Ethan's gaze tightened.
He could tell this thing wasn't so run-of-the-mill guardian. It was a lifeform in a symbiotic bond with the entire vein.
That didn't make him hesitate.
He drifted down to the lower slope, reached out, grabbed a chunk of exposed ore, and pocketed it into his spatial sphere.
Almost at the exact sa instant—
The Stone Golem's eyes lit up.
A deep, earthy yellow.
The air started to tremble.
"Invader."
Its voice was low and thick, like it ca straight up from the planet's crust.
Then its palm ca down.
That hand fell like a collapsing mountainside, carrying enough force to crush everything beneath it—including Ethan.
But the mont it made contact, white lightning exploded out of Ethan's body.
The shockwave spread.
The Stone Golem's huge fra jolted, and it was forced back several steps. Hairline cracks appeared across the rock plating on its body.
It let out a rumbling roar and slamd both hands into the ground.
Earth Elental energy began to flow.
The entire mineral vein seed to answer its call. Countless streams of earth-yellow power rose from underground and poured into its body. Its size swelled rapidly, its strength visibly climbing by the second.
Ethan's pupils narrowed.
He saw the process clearly.
That power wasn't being created out of nowhere.
It was being guided.
Controlled.
He crouched and pressed his own palm to the ground.
At first, nothing happened.
Then Heavenly Demon Lightning seeped into the earth.
The air quivered.
The Earth Elental energy seed to sense sothing higher—sothing it couldn't ignore—and its flow started to change. The power that belonged to the vein no longer answered only the Stone Golem.
It began gathering to Ethan, too.
Earth-yellow energy circled his body.
Condensing.
Compressing.
Until, at his chest, a stable Earth Elental core ford—an earth-yellow gemstone.
Ethan had never imagined the earth would respond to him this directly, this violently.
When that Earth Elental core fully stabilized in his chest, a heavy, steady force pulsed inside him like the heartbeat of an ancient mountain range.
He could even feel the vein beneath his feet "breathing," like the world wasn't a dead thing anymore, but a presence he could communicate with.
"This power…" he murmured, and an excited grin tugged at his mouth. "Damn, this feels good."
He took one step back and lifted his right hand.
In his palm, white lightning and earth-yellow energy surfaced together. Two completely different forces slowly intertwined under his control, blending into a rotating sphere of power.
The air began to vibrate.
The surrounding ore let out deep, resonant hums, as if it was answering the birth of that energy sphere.
Then Ethan snapped his arm forward.
The sphere ripped free, tore through the air, and shot at the Stone Golem at a speed the eye could barely follow.
Ruuumble—
The instant it hit, the entire mine felt like it had been struck by thunder and the earth at the sa ti.
The shockwave exploded outward. Within several hundred ters, rock shattered and collapsed. Earth-yellow and white light braided together, turning the space into sothing that looked like the end of the world.
The Stone Golem's pupils contracted hard.
It could feel it—this wasn't just lightning anymore. It carried the origin of the Earth Elental itself.
Which ant Ethan didn't just control thunder.
He controlled the very domain it had been guarding.
For the first ti, sothing like fear surfaced in the depths of its awareness.
It didn't hesitate.
Its massive body pivoted, trying to flee.
The ground shook under its steps. It tried to sink back into the vein, to hide itself by rging with the world's origin.
But it had only taken a few steps when sothing faster appeared behind it.
Ethan's figure flashed across space like a bolt of light.
The next mont, his hand landed on the Stone Golem's neck.
No wild motion.
No over-the-top burst.
Just contact.
And the Stone Golem went rigid.
Because it could feel it clearly—power far higher than its own origin had entered its core structure through that point of contact.
It wasn't violent. It didn't need to be.
It carried absolute control, like if Ethan so much as thought it, the golem's existence would be erased on the spot.
"Wait!"
For the first ti, the Stone Golem's voice lost its earlier authority, turning sharp and panicked.
"I'm the world spirit here! If I disappear, this world will collapse! The mineral vein will go out of control! You'll lose all of this too!"
Ethan looked at it in silence.
After a mont, he suddenly smiled.
There was no anger in that smile. No contempt, either—just a calmness that said he'd already seen through everything.
"You really think I've never t a world spirit before?"
His voice wasn't loud, but the confidence in it was unshakable.
He'd devoured too many energy cores. He'd watched too many worlds be born—and too many worlds die.
He understood perfectly. A so-called world spirit was nothing more than a conscious vessel for a world's origin. Not so irreplaceable, one-and-only existence.
Even if it vanished, the world would eventually nurture a new core.
As that thought settled, the Heavenly Demon Lightning inside Ethan ticked up, just a notch.
The Stone Golem imdiately let out a pained, rumbling groan.
"Wait! Wait!"
Its voice turned frantic—there was even a edge of despair in it now.
"I surrender! I'm willing to submit! Please, don't erase !"
Ethan's hand paused slightly.
Catching that hesitation, the Stone Golem rushed to add, "My sense for ore is an inborn ability. I can find any hidden mineral vein—no matter where it's buried in a Plane World, I can find it!"
Ethan's eyes narrowed.
He could tell it wasn't lying.
The golem's core structure itself resonated with the Earth Elental's origin. That ant its very existence was an absurdly rare kind of "tool."
A few seconds later, Ethan slowly drew back part of his power.
The Stone Golem went limp at once, its massive body trembling.
Ethan lifted a hand and lightly tipped up its chin, forcing it to et his eyes.
"So you think you're useful. That's what you're saying."
The Stone Golem nodded so hard it looked ridiculous on sothing that big.
"Yes, Master! I can find mineral veins, find energy cores, even find hidden Plane Worlds!"
Ethan went quiet for a beat.
Then he nodded, slow and deliberate.
"Good."
He withdrew his hand.
The Stone Golem sagged with relief. It imdiately pulled a huge earth-yellow energy sphere out from within its body.
The sphere gave off a deep, steady glow. Inside it, a faint projection of the entire mineral vein's structure could be seen, like a living map.
"This is the spatial core of this world," the Stone Golem said in a low voice.
"As long as you infuse it with your aura, you can control this Plane World… and even take it with you."
Ethan accepted the sphere.
The instant his Heavenly Demon Lightning touched the core, the entire space responded. The trembling of the mineral vein gradually ceased. The air stabilized. The whole world seed to acknowledge a new master.
He could feel it clearly.
This Plane World had ford a connection with him.
The Stone Golem crept closer carefully, its tone full of fawning caution and reverence.
"Master… I can still sense sothing else. Not far from here, there's another Plane World."
It paused, then continued:
"There's power there… the sa as the one on you."
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