Ethan’s heart jolted. His gaze cut past the trembling observation window and out into the void.

Two figures hovered in the emptiness beyond the hull.

One radiated an icy, blue-white glow. The flow of energy around him had been pressed so pale it looked bleached, and even the warship’s outer plating had frosted over with a thin, biting rime.

The other was wrapped in pure gold.

The light wasn’t scattered—it clung to his body like layered molten streams compressed to the limit, quiet and controlled, turning the surrounding darkness bright as day.

The instant Ethan recognized their faces, his expression dropped.

"Kaelthar. Veyrakas."

As the names left his mouth, he was already out of the pilot seat. 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

They’d been to Emerald Castle before.

That time, they’d come for Lily.

But back then, both of them had still been under seals. A lot of what they could do had been locked down—so Ethan had beaten them into the dirt and forced them to flee in disgrace.

Now the warship had been hit twice, and the two auras outside were steady and heavy—nothing like before.

The seals were gone.

Anya had been shaken by the sudden lurch too. She stumbled in from outside the control area, steadied herself, then instinctively looked up at Ethan—eyes still carrying a trace of alarm.

Ethan reached out and ruffled her hair. His hand was steady, his tone calm.

"Don’t be scared. Just two guests."

Anya pressed her lips together, then still asked, "Bad guys?"

Ethan looked through the window at the blue-and-gold pair and let a thin chill curl into his smile.

"Two guests with bad intentions. I’ll go out and give them a proper welcome."

Before the words even finished, he vanished.

Transparent light burst under his feet. He turned into a straight streak of brilliance, shot through the hatch, and appeared in the void outside the ship in the blink of an eye.

The force he carried dragged a long distortion through the space around the warship. Residual energy snapped behind him in fine electric arcs, lingering a beat before fading.

"Big brother—wait!"

Anya’s chest tightened. She chased out on instinct. Bright red light wrapped her body, and she became a red streak cutting out of the ship and into the void, right on Ethan’s heels.

Ethan had been about to tell her to go back, but when he turned, she was already steady—her aura expanded without a hint of instability. The reprimand stopped at his lips.

He remembered then: Anya’s strength now wasn’t below his.

So he didn’t waste words. He simply stepped half a pace forward and placed himself in front of her, shielding her by position alone.

Across from them, Kaelthar and Veyrakas hovered in silence—but their pressure had already spread.

Ice-blue and gold tugged at each other beside them, slicing the void in two.

On one side, the temperature plummeted. The warship’s outer shell and the nearby energy currents began to slow and congeal.

On the other, golden holy radiance blazed, pushing outward in layered light-walls.

Ethan stood between those forces and lifted his eyes, his voice dropping like a blade.

"You two have some nerve."

As the words fell, his power released with them.

Transparent lightning spread from his body—wrapping his arms and shoulders first, then racing outward into the surrounding space.

The region around the warship quivered under the pressure of three forces colliding. The void-energy that had been flowing smoothly was thrown into chaos. Transparent arcs slashed thin cracks between the ice-blue cold and the gold glare, carving hard borders between the three different natures of power.

Kaelthar and Veyrakas didn’t retreat.

Both of them drove Infernal Primordial Power.

Kaelthar’s cold deepened. Ice-blue brilliance poured from him, and the void around him looked like it had been sealed under a frozen skin.

Veyrakas’ gold grew even more piercing, holy light flowing tight to his body until the space beneath him turned almost transparent.

Then Anya stepped forward too and raised her arm, releasing the power she’d just been assimilating.

Bright red lightning burst from her fingertips and palm—threaded with hair-thin, razor-sharp strands of transparent arcs.

The moment her aura appeared, it linked with Ethan’s transparent lightning into a single oppressive field, prying the momentum back from the other side inch by inch.

Kaelthar looked at them and slowly raised a hand, his voice cold enough to frost steel.

"Today, we settle old debts and new—together."

Ethan’s face was full of disdain. He didn’t even bother with a bigger reaction.

"Fine."

The very next moment, Veyrakas moved first.

A streak of gold flared off him—not just brightness, but an aggressively expanding radiance. It erupted from his chest, shoulders, and arms, flooding the surrounding void with light until even the warship’s shadow was crushed into nothing.

At the same time, he crossed his arms in front of his chest. Golden light condensed before him, his presence climbing layer by layer as holy power rippled into visible rings around his body.

Almost in the same breath, Kaelthar attacked too.

He lifted a hand, and frigid air above his head gathered at high speed. It wasn’t a simple ice spike appearing from nowhere—cold power from the surroundings was dragged in, compressed, stretched, hardened, until a thick ice lance formed overhead.

Its surface was webbed with pale cracks, the tip gleaming with razor sharpness. The instant it finished forming, it shot straight at Ethan without a pause.

The strike was fast and direct. In its wake, the air left behind a whitened cut-line.

Ethan only raised his palm.

The moment his hand turned, a bright, thin filament of lightning slipped out from the center of his palm.

It started as a single thread—then the instant it left his hand, it stretched violently, carrying an intensely condensed piercing force as it met the ice lance head-on.

The collision happened in a blink.

The outcome came faster.

Crash—

The thick ice lance was punched clean through. Its internal structure blew apart at the contact point, and fractures raced across the entire length.

A heartbeat later, the whole lance shattered midair, exploding into countless ice-blue shards that got whipped around by the surrounding turbulence and flung off in chaotic directions.

Anya saw it clearly from the side.

She’d already recognized the powers they were using—holy light and freezing ice straight out of the Infernal Abyss.

That thought had barely landed when she moved.

Her arm snapped up. Bright red energy erupted from her palm with a shriek of electricity, blasting straight at Kaelthar.

Kaelthar raised a hand to defend immediately.

Ice-blue light gathered in front of him at speed, and a thick ice shield rose out of the void.

The shield’s face wasn’t smooth—it was built from layered compression of cold energy, stacked again and again, with frost-white streams constantly spilling off its edges.

Anya’s red lightning slammed into it. Red and blue detonated at the center, scattering a spray of energy fragments.

The two forces pushed against each other for a few seconds—then collapsed at the same time, dispersing into nothing in the void.