Ethan’s chest tightened.
This power...
It was nearly identical to the pale-white energy Lily left inside him.
Just as he was trying to figure out how to handle the pillar—
That pale energy stirred.
Not at his command.
But in response.
His body jerked—then surged forward, completely out of his control.
In the next instant—
The pillar’s energy detonated.
A blinding, icy, savage force flooded straight into him with zero resistance.
Agony hit him again.
Bones felt like they were being torn apart. His flesh—ripped, reshaped, rewritten.
But this ti—
He didn’t break.
The pain... it was different. Like sothing had already preemptively filtered or tempered it.
He could bear it.
More than that—he was adapting.
Second by second, the Infernal energy lacing the pillar was being absorbed, stabilized, and gradually fused into his body.
And it wasn’t just him.
Auri and Idra began glowing.
That pale-white power surged around both of them, moving like it had found new vessels.
The two small figures shimred in silence—their bodies reshaping, their Tiers and strength climbing in perfect sync.
Then—
Lily appeared.
She hovered in midair, looking down with unhidden satisfaction gleaming in her eyes.
"Absolutely perfect," she said softly.
The energy in the pillar shimred in harmony with hers, as if it had always belonged to her.
"They actually managed to build a conduit this precise..."
"Direct link to Purgatory."
She let out a faint laugh—cool, almost amused.
But her tone was ice.
"The people here? They’re not just native beings anymore."
"So of them... might’ve already been fully taken over by sothing from the Infernal Realms."
Ethan’s stomach sank.
But before he could ask—
A deafening explosion tore through the city in the distance.
A new aura surged into the air—completely different.
The sky itself looked like it cracked open.
A massive figure slowly floated up from the heart of the city.
Toroid head. Giant’s body.
It looked part bull, part grotesque monster—huge, heavy, and horrifically distorted.
But the worst part?
Its entire body was covered in bells.
Every twitch, every faint motion—
Jing-jing. Jing...
Rings drifted outward in waves.
Where the sound touched—
Soldiers froze mid-movent.
A second later—
The energy inside their bodies backfired.
Boom.
Explosions. Dozens of them. Then a hundred.
The only thing left in the air—was the echo of death.
Ethan’s pupils narrowed sharp.
"...Strong."
That thing, that bell-covered giant... it wasn’t a normal combatant.
Every chi triggered mass death. Wide-range elimination.
If they didn’t stop it soon—
Erald Castle’s army wouldn’t last.
Ethan was just about to act—
But Lily moved first.
She turned slowly. No grand gesture, no theatrics—just raised her hand.
The mont she did, the air twisted. Like space itself recoiled.
The bull-headed giant froze on the spot, locked down as if an invisible hand had grabbed hold and pinned it in place.
Pale-white light crept silently around its skull.
And then—
A crimson glow was yanked from deep within its forehead. Not from the surface—
From the core of its being.
Blood-red. A gemstone, pulsing with infernal power.
It wasn’t ornant—it was embedded in its very mind, its identity.
The instant Lily tore it free—
The creature collapsed.
All that towering weight, all the demonic energy laced through its body, severed in a blink.
Its form sagged, shriveled, and caved in on itself.
A few short breaths later, nothing remained but gray ash.
As if it had never truly been alive.
The blood-red gemstone floated gently into Lily’s palm.
Its power flared—terrifying and unstable—but she didn’t let it escape.
Instead, the gem lted like wax, thick crimson fluid soaking into her skin. Fusing with her body.
Lily exhaled softly.
And for the first ti, her voice carried sothing unmistakable—pleasure.
"A core parasite. From Purgatory."
"You were never going to beat it."
She turned her head, locking eyes with Ethan. Her tone was calm, flat, but brooked no argunt.
"Withdraw your troops."
"These cities are mine now."
There was no restraint in her now.
Her eyes bled red.
And from her body—pure, ancient killing intent poured outward, uncontrolled.
It wasn’t emotion.
It was pressure. Rank. Scale.
Ethan didn’t argue.
He couldn’t.
Because he understood—staying ant becoming dead weight.
Erald Castle’s forces pulled back in full.
Not long after the last of them cleared the periter—
New barriers rose around the fortress cluster.
But this ti, they weren’t patched together with mixed runes.
This ti—
They were pure. Pale-white.
The air shifted.
Purgatory’s energy surged like a storm, chokingly dense and violent.
And then ca the screams. From inside.
Twisted. Inhuman. Reality-warping agony.
This wasn’t a battle.
It was a purge.
Ethan caught a glimpse through the barrier.
One heartbeat later—his entire body shivered.
Uncontrollably.
Because this wasn’t any war he knew.
It was sothing else. Sothing worse.
A process of erasure.
The stone pillar began to tremble.
Runes peeled off its surface like shedding skin—gathering, spiraling, all of it flooding into Lily’s waiting form.
The air burned dark red.
And then—
A deep, muffled boom detonated from sowhere inside the pillar.
A blood-colored wave washed over the entire cluster of fortresses, swallowing every inch.
The screams snapped dead in an instant.
The world went terrifyingly still.
Ethan’s breathing turned sharp. Erratic.
Not from fear of combat.
But because he finally understood—
Lily’s thods weren’t warfare.
If Erald Castle had done this?
It would’ve taken days.
She needed only monts.
The energy barrier slowly peeled back.
And Lily floated in the air once more.
This ti—fully awakened.
Ancient red-and-white markings shimred across her body, etched like runes straight into flesh and bone.
The mont she opened her eyes—
The world humd.
Low. Ominous.
In the sky above, a vast spatial vortex began to coil open, deep and endless.
From within—
The breath of Purgatory poured out like a flood.
Ethan’s breath hitched—sharp, unsteady.
The infernal aura pouring out from that rift in the sky was so dense it felt like the air itself had turned solid.
Even after everything—even after adapting to fragnts of Infernal Essence so recently—the mory of that raw, flesh-tearing, mind-crushing agony still clung to him.
This wasn’t just power.
It was rejection. Like the world itself was trying to spit him out.
His body reacted before his mind did—he stepped back, instincts flaring.
"Fall back," Ethan said, his voice level. Steady. Calr than ever.
"All units—return to Sky Fortress."
The massive airborne stronghold groaned as its engines flared to life, rising fast. It didn’t slow until it soared clear of the thickest pockets of infernal air—climbing high above the smothering pressure below.
Only then did it settle into a floating, watchful stillness.
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