Ethan picked up on it instantly—
The energy radiating from the attackers wasn't just strong. It blended seamlessly with the aura of the cliff itself.
Like they were born from the mountain.
Within seconds,
they'd gathered at the mouth of Ethan's cave.
Their power surged all at once—
No warning.
Just a brutal, full-force assault.
BOOM—!
The entire cliff shook.
The cave roared.
Ethan had already figured the Gemward Tribe didn't co here to talk.
The mont they closed in, he raised one palm and gave a gentle push.
No dramatic flourish—
But the result was terrifying.
A shockwave of invisible force exploded outward like a crashing tide.
The warriors at the front didn't even get a chance to react. They were blasted backward, slamd against the stone walls so hard they dropped unconscious on impact.
A deep, low rumble hung in the air.
Before the rest of them could regroup—
Ethan's form unraveled again.
His body scattered into thousands of glittering particles, streaming upward like mist and bleeding into the open sky.
Ti seed to freeze on the cliff.
The remaining Gemward Tribe warriors stared at the drifting fragnts, their faces locking into stunned disbelief.
Not fear.
Not rage.
But sothing older. Deeper.
Reverence.
It was like they'd just confird sothing they'd been waiting their whole lives to see.
All at once, they dropped.
Every one of them fell to their knees in perfect sync.
Arms crossed over their chests, they bowed forward—foreheads slamming against the stone again and again, the sound rhythmic, quiet, and unsettlingly devout.
This wasn't surrender.
This was ritual.
Like they'd been preparing for centuries.
Ethan hovered there, montarily thrown.
He didn't attack again. Instead, the particles reford, pulling back together into his body mid-air. He floated, suspended above the mountainside, looking down at the scene.
The sight made his brow tighten.
"…What the hell are you doing?"
One of the warriors—a broad-shouldered man with damp eyes—crawled forward on his knees, voice trembling from emotion.
"Our tribe has carried a burden since the ancient days," he said.
"Our role was to guard the runes... until their true master appeared."
He lifted his gaze to Ethan, staring at him like a believer at a god.
"You're here now."
"Our mission... is complete."
Ethan's expression darkened. His frown deepened.
He had no idea what this guy was talking about.
But before he could respond—
All of them moved at once.
Every Gemward warrior unleashed the power they'd kept buried within, letting energy surge free from their cores.
The magic whipped through the air, streams of force converging, entwining—until they crystallized in the sky above into a massive shining rune of pure gold.
It wasn't like the runes Ethan had seen before.
Those had all been pitch-black, cold to the touch, pulsing with void energy.
This one glowed.
Radiant. Warm. Commanding.
A divine kind of power.
Within the golden light, Ethan could feel it: an undying ember.
A fla that didn't rage—it endured.
No heat of madness, no chaos. Just relentless, unbreaking life.
He inhaled sharp and quick. Couldn't help it.
"…That's the real deal."
He saw it instantly—this immortal fla, this godlight, was sothing Ignara, the Phoenix Queen, would kill to devour.
If he could bring it back—
Her power wouldn't just grow. It would evolve.
Transcend.
He took a step forward, hand rising to reach for it—
And then the sky ripped open with a sound like claws on stone and sanity.
A sound that shouldn't exist.
Like sothing ancient was being forced awake.
A shadow dropped.
A monstrous, nine-headed drake plumted from the heavens, crashing down with terrifying intent.
Each of its heads opened wide, and Ethan felt it—
Nine different elental tides. Fire. Ice. Lightning. Wind...
Each head its own domain of destruction, but all of them resonating as one inside that massive, scaled body.
A chaotic fusion of forces, humming with primal threat.
Ethan's pupils narrowed.
Its target wasn't him.
It was the golden rune.
"…Shit."
He cursed under his breath—then shot upward, blazing past the incoming beast to throw himself between it and the rune.
His power surged, rging with the radiant aura of the golden mark behind him.
In that heartbeat—
The nine-headed drake let out a deafening roar, a howl that peeled across the sky.
Nine beams of pure elental force burst from its mouths—streams of fire, ice, lightning, and more, all fusing midair into one titanic shadow: a lizard-like construct forged from raw destruction.
The phantom beast scread, ripping through clouds, barreling straight down at Ethan.
Multi-elental. Chaotically unstable. Catastrophically powerful.
This kind of energy didn't burn...
It erased.
Even a fraction of that blast—
Could break the sky.
There wasn't a trace of fear on Ethan's face.
The mont his power fully rged with that golden rune, sothing unfamiliar quietly took shape in his palm.
A bell.
Small. Plain. Slightly worn, even—like an old trinket nobody would look at twice. But the instant it appeared, the air itself seed to flick—
Ding—
A crisp, clear note echoed through the sky.
Soft, delicate.
But it sliced through space like a thread of light, spreading in every direction at once.
Ethan felt it instantly.
The energies of the world—the wind, the heat, even the pulse of the land—were being tugged, drawn toward the source of the sound.
This wasn't just so flashy attack.
It was a summoning.
A call.
And it worked fast.
The energy orb that the nine-headed drake had conjured earlier, still pulsing with chaotic power, was now sward by the onrushing flood of natural force.
Light and pressure collided—elent against elent.
They pressed in, devoured each other, and finally, with a silent twist in the air—
It was gone.
Completely erased.
The drake's reaction?
Unmoved.
Not even a flicker of shock crossed its monstrous faces.
Like it had seen this play out before.
Its middlemost head opened its jaws wide.
And from its throat—
Another bell erged.
Black.
It floated into the air with eerie stillness.
Everything about it—its form, its etched runes—was an exact match to the bell in Ethan's hand.
Except for one thing.
His glowed gold.
This one drank in the light.
"You're a lucky little outsider, aren't you?"
The drake's voice bood across the sky, low as thunder rolling through a graveyard.
"To be chosen by an ancient rune... what are the odds?"
All nine heads turned in unison. Nine sets of eyes locked on Ethan at once.
"But that thing you're holding? It's broken."
"It'll never co close to the power I command."
A low, rumbling chuckle shook the air.
"And now that you've taken it—guess I'll just have to bury you with it."
Ethan's brow twitched.
That speech made no sense. It contradicted itself halfway through.
But that didn't matter.
Not anymore.
There was only one thing left to do.
He drew in a sharp breath.
Gold light blazed from within his core, surging out into the open and gathering fast.
A massive sword took shape in his hands—solid light forged into steel.
Blinding, holy, and steady as bedrock.
No hesitation.
Ethan launched himself forward.
So fast, even the beast's nine heads couldn't track him.
One flash of divine steel—
And one of those heads fell.
Severed clean in a burst of ichor, tumbling through the air.
The sky ripped open from the creature's shriek.
A scream so raw, it sounded like the mountain itself was bleeding.
User Comments
0 comments from readers