Kharvexis’s eyes tightened.
He instantly pushed his power outward. The gray gemstone in his chest flared, and Primordial Force spread with it, sweeping in wide arcs as he tried to catch Ethan’s residual trace.
The scan washed over the sky above the mine, over the shattered ruins, over the golden sea of light, and even over the Erald Castle army’s position.
Nothing.
Ethan’s presence was gone—cleanly erased.
Kharvexis’s alertness spiked to the limit. He tightened his grip on the saber and layered several shells of gray defense around himself. The gemstone in his chest began spinning faster, ready for an ambush from any direction.
Then he noticed sothing else.
Black particles—countless tiny specks—had appeared in the space around him.
They were so small they looked like dust floating inside the light. The aura inside each speck was faint to the point of being nearly undetectable. Mixed in with the mine’s flying debris and the battle’s lingering turbulence, they carried no pressure at all.
They drifted around Kharvexis, moving slowly.
Like ordinary dust.
Kharvexis flicked a glance at them and dismissed it.
He swung his hand, intending to blast the annoying black specks away.
But the mont his power touched them, the particles accelerated.
They didn’t blow back. They didn’t get crushed by Primordial Force.
They slid into the gaps of his own force, riding the seams like they’d been waiting for the opening.
In the sa instant, countless black particles slamd into Kharvexis’s body—through skin, flesh, and energy defenses. Like a silent black rain, they seeped straight inside him.
Kharvexis’s face changed violently.
He finally understood sothing was wrong—
Too late.
Ethan, reduced into black particles, was already inside him.
The specks surged along Kharvexis’s internal energy channels at terrifying speed. So flowed toward the gray gemstone embedded in his chest. So converged on his energy core. Others spread into muscle, bone, and up near the brain like a suffocating swarm.
Kharvexis tried to summon Primordial Force to expel them, but the instant his power condensed, a freezing tearing pain ripped through him from the inside.
Ethan’s voice echoed within his body, openly amused.
"Seriously... that was easy."
The black particles spread across the area around Kharvexis’s energy core, wrapping the most critical points layer by layer.
"I thought you’d at least have a way to break black-particle dispersion." The laughter in Ethan’s tone sharpened. "Guess you’re not that special either."
Then Ethan’s power detonated inside him.
Not a strike from the outside—an internal blast, erupting from within flesh, around the energy core, and at the connection point to the gray gemstone all at once.
Kharvexis went rigid in midair. The saber in his hand shook violently, but he couldn’t swing it. His Primordial Force was severed from the inside. The gray gemstone’s energy was pinned down, suppressed under layers of black particles.
Ethan started taking control of his body.
Kharvexis’s terror hit a level he’d never known.
He could feel it—his fingers, his arms, his chest, even the flow of power inside him—being stolen bit by bit.
That fear was worse than losing a head-on fight. His body was still here. His mind was still awake.
And he couldn’t stop Ethan from doing whatever he wanted inside him.
"Brother—!"
Kharvexis’s voice cracked. Every trace of arrogance and contempt was gone.
"I never thought you’d mastered sothing as high-level as black-particle dispersion."
"I’m not your match. I admit it." His words spilled out fast, desperate. "Just leave my body and I’ll tell you where there are energy resources—anything you want!"
He forced down his panic, trying to trade what he knew for his life.
Ethan didn’t answer.
Only a cold snort echoed from within Kharvexis’s chest.
The next instant, all the black particles tightened—converging on Kharvexis’s energy core.
Kharvexis’s chest suddenly caved inward. The defenses around his core were peeled apart layer by layer, and the gray gemstone was brutally suppressed, its output strangled down as if soone had clamped a fist around its throat.
Ethan didn’t give him a second to bargain.
He tore Kharvexis’s energy core straight out of his body.
At the sa ti, Kharvexis’s brain information was copied.
With that, Ethan could learn everything he needed about this world on his own. There was no reason to keep Kharvexis alive and let him talk.
Besides, the reason black-particle dispersion had worked so cleanly was largely because Kharvexis had been careless.
If he’d been given ti—if he’d realized what the black particles really were—there was no guarantee he couldn’t condense a targeted energy barrier in short order.
And once that happened, Ethan wouldn’t be able to infiltrate him the sa way so easily.
You only got one chance.
Ethan wasn’t about to waste it.
The mont Kharvexis lost his energy core, his body shriveled fast. The violent aura propped up by the gray gemstone winked out layer by layer. His skin dulled. Muscle collapsed inward. Even the long saber slipped from his fingers, spinning as it fell toward the mine below.
Not long after...
He turned to drifting ash.
The army in the sky fell into total chaos.
Those powerhouses who’d followed Kharvexis through the dinsional breach watched their lord go from overwhelming to dried-out dust—without ever even locating Ethan’s true position.
Shock and fear stamped across their faces. Their formation disintegrated in a handful of breaths. So staggered back. So lunged toward the dinsional crack. Others shouted themselves hoarse, trying to regroup the line.
Ethan wouldn’t allow a single one of them to slip away.
The black particles surged together again, rebuilding into a human shape. Ethan hovered in midair, the energy core he’d ripped from Kharvexis gripped in his hand.
Transparent lightning, golden mine energy, and the power he’d just absorbed churned around him, pressing down on the sky until it felt heavy enough to break.
He lifted his palm.
A gigantic energy sphere ford high overhead.
This one was heavier than the last—dense with golden light and transparent lightning, its surface spitting fine arcs that snapped outward like angry needles.
Down below, the enemy force—already collapsing—looked up and saw it.
On a lot of faces, the expression just... locked.
Ethan didn’t give them ti to run.
The sphere slamd down.
Boom!
Golden shockwaves and transparent lightning erupted together, swallowing the disordered army in the blast.
The front-line elites didn’t even finish raising their shields before they were shredded. The ranks behind them were dragged into the shockwave, their formation ripped apart completely. The rolling afterforce swept outward, crushing the ones trying to flee back toward the dinsional breach and forcing them back into the kill zone.
That single strike wiped out more than half the enemy.
The survivors finally broke.
Feylora seized the opening and drove Erald Castle’s troops forward. Powered Combat Armor units pressed in from both flanks. The Fallen Star Guard sealed the retreat routes. Goblin engineering teams shoved temporary suppression rigs to the battlefield’s edge, cutting off any chance of reopening a spatial passage.
The cleanup began.
Erald Castle’s host rolled over the sky above the mine like a steel flood, grinding the remaining enemies down piece by piece until there was nowhere left to hide.
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