Without turning around, Ethan spoke—his words still landing clearly in Andona’s ears.

"You can’t overpower him head-on right now. Go help me—take down those mortal ships up there."

Andona didn’t argue.

She glanced at the shark phantom Ethan had pinned in place, then gave a hard nod.

Her golden wings snapped once.

She turned into a streak of gold and shot into the sky, diving straight for the enemy fleet.

Emerald Castle’s army had been itching for this.

The moment Andona rose, the gunports on the Sky Fortresses lit up in unison. The energy cores on the Powered Combat Armor flared like a chain of ignited stars.

Warriors roared and unleashed everything they had, charging straight into the enemy fleet.

The battle went white-hot from the first second.

Both sides brought their weapons online almost simultaneously.

Energy beams crossed and crashed in the sky. Warship shields shuddered under impact. Volleys of fire hammered into formations, one wave after another.

Emerald Castle’s Sky Fortresses traded direct broadsides with the enemy ships. Angel light, transparent lightning, dimensional energy, and layered beams exploded together overhead, turning the air into a storm of glare and debris.

Bodies started falling—fast.

But many of them never even reached the ground.

Some were torn apart by the crossfire, others shredded by the violent turbulence saturating the battlefield. The weapons were too dense, the energies too savage—so savage that even after death, the remains couldn’t fall intact before they were erased into nothing.

Ethan’s attention never left the massive figure in front of him.

Cold-eyed, he opened the system and scanned the enemy’s status panel.

[Name: Malzorath]

[Title: Void Tyrant]

[Spell Power: Baldoran Riftforce]

...

The data populated rapidly.

Ethan skimmed it once, then locked onto Malzorath’s chest.

A blood-red energy gemstone was embedded there.

Every time Malzorath drew on his power, that gemstone lit first—then distributed energy into his limbs and attacks. No question. That was his core.

Strong.

But not flawless.

The system flagged a tiny interval.

Every time the blood-red core finished charging and prepared to release the next wave of power, there was a 0.3-second gap.

During that window, the defenses around his chest went paper-thin—so thin there was barely any energy fluctuation at all.

If Ethan could seize that opening, he could end this fast.

He adjusted his breathing and spread his arms.

Power rushed toward him from every direction. The Primordial Force in the ruins stirred like an awakened tide, streaming along cracks in the ground, through tatters of cloud, through broken space itself. It fused with Ethan’s transparent lightning—and then expanded outward again, layer after layer.

For that moment, Ethan stood in the high air like the core of Elysion’s remaining will.

Malzorath felt it, too.

The contempt on his face finally dulled. He lifted a hand and gave it a casual shake. Violent energy rolled off him immediately—and the blood-red gemstone in his chest lit in response.

"I didn’t expect it," he said, his voice pressing down hard enough to drown out the battlefield’s roar, arrogance cutting like ice. "A bug from a low-tier Plane World... actually able to control the power of this heaven and earth."

He stared Ethan down, cruelly certain.

"But this power isn’t yours to use."

Blood-red light burst from his chest, spinning and compressing in the sky until it formed a massive Energy Disc.

Its rim gleamed with razor brightness. As it rotated, it screamed through the air, slicing a perfectly straight裂 line through space in its wake.

It shot straight for Ethan.

The intent was obvious—cut him in half.

But just as the disc reached him, its speed abruptly dropped.

It wasn’t shattered.

It wasn’t knocked aside.

It was like it had slammed into invisible mud.

The world’s gathered power dragged at it from all directions, forcing it to slow to a crawl.

The disc’s edge ground against that pressure, throwing off a chain of sparks—yet no matter how it shrieked and spun, it couldn’t push forward even an inch more.

A trace of contempt touched Ethan’s face.

He extended a single finger and tapped—lightly.

Humm. Humm. Humm.

Countless streams of Primordial Core power surged in from every direction, fusing instantly with his transparent lightning.

This time it wasn’t a shield.

It became layered force fields that squeezed inward—closing around Malzorath from all sides in the span of a blink.

"And what exactly are you," Ethan’s voice rang out across heaven and earth, "to tell me I’m not worthy?"

"Today, I’ll let you see what real power actually is."

The pressure kept rising, wave after wave, until Malzorath was pinned at the center like a bug under glass.

Energy in the space between sky and ground climbed higher and higher. The surrounding area destabilized. A deep, rolling roar echoed from both the heavens and the earth, and dense cracks spiderwebbed into existence around Malzorath.

For the first time, fear broke across Malzorath’s face.

He hadn’t expected Ethan’s control over this world’s power to reach this level.

This wasn’t "borrowing" Elysion.

It was like the entire realm was cooperating with Ethan, locking an outsider down at the center and crushing him in place.

At that point, Malzorath stopped holding anything back.

He yanked out two blood-red gemstones and hurled them hard.

The moment they left his hand, the power sealed inside them detonated fully—Primordial Core energy from his own plane, by the feel of it. As it exploded, it formed two blood-red shock masses that slammed straight into Ethan’s force fields.

BOOM!

Cracks ripped across Ethan’s force field in a spiderweb.

But they were only cracks.

Under Ethan’s control, surrounding Primordial Force flooded in to fill the gaps. Transparent lightning swept along the fracture lines, and the damage repaired itself in an instant.

Malzorath’s pupils contracted.

His aura had visibly weakened from that burst.

He dragged in a few harsh breaths, then reached for more gemstones—several, in different colors—ready to throw them next. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

But the moment his hand lifted—

Ethan was already in front of him.

Close enough that Malzorath could see the cold in Ethan’s eyes like a blade.

"Stop struggling," Ethan said flatly.

"This world’s Primordial Force has been mine for a long time."

He raised a finger.

"Crushing you..." His tone didn’t change. "...is the same as crushing an ant."

It looked like nothing—just a casual, lazy point.

But when that finger came down, every surrounding force converged at once.

Primordial Force. Transparent lightning. The leftover origin resonance of this ruined world—

—all of it slammed into Malzorath together.

It was like an invisible cage snapping shut, wrapping his body tight and locking him in place.