All Ethan had to do was stand at the end and add the finishing blow.

He barely had to spend any effort. Again and again, he stripped away their power and tore out their energy cores with ease.

Before long, they were overflowing with loot.

Once the number of cores had piled up to a ridiculous level, Ethan finally stopped. He climbed to the top of a high mountain and fired a signal flare into the sky.

The beam shot straight upward, burst into a blinding bloom overhead, then spread fast—lighting up more than half the sky.

Not long after, the Emerald Castle army converged from every direction.

Footsteps. Whistling airbreaks. Armor clashing.

The mountain land—eerily silent just moments ago—filled with the sound of marching force again.

When the troops gathered below, every face was tight with battle intent and anticipation.

Ethan stood above them and adjusted his breathing.

Then he spread his arms.

In front of him, the spherical device was already floating. Thick energy poured into it from all sides, layering together with the scan data the system had built.

The sphere’s surface flickered—and then a massive 3D map unfolded in front of everyone.

It was clearer than before. More complete.

Among the stacked mountains, gorges, fissures, and shadowed zones, countless blood-red dots hung in place. Each dot represented a Varkharr native still in hiding.

The moment they saw it, everyone’s breathing grew heavier.

Ethan raised a hand and pointed at the projection, his voice dropping with a clean, cutting weight.

"These are the exact locations of every Varkharr person." His tone wasn’t loud, but it hit hard enough to snap every spine straight. "Now. Scatter and search. Drag them all out."

He paused, eyes sweeping across the dense crowd of Emerald Castle fighters below.

"We have to fully seize Varkharr before Calamity Days end."

The moment that sentence landed, the entire force boiled over.

Everyone was fired up—past the point of restraint.

They’d thought it would take endless time to sweep and search, inch by inch. Nobody expected Ethan to mark every hiding spot outright.

For them, this wasn’t a normal assault anymore.

It was a harvest.

Of course, Ethan knew the truth.

If it were only him, he couldn’t have pinned every position this precisely. At best, he could use the system to detect their existence and rough distribution.

The one that truly turned those coordinates into something fully visual—something he could lay out for everyone at once—was the energy sphere the girl had brought.

Only after the system interfaced with it did this become possible.

But that detail didn’t matter now.

The soldiers memorized the coordinates at high speed, then split in every direction. Waves of figures poured off the high ground, advancing along mountain ridges, gorges, and hidden paths—like a giant net being flung open all at once, dropping over the whole of Varkharr.

Before long, screams began echoing across heaven and earth.

The sound rolled from far to near, then near to far again, spreading in waves.

Some were dragged out of their hiding places by force. Some broke down screaming the instant their nemesis power descended. Some tried to resist—and got suppressed and executed on the spot by the Emerald Castle army.

For Emerald Castle, this didn’t even count as a hard fight.

It was a complete one-sided slaughter.

Varkharr’s people were already trapped in Calamity Days, crushed by the power of their own natural nemeses, too afraid to show themselves. The moment they were exposed, they’d already lost more than half their fighting capability by default.

And now the Emerald Castle army was advancing with full coordinates in hand. There was almost no resistance—no meaningful obstacles at all.

In a short span of time, Varkharr was wiped clean.

When the last scattered screams finally faded, this region—once eerie and dangerous—was left with only faint, scattered energy fluctuations and the lingering scars of power across the land.

Then Ethan gave a new order.

He had the entire army stay behind to keep searching for Varkharr’s remaining energy cores and any energy springs scattered across the territory.

Now that they’d taken this place, they couldn’t stop at "occupying" it. Every resource worth carrying had to be gathered and secured.

As for Ethan himself, he didn’t remain.

He withdrew his gaze, took the girl with him, and left this land—now completely swept empty.

... 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

A mid-sized warship cut through the vast galaxy, cruising at high speed through a star sea that was silent and ice-cold.

Shattered glints and meteor scars slid past the hull from time to time. The energy stream trailing from its engines drew a long, clean line through the darkness. Before long, the ship slowed and descended toward a dead, ruin-choked zone ahead.

When the hatch opened, Ethan and the girl stepped down one after the other.

They’d landed on an altar that had been abandoned ages ago.

Most of the altar’s structure had already collapsed. The stone pillars along its edges were broken into sections. The carved markings on the floor had been worn down by time—and by repeated energy impacts—until they were incomplete and hard to read. All around were broken rock, cratered pits, and blackened scorch traces left by something that had burned hot enough to stain the stone.

This place had clearly once held a sizable complex.

Now, even its outline was barely recognizable.

Ethan stood at the center of the altar and swept his gaze across the ruins. His brow tightened.

"This is the place you meant?"

He looked over the devastation with little sign of satisfaction.

It wasn’t just ruined—it was too open.

The higher ground had been shaved flat, the low ground was nothing but craters, and there was barely anywhere to hide or maneuver. Forget strategic depth.

If they had to collide head-on with a real monster here and got pushed even a little, there wouldn’t be space to retreat, reposition, or drag the fight out.

If they stayed in these ruins, one mistake would be enough to get them pinned and slaughtered right here.

The girl clearly realized it too.

She lowered her head, embarrassment flashing across her face—rare for her. She’d been so focused on getting Ethan here as fast as possible that she hadn’t really thought through what the place might look like now.

She’d just opened her mouth to explain—

When a heavy, strange tearing sound suddenly ripped through the sky in the distance.

In the next instant, a figure slammed straight down from above.

Boom!

The moment it hit, a huge pit exploded open in the ruins beside them.

Stone, dust, and broken column fragments launched into the air together. The shockwave swept along the ground in a wide ring, and even the edge of the altar shuddered.

Ethan’s eyes changed instantly.

He stepped half a pace back, dropped his center of gravity, and violent power surged out of him. Transparent lightning spread across his arms, shoulders, and back, drawing thin, bright arcs through the air until the space within several yards of him looked bleached white.

As the dust ahead slowly thinned, the silhouette finally came into focus.

A tall figure.

His entire body was a suffocating, eerie brownish-purple, with muscles and bone structure exaggerated far beyond a normal human. And set into his chest were numerous blood-red energy gemstones.

Those gems weren’t inert. They kept flashing and vibrating, pumping wave after wave of violent power into his body—then releasing it outward through him.

The moment that pressure rolled out, it surged straight up into the sky, dimming the light overhead.

"Didn’t think you’d actually dare come back, you little brat."

The towering figure stared at the girl, his voice dripping with cruelty and contempt.

"Hmph. Don’t think a new skin means I can’t recognize you. Today, I’m going to make you vanish—ashes and all."

The girl had been standing half a step behind Ethan. The moment she heard that, her expression dropped.

She didn’t retreat. She stepped forward instead, raised a hand, and tore the disguise-skin off her face in one clean pull.

The thin layer peeled away, revealing a young, pretty face.

"I’m not afraid of you."

She lifted her chin, stubbornness and provocation sharp in her voice.

"My strength is several times what it used to be. I can rip you into pieces—easy."