Ethan’s whole body went rigid.
He recognized that voice instantly.
Lily.
But this ti...
it didn’t sound like her.
It was colder.
Older.
And threaded through it was sothing that made Ethan’s skin crawl—
hunger.
"The power on that little girl is extrely rare."
"Take it."
Ethan’s heart slamd.
The danger he felt wasn’t coming from outside.
It was coming from inside his own body.
"Now."
Lily’s voice hit again—
an iron command that didn’t allow refusal.
In that instant, Ethan’s body didn’t fully belong to him anymore.
His hands moved on their own.
They clamped down on the little girl’s shoulders.
The next second—
the devouring began.
BOOM!!!
Purple-red Soulforce poured into him in a violent surge.
This wasn’t a gentle rge.
It was a flood forcing its way in.
His ridians tore.
His bones shuddered.
His vision was swallowed by purple-red light.
"Stop..."
Ethan tried to seize control.
He couldn’t.
This power was far beyond what he could تحمل—what he could endure.
Cracks split across his skin.
Light leaked from the fissures.
His body teetered on the brink of collapse.
Then—
deep inside him,
sothing woke up.
A vortex.
It appeared without sound.
It had no visible form—
yet it was undeniably there.
All the out-of-control Soulforce got yanked into it by force.
Devoured.
Compressed.
Erased.
Ethan’s breathing gradually steadied.
But he felt it clearly.
That vortex hadn’t just eaten the Soulforce.
It had taken a piece of his own power too—
like so existence collecting its price.
Lily.
Ethan understood at once.
This was her power.
The devouring ended.
The little girl went completely limp, consciousness snuffed out.
The phoenix phantom dispersed.
And the core space began to collapse.
Then—
a new presence descended.
The entire space suddenly beca heavy.
As if the ocean itself had turned furious.
Thalorien’s face went bloodless.
"It’s here..."
Space split open.
A massive silhouette slowly erged from the rift.
A shark—
but not anything that belonged in the category of "normal life."
Its body was covered in black abyssal patterns.
With every breath it took, surrounding energy flowed toward it.
Lightning crawled along its form.
The seawater retreated before it.
It wasn’t inside the sea.
The sea was inside its domain.
Thalorien’s voice trembled. "This is... one of the deep sea’s rulers."
"We have to retreat."
"Now."
But Ethan didn’t move.
His eyes locked on that existence.
He could feel it.
Inside that monster was a power even purer than the last.
Older.
More dangerous.
And at the sa ti—
more valuable.
Ethan activated his Powered Combat Armor.
Light rippled across the armor’s surface.
Energy began to gather again.
He’d lost part of his strength.
But his battle instinct was still razor-clear.
He couldn’t back off.
Because the other side had already locked onto him.
Ethan lifted a hand.
An Energy Disc ford in his palm—
spinning.
Compressing.
Stabilizing.
He snapped his arm and threw it.
The disc sliced through space, streaking straight for the monster.
The shark didn’t dodge.
It only opened its mouth.
Abyssal energy condensed in its jaws.
Then—
it fired.
Ethan’s pupils shrank sharply.
Not from fear.
From the simple fact that—he couldn’t move.
An invisible force spread out from the gigantic shark-beast, like a massive unseen hand clamping down on his body.
The seawater around him began to swirl.
Not a natural current.
A forced pull.
His arm trembled. His muscles locked tight—yet he couldn’t retreat even an inch.
Like he didn’t belong to himself anymore.
Like he belonged to the monster.
Ethan’s heart sank.
This wasn’t brute suppression.
This was—a domain.
The shark’s huge eye rotated slowly, fixing on him.
Cold.
Cruel.
The absolute control of a predator.
And in that instant—
a streak of silver-white light tore through the water!
"Move!"
Thalorien’s voice bood like thunder.
His body erupted with blinding radiance. The water around him shook violently, and a spear ford in his hand—condensed entirely from pure energy.
No hesitation.
No pause.
He hurled it.
Boom!
The spear ripped through the sea with destructive force and slamd into a depression above the shark-beast’s head.
In that mont—
the monster let out a low, pained hiss.
And the force binding Ethan—
collapsed.
Like an invisible hand abruptly letting go.
Ethan’s body snapped backward. The water started flowing normally again, and he sucked in air hard, chest heaving.
Too close.
One second later, and he honestly wasn’t sure he wouldn’t have been dragged alive into that thing.
But just as he was about to fall back for good—
his gaze stopped.
At the front of the shark’s head, near its snout...
there was a裂口—a split.
Not a normal wound.
A thin, narrow seam, like so structure that hadn’t fully closed.
The flesh around it wriggled, trying to heal.
But it was slow.
Too slow.
Ethan’s breath caught.
It reminded him of the deep-sea monster from earlier.
Sa place.
Sa structure.
Sa—path leading inward.
A thought snapped into shape.
A weakness.
This wasn’t part of its outer defense.
This was an entry.
An entry into its body.
Ethan’s eyes went cold.
He stopped retreating.
And moved forward instead.
His body rose slightly in the water, hovering as an Energy Disc condensed in his hand again, its edge blazing with sharp, dazzling light.
Power kept piling in.
More.
More—
until the air—no, the seawater itself—started to tremble.
"Ethan! Don’t—"
Thalorien didn’t even get to finish.
Ethan was already moving.
Boom!
The Energy Disc slashed down with annihilating force, carving straight into the seam.
The seam ripped open instantly!
The shark-beast shrieked, ear-splitting even through the water.
And in that split second—
Ethan beca a bolt of lightning.
He shot inside.
Darkness swallowed him whole.
...
Inside.
No seawater.
No sound.
Only a heavy, slow pulsing.
Like a heartbeat.
Ethan landed on sothing soft, sothing that kept faintly writhing under his boots.
The air was thick with dense energy.
Then—
he saw it.
A blood-red sphere floating in midair.
About the size of a fist.
Its surface flowed like liquid, slow and hypnotic.
With every pulse, it released a violent ripple of energy.
Ethan’s breathing sped up on its own.
He could feel it.
That thing—
was calling to him.
His body took a step forward without thinking.
Then—
stopped.
An invisible force blocked him.
Not an attack.
A rejection.
Like the sphere itself was refusing to let him co any closer.
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