CHAPTER 711: THE CAGE ABOVE THE CLOUDS

Ethan’s brow furrowed.

The system interface flickered open before his eyes:

Name: Zephyrax

Level: Tier 21 · Peak

Elements: Thunder + Wind

Fusion Rate: 97%

He drew in a slow breath.

"Thunder and wind... damn."

At high tiers, those two elements in resonance were nearly unbeatable—speed, explosive force, piercing power. A nightmare combo.

But before he could make a move—

A sharp voice sliced through the air.

"Let me handle this!"

Elira shot forward from the crowd like a bolt of shadow. In the blink of an eye, she was in front of Zephyrax, her fist already flying.

BANG!!

The moment her punch connected, the swirling storm of thunder and wind around Zephyrax shattered like glass.

The shockwave rolled out in a tsunami of force.

Zephyrax was hurled backward, crashing through dozens of towering trees before finally skidding to a halt.

Ethan blinked.

"She... broke an elemental resonance head-on?"

Zephyrax rose slowly, sparks crawling across his skin, his eyes burning with disbelief and fury.

"Who... are you?"

Elira’s voice was cool, flat.

"Just a woman who hates noise."

The air around her trembled.

Then—wings.

A pair of massive Skytear Demon Moth wings unfurled behind her, black and violet, etched with glowing runes that warped the very air around them.

"You only control two elements," she said, lips curling into a faint, contemptuous smile.

"Trash."

BOOM—

Zephyrax roared, incandescent with rage.

Lightning and wind exploded from his body, spiraling into a dense, churning sphere of raw destruction.

A core of elemental annihilation.

Anything it touched would be erased.

With a snarl, he hurled it at Elira.

From where Ethan stood, even breathing became difficult. The sky itself seemed to split open.

But Elira?

She simply raised a hand.

And flicked it.

—VMMM!

The Skytear Demon Moth wings beat once.

Each flap lit a rune like a star.

Wind gathered around her, not as a breeze, but as a black curtain—dense, layered, spinning with impossible precision.

The elemental storm slammed into her defense—

And vanished.

Like it had been swallowed by the abyss.

A flash of light. Then silence.

Zephyrax staggered back, stunned.

"This... this can’t be..."

His voice was barely a whisper, his face a mask of disbelief.

Zephyrax let out a sudden, furious roar.

From his waist, he yanked out a blood-red orb.

"Then try this on for size!"

He hurled it skyward.

The orb burst in a flare of crimson light.

The air shuddered—space itself rippled—as a monstrous surge of energy tore loose.

Thunder, wind, and spatial force twisted together,

forging a colossal blade of storm and lightning,

its edge so sharp it made reality itself tremble.

"Shit—"

Ethan moved on instinct, ready to intervene.

But before he could even take a step,

the phantom behind Elira flared back into view.

It was the full soul of a Skytear Demon Moth—

wings vast enough to blot out the sky,

runes burning in gold and black flame.

She raised her hand,

murmured something in an ancient tongue.

The world dimmed.

And then—

BOOM.

Storm and lightning collided midair, detonating in a silent, cataclysmic burst.

The massive blade of thunder and wind—

shattered, inch by inch,

crumbling into dust under an unseen pressure.

Zephyrax’s pupils shrank to pinpricks.

The backlash hit him like a tidal wave,

energy tearing through him as cracks split from his chest outward.

"This can’t be—I’m—"

He never finished the sentence.

His body broke apart into a thousand shards of light,

scattered to the wind.

Ethan finally exhaled.

The air still crackled with scorched ozone, the echoes of battle humming through the sky.

But his expression wasn’t relief—it was irritation.

Whether it was the dungeon in the desert or the brief rest back at Emerald Castle,

the Sky Citadel’s people always found him.

Like bloodhounds catching a scent, they showed up—every time.

Once. Twice. Three times.

Always right on his heels.

It was like... something above the clouds was watching him.

Ethan frowned.

"How the hell are they doing this?"

If they could really track him that precisely, why not send everything they had at once?

Why keep throwing bodies at him, one after another?

He looked down.

Zephyrax’s corpse hadn’t even cooled yet.

Then his gaze caught on something at the man’s chest—a token, faintly glowing blue.

He crouched and picked it up.

The surface was cracked, the runes flickering erratically,

but the aura from the Sky Citadel... he knew it too well.

He tapped it with a finger, channeling a pulse of his own energy into it.

—Vmmm.

The air trembled.

A beam of light shot from the token, piercing the sky,

then unfurled midair like a massive mirror of water.

Within the mirror shimmered a grand hall—

a vaulted ceiling, floating ceremonial lamps, golden runes flowing like rivers.

The Sky Citadel’s council chamber.

Rows of lords sat in solemn formation—

each one radiating a pressure heavy as mountains, the kind of presence that could shake continents.

But now, those proud faces were twisted with frustration.

"...This isn’t on us!"

"Level 21 mobilized without clearance—who told them to mess with those surface mongrels?"

"They only acted because your last squad screwed up! Don’t try to wash your hands of it!"

The chamber erupted in bickering.

Ethan lifted his gaze,

eyes narrowing as he stared through the shimmering screen—straight at the man seated at the center of it all.

That face: cold, still, almost statuesque.

The High Lord.

He sat unmoving on his throne,

eyes half-lidded,

brows drawn in a faint crease.

The power coiled around him was so dense it warped the space nearby, folding it inward like a dying star.

And yet—he didn’t move.

Ethan felt a jolt in his chest.

"...He can’t leave?"

He could see it now. Among the gathered lords,

many bore veins of strange, shifting light beneath their skin—impure bloodlines, not trueborn Sky Citadel.

But the ones who were pure—

they looked bound. Trapped within the Citadel’s walls, unable to descend.

"They’re splintering from the inside,"

Ethan murmured, a crooked smile tugging at his lips.

Finally, it made sense.

The Sky Citadel, for all its might, was shackled by its own bloodline laws.

The ones sent down to the surface—those relentless pursuers—were hybrids, offshoots, subordinate clans.

The true rulers?

Caged birds in a gilded fortress.

That explained the endless stream of "solo lords" they kept throwing at him—

they couldn’t act together, even if they wanted to.

The light curtain flickered, the image warping.

A few of the lords seemed to notice something.

Their eyes turned—sharp, searching—toward him.

...