Ethan couldn’t hold back his excitement anymore.

He didn’t waste time. He immediately brought the group to the old passage they’d opened earlier and had them release their energy again.

They didn’t dare hesitate. One after another, they raised their hands and poured their void energy into the old tunnel.

Dense dimensional power spread out. Ash-gray light raced along the passage’s edges, wrapping the unstable spatial structure completely.

Then the interior started to rebuild itself.

The torn edges of space were pulled straight again. Twisted nodes were repaired one by one. Under the push of void energy, the narrow, shaky corridor widened continuously.

Deep inside, those dimensional storms that used to flicker in and out were suppressed layer by layer—until they vanished entirely.

Before long, the entire spatial passage wasn’t just stable.

It was dozens of times wider.

Now it could handle a large fleet passing through in a single go.

Ethan didn’t bother with any other details.

He activated his Powered Combat Armor. Transparent lightning wrapped his body, and he became a streak of light as he shot into the tunnel.

Space slid past him, retreating on both sides, so stable he barely felt any turbulence at all.

In the blink of an eye, he arrived in Elysion.

The moment he stepped out, the sight in front of him made him pause.

This place was already a wreck.

Ruins covered the ground. Broken buildings had collapsed into fields of debris. The camp they’d struggled to rebuild was in shambles—torn apart, chaotic, half-dead.

Tents had been shredded. Defensive structures leaned and collapsed. The earth was split with cracks, scorched everywhere with the marks of energy burns.

It looked like after Elysion’s Overlord fell, this world had lost its basic framework.

The whole realm was collapsing.

And yet... the energy here was still thick.

Especially at the center.

There, the Primordial Force wasn’t just scattered through the sky and land anymore—it had condensed into a massive pillar of light, blasting straight up into the heavens.

Ethan’s breathing turned sharp.

He blurred forward and stepped directly into that pillar.

The instant he entered, Primordial Core energy pressed down on him from all sides.

Ethan released his own power immediately, letting it touch, mesh, and fuse with the force inside the column.

Transparent lightning spread out of him and ran along the pillar in every direction. In a heartbeat, domineering pressure swept the surrounding area.

Cracks spiderwebbed through nearby space.

He was just about to start drawing the energy in—

when a heavy rumble rolled from the ruins not far away.

Rumble—!

Stones tumbled. Collapsed wreckage heaved upward from inside. The next moment, a gigantic Stone Golem pushed out of the rubble.

Its huge body was made of thick, layered rock. Dark red light leaked from the seams, and its eyes looked like two fires trapped behind a stone shell—anger compressed until it burned.

"WHO—"

The Stone Golem’s voice shook the ruins hard enough to make more debris rain down.

"—dares come here to steal my power?!"

Ethan’s gaze sank.

Last time, he’d clearly taken all the native residents away. He hadn’t expected anything living to still be here.

But then he noticed what felt off.

The Stone Golem’s aura didn’t match Elysion at all. Its energy fluctuations were heavy and violent, and there was a clear "foreign-plane" imprint to it—like it didn’t belong to this world in the first place.

This thing wasn’t native.

Ethan’s voice cut cold.

"And what the hell are you?"

Transparent lightning was already gathering in his palm, tightening into shape.

"You’ve got some nerve showing up here."

The clear arcs compressed fast, forming a huge sphere of energy in his hand. Lightning snapped across its surface. Inside, the power was squeezed to the brink—ready to be fired at any moment.

The Stone Golem threw its head back and burst into wild laughter, contempt blazing in its eyes.

It lifted a massive palm and slammed it into its own chest.

Cracks split across its rocky torso. Then it reached inside—like it was digging into its own ribcage—and tore out a blood-red gemstone, gripping it in its hand.

"You’re not even qualified to ask who I am!"

The instant that red gem appeared, a wave of annihilating energy rolled out of it.

Blood-colored light flooded the world. The air above the ruins thickened like it had been pressed under a heavy red fog. Even that pillar of Primordial Force trembled faintly under the weight.

Ethan’s pupils widened. He pulled back a step.

Then he hurled the lightning sphere in his hand.

At the same time, the Stone Golem smashed its blood-red energy mass forward.

The two forces met head-on in midair.

Hummm—

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Explosions chained together, shaking heaven and earth.

Transparent lightning and blood-red energy tore at each other in a violent grind. Shockwaves swept the ruins, flinging already-collapsed wreckage clean into the air. Cracks raced across the ground, splitting outward until they vanished at the edge of Ethan’s vision.

A flicker of surprise crossed Ethan’s eyes.

This Stone Golem—this thing that had crawled out of nowhere—was stronger than he’d expected.

He opened the system immediately and scanned its status panel.

Data flickered rapidly.

Then Ethan’s gaze locked onto the golem’s shoulder.

There was a hairline fracture there—so subtle it was almost invisible, hidden inside the natural stone纹. But every time the golem gathered power, that fracture leaked a thin thread of extra energy, like a damaged container that couldn’t fully hold in its internal pressure.

A weakness.

Found.

Ethan didn’t hesitate.

His figure blurred as he shot forward.

Transparent lightning gathered along his arm and packed into his fist. His punch dragged a blazing streak of electricity through the air as it hammered straight into the crack on the Stone Golem’s shoulder.

BOOM!

Violent energy detonated at the impact point.

The Stone Golem’s huge body staggered back dozens of steps. Shards of stone blasted outward around the shoulder fracture, and dark red energy sprayed from inside.

Before it could stabilize, Ethan had already slipped around behind it, swinging another punch down.

The Stone Golem’s mind jolted.

It hadn’t expected Ethan to lock onto its weakness that fast—much less execute a rush, land the hit, and reposition behind it in a single breath. That kind of judgment and reaction speed made true wariness bloom for the first time.

At this point, it didn’t dare be careless anymore.

The Stone Golem immediately pulled two blue gemstones from its waist and slammed them into its chest.

The moment the blue gems embedded into its rocky body, a strange energy spread out from inside it, rapidly forming a thick barrier.

The shield took on a deep-blue-and-ash-gray color, flowing tight against its surface like a compressed shell of the world itself.