Ethan’s gaze swept over the distant fray where Victor and his team were still locked in combat with a seemingly endless tide of puppets. They weren’t in any real danger, but the onslaught was relentless. For every puppet destroyed, the parasitic thing controlling it would flee its host’s skull at incredible speed, only to find a new body. So far, only Victor and Lyla had managed to pin down and eliminate a few of the slippery creatures.
"Idiot," Ethan muttered, a smirk twisting his lips as he watched the new wave of lackeys Alaric had summoned surge toward him. "You think this rabble can stop ?"
The puppets, mindless and fearless, charged, brandishing their weapons.
WHOOSH... CRACK!
Ethan swung the Twilight War Spear in a wide, devastating arc. The air itself seed to tear, a crescent of energy erupting from the blade.
BOOM!
The leading dozen puppets were violently thrown backward, blood spraying from their mouths mid-air. Several others, caught directly by the spear’s keen edge, were cleanly severed in two.
From behind, Alaric, who had already nocked another arrow, watched Ethan’s aura suddenly skyrocket, a faint, towering phantom flickering into existence behind him. His eyes narrowed in confusion and alarm. ’How did this brat get so much stronger, so fast?’
He had no way of knowing that until this very mont, Ethan had been holding back, not using his transformation skills. Even Regis and the Dragon Child—the two most powerful beings in their group—had remained on the sidelines. The plan was to prevent Alaric from feeling cornered, from doing sothing desperate and harming Amber while she was still in his grasp.
But now, Amber was safe, whisked away by Astrid. The kid gloves were off.
Though, he had to admit, Astrid’s perfectly tid rescue wasn’t his doing. She’d been hiding on the back of one of the island’s native giant birds. He hadn’t planned that. It seed the woman was finally starting to think on her feet.
BOOM...! ROAR...!
The sounds of colossal impacts and draconic bellows echoed from another part of the island. Ethan knew what that ant. Regis and the Dragon Child had joined the fray. This was the second phase of the plan: once the hostage was secure, switch to overwhelming force and wipe this damned island off the map.
SWISH!
An arrow, imbued with cutting wind, shot toward his back.
"Trying that again?" Ethan snarled, cleaving through a puppet in front of him. His Soul Sense tracked the projectile perfectly. He started to turn to block it.
"I’ve got this!" a clear, lodic voice chirped from his back. It was Star.
Ethan hesitated for only a fraction of a second before trusting her.
Plink.
A single, shimring bubble floated from her lips. Alaric’s arrow slamd directly into it.
Ethan, watching through his Soul Sense, was dumbfounded. A bubble? She’s trying to stop a high-velocity arrow with a... bubble?
But in the next instant, the arrow seed to sink into a viscous, invisible mire. Its speed dropped to a crawl before it was slowly, completely enveloped by the iridescent sphere. Then... nothing. The bubble, with the arrow trapped inside, drifted gently away.
Ethan was shocked. That wasn’t a soap bubble; it was a sphere of hyper-dense, adhesive liquid.
Satisfied his back was covered, Ethan refocused. This Alaric avatar didn’t seem so terrifying now. Aside from his exceptional archery, what else did he have?
In rapid succession, Alaric let loose several more arrows. A volley of nine shots—a technique eerily similar to the ’Rapidfire Barrage’ skill from Ethereal—streaked toward him. Star intercepted every single one with her bubbles.
With a final, contemptuous glance, Ethan took a step forward and vanished, reappearing like a bolt of lightning in front of a flying mutant. The Twilight War Spear fell.
CRACK! SCHLICK!
The mutant, which had at least War God-rank strength, was cleaved in two, its weapon shattering. Blood rained down as the two halves of its body plumted, crashing through the canopy below and shaking the earth. A quick glance confird it had been a rhinoceros-based mutant, powerful enough to have ruled its own tribe out on the Sea of Death.
As he killed it, a strange thing happened. A surge of energy traveled up the shaft of the spear and flooded into his body.
"Huh? Consumption... is that you?" Ethan asked, noticing the anomaly.
"Waste not, want not," the voice of the Dragon of Consumption echoed in his mind, sounding almost smug.
The statent made Ethan’s eyes gleam. He was going to kill them all anyway. Might as well make the most of it.
"Whoa, shit!" The thought had barely ford when the Energy Core in his abdon stirred. The countless Seeds within it began to spin violently. The form of the Dragon of Consumption, residing within the sa space, was caught in the whirlpool, spinning wildly until it was nearly sick.
When he had subdued the Dragon of Consumption, Ethan had gained its innate ability. Now, he actively channeled that power. As his core spun like a vortex, the consuming force traveled through his veins and into the Twilight War Spear.
HUMmmmm...
The spear shuddered, its surface now sheathed in a dull, grey, devouring light.
SHING!
At that mont, the Dragon of Consumption shot out of his core. The odd, fish-like creature erged, its jaws wide as it let out a disoriented groan. It wobbled unsteadily, looking thoroughly drunk.
Ethan ignored it, his body accelerating once more as he plunged directly into the heart of the enemy horde.
He moved like a god of death descended. The power of Consumption, now fully unleashed, was far more efficient than any of his Druid abilities. Any creature—puppet or mutant—that was so much as grazed by his spear instantly disintegrated into dust. Their raw energy was siphoned away, channeled through the spear, and poured directly into Ethan’s body.
His current physique was still like a leaky bucket, unable to hold this foreign power. But the countless Seeds within his core could. They hungrily absorbed the torrent of energy.
He couldn’t yet command the power stored within these Seeds, but he felt a deep certainty: once they reached saturation, a profound tamorphosis would occur. Why else would the dying Tree of Life have implanted them within him? The ancient entity wouldn’t have bothered with sothing useless.
For the first ti, the spinning Seeds, which had lain dormant for so long, were being nourished. Like parched earth finally receiving rain, they drank deeply, their surfaces beginning to gleam with a faint, internal light.
...
In a distant, chaotic realm of swirling void, an old man and a young boy stood, their gazes piercing through the veils of reality itself, fixed upon the scene.
"Tsk, tsk... Such a violation of the natural order," the young boy said, his voice paradoxically ancient and weary. "He consus it all for himself, leaving nothing behind. I fear Earth will have no next epoch. Even if it does... the energy that rightfully belongs to that world cannot be returned upon the death of its creatures. It will never again birth a Mythic Age."
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