom—got hammered straight into the ground.

Boom!

The earth jumped. Gray-white soil rolled outward in waves, and碎石 and splinters of white bone scattered in every direction.

He was pinned at the center, limbs bound by transparent lightning. His breathing bucked and broke, and every time he managed to gather even a thread of power, the lightning smashed it apart again—over and over.