Ethan approached at an unhurried pace.

He lifted a finger and tapped the Stone Golem on the forehead.

"I’ll give you a chance to live," he said evenly. "Tell me what civilization you’re from—and how you found this place."

The golem was already scared out of its mind.

It didn’t dare hold anything back. From its ruined hand, it shakily pulled out a sapphire-blue orb.

The moment the orb appeared, complex light patterns lit across its surface. A second later, it projected a floating three-dimensional map in midair.

A vast world unfolded in front of Ethan.

Ethan’s eyes locked onto it—and brightened instantly.

Even from this map alone, that world was loaded with insanely rich mineral resources.

Massive energy-ore veins. Special geological layers. Resource nodes in the core regions—everything was marked clearly. If he could take it all, Emerald Castle would climb another whole level.

The Stone Golem trembled harder, its ruined face full of pleading.

"This... this is my world. And the route map to get there."

"Please... please spare me..."

Ethan didn’t respond.

The finger pressed to its forehead suddenly tightened.

Transparent lightning flooded into the Stone Golem’s body in an instant, erupting through cracked stone and the exposed energy core at full force.

In the next second, what was left of the golem was blown into gravel-fine debris—

—and even its core shattered completely inside the thunderlight.

"A new world," Ethan murmured.

Then his gaze dropped to the Sharkman on the ground.

This thing’s vitality was absurd. Even with its body split in half and its flesh mangled beyond recognition, a strange power still flowed inside it—slowly trying to stitch the severed torso back together.

A cold flash of killing intent crossed Ethan’s eyes.

He raised his palm and pressed downward.

Residual power in the area gathered instantly, forming countless sharp spikes of energy that stabbed in from every direction. They pierced the Sharkman’s shoulders, chest, abdomen, limbs—nailing it to the ruins so hard it couldn’t even twitch.

In a blink, it looked like a living pincushion.

Right then, the spatial passage in the distance flared with blinding light.

One Sky Fortress after another slowly sailed out of the tunnel, enormous hulls hovering above Elysion.

Behind them, Emerald Castle’s main force arrived in waves. Warriors formed up in the sky, and the glow of Powered Combat Armor lit up huge stretches of ruins.

"Ethan!"

Anya rushed over first, worry written all over her face.

"I felt something really abnormal in this world just now! But you were moving too fast—I didn’t even have a chance to warn you."

Ethan lifted a hand and ruffled her hair, his tone easing a notch.

"I’m fine."

He glanced at the Sharkman pinned to the rubble, then at the Stone Golem reduced to dust. His expression went flat again.

"Just ran into a couple of trash-tier rats."

The words had barely left his mouth when the sky around them suddenly shook.

Dimensional spaces opened one after another—rifts blooming in rapid succession. Violent pressure poured out from deep within the cracks.

Then ships started dropping out.

A lot of them.

Their hulls rolled over the ruins, dragging heavy energy fluctuations through the air.

The power radiating off those ships—and the emblems carved along their frames—weren’t Emerald Castle’s.

Worse... the aura they carried was extremely similar to the Sharkman and the Stone Golem from earlier.

Ethan’s expression tightened with immediate caution.

"All units—combat readiness."

The order went out, and Emerald Castle moved as one. The Sky Fortresses adjusted their gunports. The fighters spread into formation. Layers of Powered Combat Armor lit up in sequence, and every weapon swung to lock onto the newly arrived ships.

But Ethan himself wasn’t in great shape.

He’d just come out of a brutal fight, and his energy reserves had taken a real hit.

More importantly, he’d already been forced to解除 his merged state with Lily. Lily had fallen back into sleep inside him, and Auri, Idra, and Nysera—drained to empty—had returned to the mines beneath Emerald Castle’s main city to recover.

Meaning: right now, the only thing Ethan could truly rely on... was his own power.

In the blink of an eye, the enemy fleet pressed in.

From the lead battleship, a massive figure slowly floated out and stopped high in the air. It looked down over Elysion’s shattered land, then swept its gaze across Emerald Castle’s army, arrogance dripping from its voice.

"What a beautiful place."

"The core energy is actually this abundant."

It deliberately amplified its voice across heaven and earth, each word landing with heavy, crushing force.

"Too bad it got snatched first... by a bunch of trash from a low-tier Plane World."

The moment it said that, rage rippled through Emerald Castle’s lines.

Andona was the first to rise.

Her angel wings spread fully behind her, golden brilliance rolling off every feather. The aura of the Angel King burst outward, lighting up a whole stretch of sky.

"You’ve got a filthy mouth," Andona shot back.

She raised her Angelic Sword, her voice cold and domineering.

"Go ahead. Tell me how you want to die."

For a split second, the huge figure actually paused.

Only for a split second.

To it—and to the enemy fleet—Andona’s threat was a joke.

The giant threw its head back and laughed, then reached to its chest and pulled out a blue gemstone. Its fingers tightened, and it crushed the gem outright.

Crack!

The instant it shattered, violent energy surged out.

Deep blue light condensed in midair, taking shape in a heartbeat—forming a gigantic shark phantom. The phantom opened a blood-soaked maw and lunged at Andona, pressure crashing forward like a tide.

The energy inside it was unnervingly complex.

There was powerful dimensional force—sure—

—but mixed into it was something new, something twisted. It didn’t just slam into flesh. It felt like it could stain energy itself. Wherever it swept, even the light in the air dulled, turning dark and heavy.

Andona carried the supreme aura of the Angel King—

but against this... she was still short.

Ethan drew in a slow, hard breath.

The shark phantom was already on Andona. Deep blue dimensional power churned inside it, and that strange force spread outward along its teeth and fin-like blades.

The light on Andona’s angel wings dimmed a fraction under the pressure. Her Angelic Sword had only just started to rise when the space around her was already torn into rings of dark ripples.

Ethan became a streak of transparent lightning and shot in.

He landed in front of Andona and raised a palm.

Elysion’s remaining Primordial Force. The origin energy buried in the ruins. And Ethan’s own transparent lightning—

—all of it poured toward his hand like a tide.

A thick energy barrier unfolded in front of him.

The shark phantom slammed into it.

BOOM!

Deep blue light and transparent lightning detonated together. The barrier caved inward in a massive dent, sparks snapping along the rim as it fought to hold.

The phantom opened its jaws and tried to bite through—dimensional energy drilling for a path inside—

but Ethan forced it back, grinding it down with sheer will.

A few breaths later, the phantom was finally stalled outside the barrier, unable to push forward another inch.