Ethan didn't waste another word.
He stepped into the middle of everyone, raised a hand, and let his gaze sweep across each face in turn.
The people standing here now weren't just the original expeditionary force that had barged into Elysion. Fairy, Ravenkin, Stone Golems—and the native inhabitants they'd just freed from captivity—were all gathered at the sa convergence of energy veins. Their auras answered each other like overlapping pulses, pressing the air until it faintly trembled.
"We've finished most of the prep," Ethan said. His voice wasn't loud, but it landed clearly in every ear. "We can't keep dragging this out."
His fingers slowly curled into a fist, his tone dropping with them.
"We end Zyraeth and his pack of dogs—and we do it fast."
The mont he said it, the atmosphere snapped like soone had thrown a torch into oil.
Power rose from the crowd in surging waves.
The crystal on a Fairy's forehead lit up. Black and dark-red energy churned around the Ravenkin. The gems embedded across the Stone Golems' bodies glowed one after another with a low, heavy light.
Even the natives who'd only just gotten their freedom back had sothing fierce in their eyes now—war intent they couldn't hide even if they tried.
Ethan watched it, then nodded once.
And then he didn't linger. He led them out, a rolling mass, leaving the altar zone behind.
…
At the sa ti—
In the deepest, most central region of Elysion, Zyraeth stood in the middle of a massive magic array.
The formation covered the entire ground. Layer upon layer of interlocking lines nested into each other like a web laid long in advance, yanking all surrounding energy inward with rciless force.
Core power stread in from every direction, flowing along the array's channels and pouring into Zyraeth's body, draping the world in a heavy, eerie glow.
As the energy kept flooding him, his presence climbed—higher, higher.
Before long, a suit of bizarre armor began to take shape across his skin. It wasn't forged tal. It looked like condensed core energy and rune-structure compressed into plate.
Piece by piece, it locked into place. Every segnt was carved with strange symbols, and every single rune radiated a violently unstable power that made the air prickle.
And it wasn't just him.
The subordinates standing around the array were entering the sa state.
One after another, they were wrapped in powerful armor of their own, plates crawling with dense rune power. They'd been strong already—now, with core energy forcibly jacking them upward, their collective aura transford completely.
Before, they'd been elites.
Now they looked like a true core legion—ard to the teeth.
Not long after, Zyraeth slowly straightened.
The instant he rose, violent energy erupted off him, hamring the space so hard the world itself seed to hum.
The array beneath his feet spun up even harder under that force. Even the sky farther out rippled with broad waves of energy.
"Those outsiders," Zyraeth said, lifting his head. His voice was cold, heavy with pressure. "They want to steal our authority and our power."
He raised a hand and pointed outward.
"We will not let them."
Then his voice spiked.
"Now co with —go out there and wipe them all out!"
Everyone present answered in a single roar.
The sound stacked and rolled, surging through the ruins and along the energy veins, carrying far beyond the center.
A heartbeat later, the army advanced. Following Zyraeth, they poured out of the core region and pressed toward the outer battlefield.
It didn't take long before the two forces finally slamd into each other head-on across a vast, empty plain.
No walls. No mountains. Just open ground stretching to the horizon.
And that lack of cover only made the slaughter feel more naked. The mont the formations saw each other, there was no buffer, no probing—just impact. They crashed together almost imdiately.
In the next second, the entire plain boiled over.
Everyone was pushing their power to the limit.
Shipborne fire. Rune bombardnts. The natives' charging lines. Fairy and Ravenkin suppression from above. Stone Golems driving forward with a weight that felt almost like a rolling execution.
Impacts, explosions, screams, and the sound of the ground tearing apart piled into one another until the sky and earth shook without pause.
This wasn't testing the waters.
This was kill-or-die.
And in the center of that near-uncontrolled battlefield, Zyraeth's eyes never left Ethan.
He understood perfectly: this man was the real core of the war.
Kill Ethan, and Erald Castle's edge would snap in half.
Zyraeth's power rose—he was about to move personally—
When Ethan suddenly stepped back.
Not retreating.
Making room.
In the next instant, an aura even heavier—older, deeper, and more suffocating—rose slowly behind him.
Valtheron walked out.
With every step he took, the surrounding Primordial Force shuddered in response.
Violent energy spilled off him, climbing into the sky and rapidly condensing into massive spheres of power. They hung above his head as if an invisible hand was holding them steady, and the sight alone carried a crushing, brutal pressure.
"Zyraeth."
When Valtheron spoke, his tone was calm—yet heavier than any roar.
"I never thought you'd still be alive, you old fox."
He lifted his eyes, locking fully onto him.
"Good. That ans I can finally settle our old score properly."
The instant those words left his mouth, Zyraeth's expression snapped.
His whole body went rigid for a beat, and for the first ti, sothing slipped through his eyes that he couldn't smother—raw shock. Because he genuinely hadn't believed Ethan would actually get Valtheron out.
Back then, to seal this man away, Zyraeth had burned through who knew how much manpower and resources. He'd used all kinds of rare, specialized materials just to forge those dozens of iron chains made for one purpose: to suppress Valtheron.
And now all of it had been broken.
Zyraeth's breathing sank, heavy and tight.
But he recovered fast.
The next second, he pulled a golden gem from his body, flooded it with power like he was trying to crack it open from the inside, then whipped his arm and hurled it into the sky.
The mont it left his hand, the Primordial Core power of the entire world seed to jerk, like sothing had yanked on its spine.
Core energy that had been scattered through heaven and earth rushed toward the gem, stacking layer after layer, denser and thicker as it compressed.
Before long, the golden gem wasn't just a gem anymore.
It expanded in midair, reshaping—until it beca a gigantic Stone Golem.
And this thing was nothing like an ordinary Stone Golem.
It wasn't stitched together from rock and ore veins. It looked like it had been condensed straight out of the purest Primordial Core power this world possessed.
The instant it finished forming, a heaven-destroying aura rolled off it. Even without attacking, the surrounding space started to fail under the pressure.
When it slowly raised a hand, everything around it changed.
The energy currents in the sky began to tilt out of balance. The plain below split apart in cascading fractures.
Farther out, dense cracks blood through the space itself, one after another—like the entire world was being forcibly torn open by this giant's presence.
But Valtheron just stood there, utterly composed.
To him, it wasn't a real threat.
In the next instant, he only lifted a finger.
The surrounding energy moved like a tide surging in all at once. Not scattered. Not piece by piece. An entire region's worth of Primordial Force bent toward his will, and in the blink of an eye it wrapped that Stone Golem completely.
"Zyraeth."
Valtheron's voice stayed calm, but it pressed down hard enough that people couldn't help glancing over.
"You really think making sothing this third-rate is enough to beat ?"
He raised his hand, fingers drawing in slightly.
"It won't be long before I make you end up just like this thing—shattered to pieces."
The mont he finished speaking, Valtheron's power erupted.
There was no flashy transformation, no elaborate shape—just pure, tyrannical force pushing forward.
The next second, the Stone Golem that had only just taken form—
Was crushed into fragnts.
Not smashed.
Crushed.
Its enormous body twisted and collapsed in midair, compressing violently before bursting apart, exploding into countless scattered shards of Primordial Core residue and streaming energy. It couldn't even hold onto a complete outline.
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