Ethan tightened his fingers slightly.
White lightning spread at once, wrapping the rune like invisible fla.
No explosion.
No backlash.
The rune only trembled once, and then—
It collapsed.
The dark red glow scattered and faded. The energy core returned to its original stable state, its rotation slowing until it settled back into a normal rhythm.
The soldier jerked his head up.
His eyes were wide, his face full of disbelief. He could feel it clearly—that oppressive control squeezing his mind was gone, like an invisible chain had been severed clean through.
"I... I’m free?" His voice shook, like he didn’t dare believe it was real.
Everyone around them saw it.
The air erupted.
More and more soldiers lifted their heads. Fear still lingered, but sothing else ignited behind it—fresh, desperate hope.
They crawled forward on their knees in midair, foreheads nearly pressed to empty space.
"Please remove our runes!"
"We’ll swear loyalty to you!"
"From now on, you’re our master!"
Their voices overlapped, echoing across the sky.
Ethan didn’t refuse.
He raised his arm. Heavenly Demon Lightning spilled from his palm like a white tide, washing over the whole sky.
The lightning didn’t harm them. It slipped into each person’s energy core with surgical precision, erasing the control runes one by one.
One after another.
Chains cut.
Shackles broken.
More and more Nexaris warriors knelt before him, their energy fluctuations smoothing out as their eyes changed completely.
No longer the gaze of enemies—
But the gaze of the conquered.
At the sa ti, far away in Nexaris’s core region...
A massive black palace floated in the void. The air inside it was heavy and oppressive, like even ti itself had slowed down.
At the center of the grand hall, an existence with the head of an elephant slowly opened his eyes.
Dark red light burned deep in his pupils, and the pressure rolling off him was suffocating—like staring into an abyss.
He lowered his gaze to his palm. Countless energy threads had once extended from there, linked to endless control runes.
But now—
Those threads were snapping, one after another.
His breathing paused for a single beat.
Then fury detonated.
"BOOM—!"
Savage energy erupted from his body. The entire palace shook violently. Black stone pillars collapsed in succession, and the walls shattered into fragnts under the shockwave.
His expression turned brutally cold.
"Erald Castle..."
He spoke the na under his breath, and the killing intent in that voice was impossible to hide.
"You dare steal my army."
He rose to his feet.
With the motion, space began to twist. Cracks split open around him. He lifted an arm, and black energy surged outward, spreading through the entire Nexaris domain.
The order had been given.
A new war was about to begin.
And above the Nether Sea...
Ethan hovered at the center of white lightning, looking down at the world below. He could feel his power still climbing—and what he held now wasn’t just Erald Castle.
It was an army from Nexaris.
Far off, sunlight glittered on the ocean’s surface. The wind over the Nether Sea swept past, steady and cool.
In this mont, he was the true ruler here in every sense of the word.
As ti passed, the balance of the Nether Sea began to shift in silence.
Factions that had once stood apart, each in their own corner, were now rebuilding their order around Erald Castle.
Thalorien stood not far behind Ethan, eyes fixed on that backlit silhouette wrapped in the faint glow of white lightning. The wariness he’d felt in the beginning was long gone. All that remained was genuine respect.
He’d watched Ethan grow from an outsider into soone capable of suppressing a Nexaris army. He’d also watched that power—Heavenly Demon Lightning—change the battlefield step by step.
It wasn’t just "strong."
It was sothing that could reach into the world’s very foundations and push them.
So when Thalorien voluntarily opened up the deepest veins of the Thalaryn’s mineral resources, no one in the clan argued.
They understood.
Only by following Ethan would they survive the storm that was coming.
The changes in Ethan himself were just as shocking.
He could feel it clearly—his internal energy structure had undergone a qualitative transformation.
His Tier had stabilized at the early stage of 33 Tier, but that was only the surface-level ranking. When Heavenly Demon Lightning fully circulated and resonated with his Powered Combat Armor, the pressure he could release could briefly graze the edge of peak 33 Tier.
It was the kind of strength that felt like it could tear space open.
That day, he was deep inside an enormous mine.
The air was thick with dense energy. Veins of ore lay exposed along the rock, giving off a faint, steady glow.
Every chunk of it contained Earth Elental power. That heavy, grounded presence made the whole space feel unusually solid, like the air itself had weight.
Just as he was about to push deeper into the mineral vein, hurried footsteps ca from behind.
"Master!"
Feylora’s voice carried excitent she couldn’t hide—and a thread of tension, too.
Ethan turned. She was striding toward him fast, both hands clenched around an earth-yellow bead about the size of a fist. Natural patterns ran across its surface, and inside, dim currents of energy flowed, like a miniature star core.
The mont Ethan’s eyes landed on it, his breath caught.
An Earth Elental ore core.
These were incredibly rare, almost only found in the deepest layers of elental mineral veins.
If he could fuse it into the Powered Combat Armor, it wouldn’t just reinforce the armor’s structure—it could cause a qualitative leap in its defensive capability.
He reached out and took the bead.
The instant his fingertips touched it, a heavy, ancient energy flowed through the contact point and into his awareness.
He could tell right away—this power didn’t conflict with Heavenly Demon Lightning. In a way, it could even complent it.
"Where did you find it?" His voice stayed low and even.
Feylora pointed toward the deeper mountain range in the distance, unease slipping into her tone. "There’s a whole vein over there, but a guardian stopped us."
Ethan didn’t ask anything else.
The next mont, his body lifted into the air. White lightning traced a faint line beneath his feet. He took Feylora and a small escort, crossing the mine at speed toward the vein.
When they reached the site, everyone stopped without aning to.
It was a massive hill.
And sitting atop it was sothing enormous.
A Stone Golem.
Its body was ford from countless boulders fitted together, and between the rocks were embedded Earth Elental gems. Those gems gave off a heavy glow, making it look like the living incarnation of the mineral vein itself.
Its breathing was slow and deep. With every breath, the space around it trembled ever so slightly.
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