The frozen singularity hung in the air like a cracked obsidian marble, trembling under the sheer weight of Ethan’s spiritual pressure. The Patriarch of Celestial, now little more than a pile of scorched nerves and bone, could only stare in paralyzed horror as Ethan’s face began to betray the cost of his defiance.

Ethan’s amethyst eyes bled into a deep, visceral crimson. Thick drops of blood began to leak from his nostrils and the corners of his mouth, staining his chin. The world itself seemed to groan. High above the clouds, the invisible matrix that governed the laws of the "world" began to hum, exerting a crushing gravitational force downward. It sensed an anomaly—a power that didn’t belong in this place and was trying to snuff it out.

"Everything in this universe occupies a place in space," Ethan growled, his voice sounding like grinding metal. "And if it has a place... it can be unmade."

The pressure from the world’s suppression matrix felt like a mountain pressing on his shoulders, forcing him to his knees, but Ethan didn’t buckle. He funneled every ounce of his Spirit Core’s energy into his fingertips, reaching out toward the frozen black hole.

"SPACE FRACTURE!"

The air didn’t just vibrate; it snapped.

The singularity, once a perfect sphere of devouring darkness, suddenly looked like a shattered mirror. Jagged lines of white light cut through the black void, fragmenting it into a million jagged pieces. For a heartbeat, there was a terrifying, absolute silence.

Then, the world exploded.

BOOM!

The collapse of the singularity released a shockwave of raw, unrefined mana that leveled the surrounding terrain. The crimson dome shattered into a billion glittering shards of rotted energy. A pillar of black-and-violet fire erupted into the sky, tall enough to be seen from the coast. The wind became a scythe, tearing up the road and tossing the remaining armored trucks like dry leaves.

The Patriarch didn’t even have time to scream. The fragmentation caught him first, his molecular structure being pulled in a thousand different directions until he was nothing but a fine mist of atoms lost in the gale.

When the dust finally began to settle, a massive crater three hundred meters wide lay where the center of the convoy had been. In the very middle of the smoldering pit, Ethan stood alone. His clothes were shredded, his skin was covered in weeping cracks of light, and the ground beneath his feet had been turned into glass by the heat.

He gasped for air, each breath a struggle against the crushing weight of the world’s laws that were still trying to pin him down.

"Crul..." Ethan rasped, his voice barely a whisper. "The targets... did they escape?"

[[ The two Taoist signatures are moving at Mach 2 toward the North-East, Master, ]] Crul’s voice replied, her tone uncharacteristically somber. [[ But you are at 4% spiritual capacity. Your body is nearing a total system collapse. ]]

Ethan wiped the blood from his lips, a dark, predatory light returning to his eyes. "Mach 2? They aren’t fast enough."

Ethan stumbled in the center of the glass crater, his vision swimming. He reached into his belt and pulled out a high-grade health potion, the liquid a glowing, thick crimson. He downed it in a single gulp. The stinging gashes across his skin began to close, and the internal bleeding in his lungs subsided, but his spiritual sea remained a shallow, murky pool. The mana was returning far too slowly to use high-tier spells.

"I don’t need magic to kill rats," Ethan hissed. 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

He didn’t wait for his energy to refill. He crouched, his leg muscles bulging like coiled steel springs, and launched himself toward the North-East. A sonic boom echoed through the crater as he tore across the landscape on foot, his physical speed alone creating a vacuum that kicked up a wall of sand behind him.

Meanwhile, miles away, the two Taoist practitioners were pushing their flight talismans to the breaking point. One of them pulled a cellphone from his sleeve, his hands shaking so violently he nearly dropped it.

"Connecting... connect now!" he screamed.

The tablet flickered, and a projection of an ancient, withered man with hair as white as snow and eyes like cold marble appeared. The pressure coming from the image alone was enough to make the air around the fliers heavy.

"Ancestor! Ancestor, please! The convoy... the Patriarch... he’s gone!"

The Ancestor’s eyes narrowed, a look of profound disbelief crossing his face. "Nonsense. My son is a peak Spirit Gathering master with the heritage of the stars. He would not fall to a mere upstart like Ethan so easily. You are fleeing like cowards; I should execute you myself for such lies."

"No, Master! You don’t understand!" the second Taoist wailed, looking back at the horizon where a streak of dust was rapidly closing in on them. "The Patriarch... he pulled the Black Talisman! He ripped the Heart-Seal from his own chest! He used the Blood Sacrifice!"

The Ancestor’s expression froze. The air in the room behind the projection shattered, the stone walls cracking under his sudden, uncontrollable surge of power. The Heart-Seal was the most guarded secret of the Celestial lineage—a final, suicidal trump card that could only be accessed by a direct descendant in a moment of absolute despair.

"He used... the Seal?" the Ancestor’s voice was a low, terrifying whisper.

"Yes! He stayed behind to buy us time to warn you! Ethan is not a man, he is a—"

BOOM!

A massive shockwave cut the transmission short. The two Taoists looked down in terror. Below them, a figure was running across the desert floor at Mach speeds, leaping over hills and shattering boulders in his path.

Ethan looked up, his eyes locking onto theirs with the cold promise of the grave. He didn’t need a spear; he reached down, grabbed a jagged rock the size of a man’s head, and infused it with the tiny remainder of his lightning.

"Ancestor!" the Taoist screamed into the cellphone one last time. "He’s here! He’s—!"

Ethan threw the rock.