Korvath’s expression shifted a few times.

He still didn’t fully trust Ethan, but the blood spilling on the distant battlefield was proof enough. Emerald Castle’s charge wasn’t holding back, and the old man’s army, shocked and furious, struck back immediately.

The first time the two sides slammed together, dozens of bodies dropped from the sky.

That wasn’t acting.

Korvath didn’t hesitate any longer. He turned and barked orders into the city.

A gap opened in the city’s protective barrier, and the garrison surged out. Warriors who’d been stationed on the walls leapt down from above, energy weapons flaring one after another, following Korvath as they carved into the battlefield from the other side.

The moment Korvath’s people joined, the balance tipped completely.

Emerald Castle pressed head-on. Korvath’s troops ripped the line from the flank. Together, the two forces closed like iron jaws, clamping down hard on the old man’s army.

The blood-crystal battle formation was punched through again and again. The soldiers maintaining the spatial corridor were prioritized and cut down first by the Fallen Star Guard.

Only then did the old man realize he’d been set up—and turned inside out.

He glared at Ethan in the distance. The blood-red gem in his forehead flickered bright, then dim, then bright again. Rage and fear twisted together on his face until it almost stopped looking human.

"Lord!"

His voice turned sharp as it sliced across the battlefield.

"What is this supposed to mean? Didn’t we agree to join forces and deal with this city? How can you go back on your word?" 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

Ethan gave a cold snort.

He didn’t bother explaining.

His body suddenly came apart in midair—flesh, lightning, and energy shattering into countless black particles. They were light as dust, but they didn’t drift with the wind. They cut straight through the chaos of the battlefield and vanished into the air.

The old man’s face drained. He threw up a blood-red barrier with a panicked sweep of his hand.

Too late.

Black particles poured in from every direction, burrowing into his body—through skin, muscle, and bone—straight for his energy core and his brain. The old man’s body jolted violently. His raised hand froze in midair, and the bloody light in his eyes was swallowed under a layer of darkness.

His body had been taken.

Worse than that—his thoughts were being invaded too.

A cold voice sounded from the deepest part of his consciousness, like something crawling up from the bottom of the Inferno.

"I just wanted to see what kind of scheme an old bastard like you was cooking up."

The old man’s pupils contracted, but he couldn’t move.

Ethan’s voice kept pressing down inside his skull.

"You really think I didn’t have a way to get the information on those mines?"

"Everything in your head belongs to me now."

The old man’s mental defenses collapsed.

He tried to lock down his memories. He tried to detonate the blood-red gem in his forehead. He tried to drag Ethan into death with him by burning out his own mind.

But the black particles had already seized the critical points. Every bit of resistance was smothered, inch by inch. The map in his head—the mine locations, Morgrath’s route, the real entrances to those two mining zones—was ripped out by force.

Above the battlefield, the world’s energy grew even more violent.

The slaughter didn’t slow. The glow of blood-red crystals was shattered in sheets under Emerald Castle’s firepower. Spatial rifts kept tearing open at the edges of the fight, only to be slammed shut again by defensive arrays, forced back into nothing.

Korvath personally led the push on the flank, cutting off enemy counterattacks again and again until the old man’s army lost any chance to regroup.

Emerald Castle never gave up the advantage.

The old man’s troops were forced back step by step, until their lines finally collapsed into scattered stragglers.

And the old man himself... hit his limit.

The body occupied by those black particles began to come apart. First an arm split open at the shoulder. Then his chest caved in. The blood-red gem in his forehead shattered from an internal shock. Tiny cracks crawled across his skin like a spreading web, and finally his entire body burst into a cloud of blood mist in midair.

The mist didn’t get far before bone-white lightning burned it dry.

Ethan’s body re-formed in the sky.

Black particles snapped back into place one by one, becoming his arms, his chest, his face, his eyes. When he fully returned to human shape, a white gem had appeared in his forehead.

It wasn’t dazzling, but it carried the most crucial energy imprint from the old man’s memories.

Ethan lifted his head toward the battlefield, his voice rolling across the formations.

"Finish the leftovers. Now."

He paused, excitement flashing in his eyes.

"Next, we go to Morgrath."

Nobody in Emerald Castle actually knew what Morgrath was.

But Ethan’s tone made it clear it was worth marching for.

Almost at the same moment, the army’s momentum climbed again.

Powered Combat Armor units compressed their core output and surged forward. The Fallen Star Guard plunged into the fleeing remnants. Korvath’s people kept up the chase from the flank. Before long, the old man’s army was wiped clean.

The plain was left with nothing but corpses, shattered crystals, and energy turbulence slowly bleeding away.

Ethan didn’t linger.

He raised a hand and tore open a spatial passage, ready to take the Emerald Castle army straight to Morgrath. The coordinates pulled from the white gem’s memory were already clear enough. He had no intention of wasting time.

But just as he was about to step in, Korvath moved to block him.

"Wait."

Korvath looked at Ethan, more serious than Ethan had seen him yet.

"Do you even know what Morgrath is before you drag an army in there?"

Ethan lifted an eyebrow.

"I don’t care what it is."

He said it plainly.

"I only know it has endless minerals. I’m taking it."

Korvath stared at him. He tried to speak a few times, then swallowed it back down.

He’d already seen how Ethan did things.

Trying to talk him out of it would be pointless.

Korvath pulled a small token from his clothes and held it out to Ethan. It wasn’t big. The surface was carved with the city’s pattern, and inside it a stable spatial coordinate flowed slowly, steady as a heartbeat.

"The minerals there really are insanely rich," Korvath said, voice lowered.

"But it’s also a bottomless inferno. If you run into danger, don’t stay. Leave as early as you can."

He pressed the token into Ethan’s hand.

"This can open a spatial passage instantly—straight back to my city."

Ethan took the token and glanced at Korvath.

He didn’t say thank you. He just lifted a hand and gave Korvath a pat on the shoulder.

It wasn’t hard, but it still made Korvath freeze for a second.

Then Ethan turned and stepped into the spatial passage.

The Emerald Castle army followed, a vast column pouring into the light.

Feylora, the Fallen Star Guard, the Powered Combat Armor legion, and the mobile arrays carrying the Creature Dwellings vanished one after another into the glow.

Not long after, the far end of the passage opened.

They arrived between a range of endless mountains.

Morgrath.

The sky here hung lower than the world outside, clouds so heavy they looked like they were pressing down on the peaks. Ridge after ridge rolled into the distance, and mineral light flickered everywhere along the cliff faces.

Energy saturated the air—so dense you barely had to try. Just reaching up and grabbing at the sky left tiny crystal sparks in your palm, seeping through your skin and into your body.

The moment many Emerald Castle soldiers stepped out of the corridor, their auras wavered.

Some fighters who’d been stuck at bottlenecks for ages felt their internal power start to circulate on its own.