CHAPTER 702: THIS ONE’S FOR MY MASTER

BOOOOM—!

The desert roared like a living beast.

The sky split in two, wind howling like it had a voice of its own—screaming.

Between Ethan and the tentacled titan, raw energy exploded in arcs of blinding light, crackling like a storm made of blades.

The soldiers had long since retreated miles away.

Now they just stood there, necks craned, staring up at the two blazing figures locked in combat above the dunes.

No one dared get closer.

This fight had left the realm of mortals behind.

Ethan hovered high in the air, golden energy coursing over his body like living fire. It didn’t flicker—it surged, alive and hungry.

His eyes were sharp, calm, focused.

Inside him, power churned like a rising tide.

It was the energy of his fusion with Idra.

Right now, his aura was brushing the edge of Tier 20—Peak Stage.

But he knew better.

That was just the temporary boost from the fusion.

His true self was still Tier 20—Early Stage.

Across from him, the tentacle giant let out a roar that shook the sky.

Its single eye blazed crimson, the sound of its voice echoing like some ancient curse dragged from the depths of time.

"Invader... get out of my sands!"

Before the last word even finished echoing, a blood-red beam shot from its eye, slicing through the sky straight at Ethan.

He twisted aside.

The beam missed by inches, and the air behind him instantly vaporized into a vacuum.

Ethan gritted his teeth and summoned his system interface in his mind.

Target: Tentacle Titan

Hybrid of Dragon God Bloodline

Weakness: Single Eye (3.2 seconds of vulnerability after beam attack)

There it was.

He tightened his grip on the Blade of the Fey and dropped like a meteor.

The sand below spiraled into a vortex beneath his feet.

"Idra—focus everything!"

Behind him, golden light surged into his arms like a tidal wave.

The sky turned molten gold.

SWISH! SWISH! SWISH—!

Two figures collided again and again in midair, each clash like a star falling from the heavens.

Shockwaves rippled out in glowing rings, warping the air with their force.

Even from miles away, the soldiers had to fall back again.

The tentacle giant bellowed, lashing out with dozens of tendrils—each one a whip edged like a blade.

Ethan dodged, barely, and flung a glowing energy sphere behind him.

It detonated midair in a burst of white light, blinding the giant for a heartbeat.

That was all he needed.

—Vulnerability window: now.

Ethan surged forward, a golden blur streaking through the sky.

He blinked into existence right in front of the giant’s eye.

"This ends now."

His voice was low, steady.

Then he slammed the energy sphere straight into the crimson eye.

BOOM—!

A flash of white swallowed the world.

The explosion roared so loud it drowned out the sky.

The tentacle giant screamed as it fell, its massive body crashing into the desert below.

The impact sent a wall of sand three hundred feet high rolling across the dunes.

The instant Ethan touched down, he was already gathering power again.

A second energy sphere flared to life in his palm—hot, bright, and pulsing.

No hesitation.

He launched forward, a streak of gold tearing through the air like a meteor.

BOOM!

This time, the blast struck the giant’s head dead-on.

Flesh and energy fragments burst skyward, then were shredded apart by the wind.

Silence fell.

The wind, at last, died.

The sand settled, drifting back to earth in slow, lazy spirals.

The air reeked of scorched ozone and blood.

Ethan slowly lowered his arm, his breath a little ragged now—but his eyes stayed cold, clear.

The giant’s corpse began to unravel in the light, dissolving into threads of raw energy that the system inside him hungrily devoured.

And in that moment, his power surged again.

Golden lines shimmered beneath his skin, pulsing like veins of light.

His aura broke past its former ceiling—

He was now fully stabilized at Tier 20, Peak Stage.

He closed his eyes.

He could feel Idra’s energy flowing through him—steady, warm, but heavy with pressure, like a calm sea hiding a leviathan beneath.

FWIP—!

A sharp whistle sliced through the quiet desert.

On the far horizon, a flicker of red light began to pulse—dense, twitching, like veins of fire crawling through the dunes.

Ethan’s head snapped up.

The lights converged.

And then, from the swirling sand, a figure rose.

A woman—floating midair.

Her crimson hair whipped wildly in the wind, eyes glowing like molten rock, burning with a madness that felt almost sentient.

"You filthy insects..."

Her voice tore through the air, shrill and jagged.

"I’ll kill every last one of you!"

As she screamed, her energy erupted outward, resonating with the ley lines buried deep beneath the desert.

VMMM—VMMM—VMMM!

The air trembled.

A violent current surged up, lifting a storm of sand into the sky.

It was as if the entire desert was breathing with her, feeding her.

Behind her, a massive bowstring of pure energy began to form, stretching wider with each heartbeat.

Blue light sparked between the string—

An arrow, woven from wind and lightning, took shape.

Ethan’s chest tightened.

That pressure—he didn’t recognize it.

It was foreign. Overwhelming.

"...No way," he muttered, eyes narrowing.

The aura coming off her—it was stronger than his, stronger than even his fusion with Idra.

Tier 21. Early Stage.

Before he could react, the arrow was already complete.

The shriek of its energy split the sky—

FWIP!

And in that same instant, another streak of gold tore across the heavens.

Feylora.

She appeared above the battlefield like a blade drawn from the sun, silver hair whipping in the storm, her eyes blazing with fierce resolve.

In her hands, a bow of pure golden energy stretched taut.

"This is where it ends," she said, voice calm, final.

Two arrows loosed at once—

Gold and blue streaked across the sky, colliding midair.

BOOM—!

The explosion lit up the heavens like a newborn star.

A shockwave of raw force rippled outward, shaking the clouds, flattening dunes.

Then—

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

A chain of detonations cracked through the sky.

Space itself shattered like glass, and from the fractures, black voidlight seeped through—cold, endless, and watching.

BOOOOM—!

The storm swallowed the land whole.

Dunes were ripped apart like paper, sand flung skyward in towering waves.

The soldiers of Emerald Castle scrambled to raise their energy shields, bracing against the shockwave that threatened to tear them off their feet.

Ethan threw up an arm to shield his eyes.

Through the chaos—light, sand, and wind—he finally caught sight of the two figures still locked in the sky.

Blue and gold.

Still holding.

Feylora’s aura pulsed wildly, her entire body wrapped in golden energy that shimmered like molten sunlight. Every breath she took looked like a battle against the world itself.

The power she was channeling—it was too much.

Her body trembled under the strain, but her eyes never wavered.

That’s when Ethan saw it.

She’d broken through.

Her level had surged to Tier 21—Early Stage.

The aura wasn’t stable yet, her spirit energy teetering on the edge of overload, but even so—

She was pushing the other woman back.

The crimson-haired witch, for all her fury, was being held.

Feylora gritted her teeth, drew the bowstring again.

Golden energy gathered, brighter and purer than before, coalescing into a second arrow.

It pulsed with purpose.

She whispered, barely audible over the storm:

"This one... is for my master."

...