Ethan's breathing went ragged in an instant.
It felt like sothing invisible had clamped down on his chest—every inhale burned, every exhale scraped like fire.
He forced himself to stay conscious, yanked open his system interface, and initiated a full scan on Kraken. He didn't need much—just a crack, a sliver of exploitable data.
But—
The interface flickered erratically. The analysis panel remained blank.
[Target cannot be parsed.]
[Data structure exceeds current access level.]
[Warning: Unknown energy interference detected.]
Just three lines.
But they hit Ethan like a death sentence.
For the first ti, the system couldn't even provide basic data.
He froze for half a second—and that was all it took.
The air collapsed around him.
Kraken's tentacle lashed down.
Ethan barely had ti to raise his arms in defense before the impact hit like a teor strike. The blow slamd into his shield with a deafening roar, rattling his skull and turning his vision white. The force hurled him downward, smashing him through layers of compressed space.
But the worst part wasn't the impact.
It was what ca after.
A cold, viscous energy slipped through the cracks in his defense—alive, invasive.
Nethora Power.
It surged into his body like a swarm of hooks, tearing at his flesh, his bones, his very structure. It wasn't just draining his energy—it was trying to unmake him from the inside out.
At the sa ti, the space around him locked down tight. Even the smallest movent beca impossible.
His lungs scread for air.
His mind started to blur.
If this kept up, he wouldn't even have the chance to fight back.
Then—just as his consciousness began to slip—
A surge of pale, bone-white energy erupted from deep within him.
Cold. Ancient. Overwhelming.
It tore through the invading Nethora Power like a tidal wave, purging it from his body in an instant.
Ethan's limbs went slack.
His body was no longer his own.
The air fell silent.
Then a voice echoed through the sky—layered, male and female at once, eerie and resonant. Everyone who heard it felt their blood run cold.
"Well, well… I didn't think the people of the Nether Sea had fallen this far. Dragging out the Kraken like so desperate trump card."
The voice dripped with mockery.
"What's next? Planning to wake up Cthulhu too?"
The na hit like a hamr.
Varaxis went pale, stumbling back a few steps without realizing it.
Cthulhu—The Nether Sea's oldest, most forbidden legend. So believed that ancient being, sleeping at the bottom of the deepest trench, was the true origin of all things. The first will. The first god.
"You… Who are you? How do you know that na?" Varaxis's voice cracked, panic bleeding through.
Ethan raised his arm slowly.
But the movent wasn't his. It was too smooth, too precise—elegant in a way that didn't belong to him. Pale mist coiled around his body, the bone-white energy pulsing like a heartbeat.
"You're not worthy of knowing who I am," the voice said coldly.
"A bottom-feeder from the Nether Sea dares to posture in front of ? Who gave you that kind of courage?"
The mont the words landed, Varaxis felt a chill lance up his spine and explode in his skull.
He could feel it—this pale force didn't just counter Nethora Power.
It crushed it.
Even Kraken recoiled, its massive tentacles curling inward. A low, uneasy vibration rippled from its body—fear.
Before Varaxis could react—
Ethan vanished.
In the blink of an eye, he reappeared directly in front of Kraken.
The pale energy condensed into a razor-sharp spike and drove straight through Kraken's defenses, piercing one of its massive eyes and ripping it clean out.
Dark energy and thick, alien fluid sprayed into the air.
The voice spoke again—still layered, still inhuman—but now tinged with sothing else.
Satisfaction.
"Well now… I didn't expect this Kraken to be hoarding such a vast reserve of power."
"Perfect. Just what I needed for a little snack."
Ethan plunged his arm straight into the writhing, blood-soaked wound.
The bone-white energy surged like a flood, pouring into Kraken's body and devouring its core power with terrifying speed.
The massive creature began to wither before their eyes. Its once sky-darkening bulk shrank rapidly, the crushing pressure it exuded fading with every passing second.
The Nether Sea fleet fell into stunned silence.
They couldn't comprehend it.
The Kraken—their symbol of invincibility—was being drained alive.
Monts later, its body collapsed entirely, breaking apart into countless motes of dark energy and dust, scattered by the wind and lost to the sky.
Ethan hovered in midair.
The pale energy churned around him, wild and unstable, like sothing ancient and half-awake had stirred inside him.
"God, that felt good…"
The layered voice echoed through the air, thick with satisfaction and a twisted kind of joy.
"It's been so long since I felt this full. Might as well stretch a little while I'm at it."
He slowly raised a hand and beckoned toward two figures in the distance—Auri and Idra.
"Lucky you two," he said with a teasing lilt. "Co on. Step in and feel what real Nethora Power tastes like."
His tone was light, almost playful, but the energy swirling around him said otherwise.
Auri and Idra exchanged a glance—then shot forward without hesitation, streaking toward Ethan like twin cots.
They knew his body well.
Whether it was Lily's presence or the pale force buried deep inside him, none of it was unfamiliar.
In fact, it was their long-term bond with Lily that had allowed their Bloodline Powers to evolve—growing stronger, more refined, and gradually syncing with the rhythm of Nethora Power itself.
Danger?
They'd never truly feared it.
To them, this wasn't consumption—it was resonance. A deeper kind of fusion.
The mont their light rged into Ethan's body, a new surge of power erupted outward.
The air warped, stretched by an unseen will.
Behind Ethan, a massive phantom began to take shape.
At first, it was just a vague silhouette—but it sharpened quickly.
A queenly figure, towering and regal, with layered, radiant fairy wings unfurling behind her. The edges of the wings shimred with soft, shifting light.
Across her body, ancient draconic runes glowed like stars—interwoven, rotating slowly in a pattern that defied logic.
When the phantom fully ford, the sky itself began to hum—a deep, resonant vibration that didn't stop.
It was as if space was groaning under the weight of her presence.
Varaxis's pupils shrank to pinpricks.
He couldn't believe what he was seeing.
The Kraken was gone. Erased.
And this… this thing in front of him wasn't just powerful.
It was beyond comprehension.
This wasn't strength—it was dominance. A presence that crushed everything beneath it by existing.
For the first ti, fear completely drowned out his rage and hatred.
Survival instinct took over.
Varaxis tore open the space behind him, forcing a dinsional rift into existence. He didn't care where it led—he just had to get out.
But—
The space twisted for only a second… then froze solid.
Locked.
This entire battlefield had been sealed.
Before he could even process what was happening, a figure appeared right in front of him.
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