Ethan’s gaze sank.
He’d run into this kind of wind-elent power more than once.
Every ti it appeared, it ca with obscene destructive force. The last ti he saw sothing like it, the opponent had actually carved open a spatial corridor by brute force.
This man in white hadn’t pushed it that far yet—but what he was showing was already dangerous.
Ethan didn’t underestimate him.
He lifted his right hand. Every ounce of power in his body surged toward his palm.
Transparent lightning lit along his arm, then fused with the Powered Combat Armor’s core output—stretched, compressed, and shaped until it solidified in midair into a massive Energy Greatsword.
The blade was broad and brutal, entirely forged from condensed energy, its edges wrapped in dense, crackling arcs.
Ethan gripped the Energy Greatsword with both hands and chopped down at the charging man.
The man in white raised an arm. Wind-elent power erupted between his armored forearms, condensing into a high-speed, rotating storm blade that smashed straight into Ethan’s strike.
The mont the two forces t, a shrill tearing sound cut through the air—then it was drowned in a thunderous roar.
Boom!
The Energy Greatsword pressed down. The storm blade cut upward.
Transparent lightning and razor wind ripped at each other, energy fragnts spraying outward from the point of impact. The sky around them split into dense fractures. The cracks tried to widen—then the hidden world’s own power pushed back, forcing them to knit and compress again.
Ethan steadied his breathing, eyes locked on his opponent.
This man in white didn’t look like the ruler of a Plane World.
His aura, his posture, the way he’d reacted to Ethan’s sudden rush—he felt more like a high-ranking combat asset under soone else’s command.
And yet he could still explode with this level of power in seconds.
If he wasn’t the true leader here...
Then how strong was the leader?
The thought lingered for less than a heartbeat.
Ethan didn’t waste ti chasing it.
Transparent lightning surged out of his Powered Combat Armor again. Power gathered forward, condensing between heaven and earth into a gigantic sphere of energy.
The instant it ford, nearby space warped violently. The faint glowing mist above the forest was dragged toward it by force. Even the loose energy leaking from the distant mine began streaming into Ethan’s palm.
More importantly—
This hidden world’s own energy moved.
The power that had been quietly flowing through the air, the earth, and the mountains surged the mont Ethan shaped that sphere, like it had finally found a real outlet. It poured in like a tide.
It didn’t reject Ethan.
It welcod him—feeding itself into the sphere until the transparent lightning inside turned feral.
The man in white’s face changed.
He could feel the annihilating force packed into that energy sphere. At his current level, even with Powered Combat Armor, there was no way he could take it head-on.
His armor core scread warnings. Wind-elent automatically layered itself into multiple defensive screens in front of him—but before those shields could even stabilize, pressure from the sphere cracked them like glass.
The man in white retreated imdiately.
But he didn’t have enough distance.
Ethan lifted his hand, and the sphere pressed forward with it. Lightning rolled across the surface. The air ahead of it caved into a sunken corridor, crushed flat by sheer force.
One by one, the wind shields shattered. The energy tracers on the Powered Combat Armor began to flicker, unstable.
And just when the man in white looked like he had no idea how to stop it—
A figure appeared in front of him.
The newcor raised a finger and lightly tapped the air ahead.
The motion was almost casual.
But as that finger fell, the world’s core power shifted instantly.
Energy in the air. The deep breath of the underground ore veins. The power circulating inside the castle’s defense systems in the distance—
All of it was seized by a single will and pulled together, condensing in front of that fingertip.
Before Ethan’s energy sphere could fully descend, that surge of world-core power t it head-on.
In the next instant, the internal structure of the sphere was forcibly severed.
Transparent lightning burst outward—but it didn’t keep pressing forward. In front of that single fingertip, it was stripped apart layer by layer, dismantled like sothing being disassembled at the seams. The massive energy construct collapsed in seconds, breaking down into countless tiny points of light... and then vanishing completely into nothing.
Ethan’s pupils tightened.
He slid back half a step. His Powered Combat Armor’s core imdiately climbed into a higher-load state. Transparent lightning poured off the plating and gathered again in his hand, condensing into a pulsing mass of electric light that could erupt at any mont.
This ti, he didn’t rush in.
The man who’d appeared out of nowhere wasn’t in the sa tier as the white-clad fighter at all.
Ethan could feel it clearly—what the newcor had drawn on wasn’t ordinary energy. It was the deeper, core-layer power of this hidden world. Anyone who could erase Ethan’s attack with one casual finger couldn’t be so disposable guard.
Ethan stared him down, his voice turning cold.
"Who are you? And what are you doing here?"
His power was already pushed to the limit.
Out in an ordinary region, this level of strength would be enough to wipe several small Plane Worlds off the map.
Transparent lightning ran around his palm and across his shoulders. The Powered Combat Armor rumbled softly, ready to take the next impact.
But this hidden world suspended in midair was far stronger than it looked.
Its spatial structure was unnaturally tough. And deep in the mountains, that mine kept exhaling vast amounts of energy.
Worse, the energy radiating from these two n had already reached a new height.
Especially the older one—the one who’d stepped in to save the other.
He took a slow step forward.
As his foot ca down, power surged out in a sweeping wave.
The light in the sky dimd under pressure. The glowing energy mist above the forest peeled back to either side. Inside the castle, defensive systems flared on in unison, as if responding to his existence.
That power didn’t explode wildly.
It gathered behind him instead—condensing, stacking, knitting together.
Gradually, a bizarre silhouette ford in the sky.
It was enormous, its edges blurred, as if it had been forcibly molded from the world’s core power. It floated behind the older man, looking down at Ethan’s group, and the weight of its oppression fell with it.
Ethan tilted his head slightly, taking both n in.
The younger one in white was already fully armored, wind-elent still lingering—sharp currents rotating slowly along his pauldrons and forearms. But the older man standing in front of him was the real danger.
He didn’t even need to move. The deep core power of this hidden world leaned toward him on its own. That strange silhouette still hung behind him in the sky, pressing the surrounding air down in steady pulses.
Ethan didn’t strike imdiately.
He raised a hand and gave a formal salute, his movents precise, his voice steadier than before.
But he didn’t withdraw the lightning around him.
The armor core kept humming. Transparent arcs slid along the suit’s seams, patient and ready. If either of them made the wrong move, Ethan could retaliate instantly.
"People from your civilization went to Elysion earlier," Ethan said, eyes on them. "And things got... unpleasant with my Erald Castle."
"I’m here today to settle it."
The mont the word left his mouth, both n reacted.
The white-clad fighter’s breathing hitched beneath his faceplate, and the wind-elent around him stuttered.
The older man’s gaze sank hard, like he’d just heard a na he hated hearing.
Elysion.
From the way it landed on them, that na clearly wasn’t ordinary here.
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