Far off in the distance—
Azrath hovered high above the battlefield, watching coldly from the sky.
He had yet to make a move himself.
Only half of his forces had been deployed—just enough to probe the situation. The rest of the Phoenix Empire fleet remained in high-mobility formation, holding tactical positions and awaiting further orders.
"Erald Castle…" Azrath murmured, eyes narrowed. "Even more dangerous than the intel suggested."
"This level of Powered Combat Armor… it's already beyond the scope of a standard spatial civilization."
A voice like molten iron grinding against steel suddenly rumbled behind him.
"That's enough."
Space twisted slightly as a towering tal figure appeared without a sound.
Clad in heavy armor from head to toe, he looked like a walking fortress of steel.
"Vornath?" Azrath blinked in surprise.
"The outco of this war is no longer in question," Vornath said, stepping forward. His voice was calm, resolute.
"Staying any longer will only lead to unnecessary losses."
"Withdraw."
Azrath's expression tightened.
If Vorgar was fully drained here, the Phoenix Empire would gain absolute leverage.
"Just a little longer," he said, trying to hold his ground. "We might still—"
Vornath placed a hand on his shoulder.
In that instant, a crushing pressure descended—like a mountain pressing down.
"Trust ."
"If we stay entangled, we'll be dragged into the sa pit."
Azrath was silent for several seconds.
Then, with a quiet sigh, he relented.
"…Pull back."
The order went out imdiately.
The Phoenix Empire fleet began to disengage. Spatial jump gates opened one after another, and the warships vanished rapidly into the void.
On the other side of the battlefield—
Kaelthorn was on the verge of being consud by rage and humiliation.
His arm had been severed, the wound still gushing blood and raw energy.
But what crushed him even more—
The Phoenix Empire was retreating.
"Those treacherous bastards…" he growled through clenched teeth.
He didn't even finish the sentence.
A blur closed in.
BANG!!!
Ethan's fist slamd into the remains of Kaelthorn's shoulder, the impact sending him flying again—this ti crashing into the hull of a nearby warship.
The entire ship shuddered violently.
Its armor plating buckled, deep cracks spidering across the surface.
At the sa ti—
Erald Castle launched a full-scale counterattack.
The massive energy reserves once used to maintain the defensive barrier were rerouted—converted into a barrage of precise, concentrated energy beams that lit up the sky.
BOOM—BOOM—BOOM—
The tide of battle flipped completely.
The Vorgar formation collapsed in an instant.
What had been an organized fleet was now in chaos—ships pierced one after another, comms scrambled, command structures shattered. Vessels veered wildly, trying to avoid collisions as they fled in all directions.
In less than a minute—
Over half the fleet was annihilated by Erald Castle's overwhelming firepower.
The rest scattered in panic, retreating like startled birds.
Kaelthorn gasped for breath, eyes wide with disbelief.
He couldn't accept it.
The legion he'd built with pride—shattered in re monts.
As he prepared to use the chaos to escape—
The sky lit up.
A golden projection of a Divine Sovereign Moth spread its wings high above, divine patterns unfurling like scripture, casting radiant light across the entire battlefield.
A second later, a hyper-compressed energy sphere dropped from the heart of the projection.
BOOM—!!!
The blast struck Kaelthorn dead-on.
His defenses shattered instantly. His body was hurled downward like a teor.
Before he could recover—
A figure was already closing in.
Elira tore through the sky like a blade of light.
Her fist, packed with hyper-compressed energy, slamd directly into Kaelthorn's chest—right over his heart.
Crack.
The sound of sothing vital breaking echoed through the air.
Kaelthorn's pupils dilated. His life force plumted.
"You… you'll regret this…" he rasped, voice hoarse and fading.
"I'm a general of the Vorgar Empire…"
"My death will bring down the Empire's endless wrath…"
He didn't finish.
Elira's power surged.
A blinding light engulfed his body.
In the next instant, flesh and energy disintegrated together—leaving only a cloud of glowing fragnts drifting through the air.
The battle was over.
The remaining enemy forces were swiftly wiped out.
But Ethan didn't relax.
He looked toward the direction where the Phoenix Empire fleet had vanished. In a flash, he shot forward several thousand feet, scanning the void as he moved.
System diagnostics kicked in at full capacity.
Residual energy signatures, warp fluctuations, structural disturbances…
Nothing traceable.
"Not Vorgar tech," Ethan muttered, narrowing his eyes.
The energy architecture, the way space had stabilized after the jump—it was completely different. A higher-tier civilization. Stronger.
Which ant Erald Castle wasn't being targeted by just one power.
He exhaled slowly.
"We need to keep scaling up."
Once he confird there was no trail to follow, he returned to the battlefield's core.
Erald Castle had already entered recovery mode.
Teams of soldiers were dismantling wreckage across the field.
A few relatively intact Vorgar warships were being dragged back toward the city's central zone.
Their construction was unlike anything in standard tech trees.
The tal alloys showed rare composite energy affinity, and the internal power circuits followed a logic completely foreign to conventional systems.
Even Erald Castle's top research teams could only decipher fragnts of the design.
But one thing was clear—
These materials were highly compatible with the Powered Combat Armor's fusion systems.
Practically ideal enhancent fuel.
As soon as one of the ships was hauled into the salvage zone, several soldiers activated their armor's fusion modules.
Under energy traction, the massive hull began to break down—disassembling, dissolving, and absorbing into their systems.
In under ten minutes—
Only a hollow steel skeleton remained.
The air buzzed with excitent and raw hunger.
Ethan didn't interfere.
If it ant boosting overall combat strength in the short term, any reasonable thod was worth trying.
Just then—
Feylora ca running up, breath quick and eyes wide.
"Master!"
She spoke fast, clearly surprised.
"During the battle, one of the outer rock layers got blasted open."
"A spatial rift appeared."
"It's not huge, but it's stable… and it might lead to another world."
She paused, eyes gleaming.
"Should we check it out?"
Ethan imdiately recognized the opportunity.
What Erald Castle lacked most right now wasn't ti—it was a steady source of power growth.
And conquering, absorbing, and decoding new Plane Worlds had always been the most efficient path forward.
He didn't hesitate long.
With a small team of core mbers, he arrived at the rift's edge.
But he didn't give the order to enter right away.
This wasn't a stable portal.
It looked more like—
A spatial vortex, torn open by force and still bleeding at the edges.
The energy inside was chaotic, unstable—yet incredibly pure.
As if the world on the other side was… hemorrhaging.
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