Drake's breath hitched—just for a mont.
The energy flowing from that black crystal resonated with a depth and clarity he'd never felt before. Inside him, the chaotic, conflicting forces that had long resisted fusion suddenly began to stir in harmony.
For years, he'd been stuck at the edge of evolution. His mixed bloodlines and clashing energy sources had always repelled each other, preventing him from achieving a true, unified transformation.
But now—for the first ti—he saw a path forward.
"Master…" Drake forced down the surge of excitent in his chest and looked up. "How many troops did you bring this ti? Erald Castle's defenses are far stronger than we anticipated. I've already sent two legions… not a single one returned."
The man closed his eyes briefly, as if adjusting his internal resonance with this world's energy. After a mont, he raised his hand.
In his palm, a perfectly stable energy sphere appeared.
Its surface shimred with intricate spatial patterns—like a miniature world folded in on itself.
"I didn't bring a conventional army," the man said calmly. "But I brought this."
With a subtle shift of his will, the sphere's interior flickered—revealing countless tiny points of light, like a galaxy frozen in amber. But this wasn't just raw energy. It was a compressed spatial construct—an entire army sealed within.
Drake's pupils shrank.
He realized instantly what he was looking at: a chanized force of staggering scale.
Hundreds of thousands of units, folded and locked in stasis by spatial compression. Once released, they could deploy across a battlefield in seconds.
This wasn't just reinforcents.
This was a dinsional strike—an overwhelming force designed to flip the board in one move.
A long-dormant thrill surged through Drake's chest. Greed. Anticipation. He could already see it—Erald Castle crushed beneath a tide of steel. Even Phoenix Queen Ignara's fate was starting to take shape in his mind.
"Master…" His voice trembled slightly. "Give ten days. I'll flatten Erald Castle completely."
The man didn't answer his fervor. He simply gave Drake a long, unreadable look.
Drake didn't dare linger.
He accepted the energy sphere with reverence, then turned and left the space without another word.
The gears of war had begun to turn.
…
At the sa ti, Erald Castle was shifting into high gear.
Every core sector buzzed with movent. The summoning arrays glowed day and night without pause. New units were being awakened, grouped, and trained in waves—nonstop.
The entire city had beco a war machine running at full throttle.
Feylora was leading an exploration squad, moving constantly between multiple Plane Worlds in search of new energy sources—anything that could provide Erald Castle with a long-term, stable supply.
anwhile, Ethan had sealed himself inside the main city's Creature Dwellings, tirelessly optimizing summoning structures and mass-producing higher-Tier, more stable goblin combat units.
When he finally paused for a short break, his eyes drifted toward the hall's entrance—and froze.
Phoenix Queen Ignara was standing there.
She wore no crown, no armor. Her long hair hung loose, her face pale and still. In that mont, she didn't look like a queen who once ruled an empire—she looked like a wanderer, a woman who had lost her ho.
She'd clearly been standing there for a while.
Even as she watched Ethan working, she hadn't said a word.
"Your injuries haven't fully healed," Ethan said, walking over with a frown. "You shouldn't be moving around."
He pulled a refined energy crystal from his storage space and offered it to her, hoping to ease her weakened state.
But Ignara raised her hand—and slapped the crystal from his palm.
The sharp crack of it shattering echoed through the empty hall.
"You know what I need," she said, lifting her head. Her gaze was calm, but absolute. "Not crystals."
"I need an army."
Her voice dropped, low and steady.
"If you can give the power to end Drake with my own hands—then from this mont on, everything tied to the Phoenix Empire belongs to Erald Castle."
She paused.
And before Ethan could respond, she dropped to one knee.
"No," Ignara said, her voice unnervingly composed. "The Phoenix Empire no longer exists."
"Everything I command… is now yours."
Ethan stood frozen.
He hadn't expected this. The forr queen, once untouchable, now kneeling before him—offering everything.
But after a brief mont of shock, he understood. This wasn't desperation. It was a calculated, irreversible gamble.
Drake had beco an unavoidable threat.
One way or another, war was coming.
"Stand up," Ethan finally said. "I accept."
Ignara rose slowly, her expression unchanged.
There was no joy on her face.
Maybe, from the mont she was betrayed, she'd buried all traces of a queen's pride and warmth.
All that remained was vengeance—and resolve.
Their words had barely faded—
When a deep, resonant hum rolled across the sky.
It wasn't thunder. It sounded more like the vibration of so massive machine operating high above. The air began to tremble. Clouds were forcibly parted as a colossal shadow slowly spread over Erald Castle.
Then, it appeared.
A massive chanoid descended from the clouds.
Its body was forged from dark alloy, covered in intricate, cold chanical etchings. Dozens of floating propulsion units rotated behind it, keeping it perfectly suspended in the air. Elental modules were embedded across its armor—faint traces of lightning, frost, and fla flickering along its surface.
But none of that was the real threat.
At its core, a tightly compressed energy source pulsed steadily—cold, dense, and alien. The pressure it emitted felt like it ca from a dinsion completely divorced from reality. Even the air around it warped and thinned under its influence.
Ethan's instincts kicked in instantly.
This thing hadn't shown up on any of Erald Castle's defense scans.
No hesitation.
He launched into the sky, rising to et the chanoid head-on.
But before he could even speak—
BOOM—!
The chanoid's core flared to life. Its massive arm swung down with a shriek that tore through the air, slamming toward Ethan's position with terrifying force.
The sky compressed and split. Space itself cracked at the edges, unable to withstand the sheer impact.
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