Kaelira was stunned speechless.

"You… you're controlling the enemy's Sky Fortresses?!"

"That's right," Ethan replied without looking up, voice steady as ever. "If they want to use their technology to wipe us out, then I'll turn their technology into our weapon."

As his fingers danced across the console, more and more command sequences fell into place.

The third ship.

The fourth.

The eighth…

One by one, the light-class Sky Fortresses froze midair, systems shutting down, then rebooting under new control.

By the time the twelfth was hijacked, the entire enemy fleet in the sky was his.

Ethan pressed the central command key.

BOOM—BOOM—BOOM—BOOM!

All twelve Sky Fortresses unleashed their full firepower in unison.

The battlefield lit up with a storm of energy beams, each one a pillar of annihilation.

The Kormaldor army didn't even have time to scream. They were torn apart in an instant, shredded into ash and scattered across the sand.

In less than ten minutes, Kormaldor's main fleet was obliterated.

The few surviving soldiers on the outskirts watched in horror as their own ships turned against them.

Their will to fight shattered.

Some fled. Others were caught in the chaos and vaporized by stray blasts.

Under the relentless pursuit of Sol'Rakka and Emerald Castle's united forces, the last of the enemy was hunted down and wiped out.

Silence fell over the battlefield.

…

Ethan was just about to order the troops to regroup and withdraw when a strange ripple passed through the sky.

Vmmm…

The air shimmered like disturbed water.

Then—

A massive, nearly invisible vortex opened at the edge of the battlefield. It spun slowly, translucent and vast, like a wound in the world itself.

Kaelira tensed immediately. "What… is that?"

Ethan's expression darkened.

"That's not a natural rift."

He stepped closer, eyes narrowing as the system scan pulled up new data.

"It's a Kormaldor transit gate. All those Sky Fortresses we just fought—they came through here."

Kaelira's fists clenched, her voice trembling with fury. "They used this… to invade Sol'Rakka? To slaughter civilians without warning—"

Ethan stared into the swirling vortex, and for the first time, the calm in his eyes gave way to something colder. Sharper.

Rage.

"Your Majesty," he said, voice low and tight with fury, "the lives lost today—Sol'Rakka's and Emerald Castle's—I won't let them be for nothing."

Kaelira turned to him, her gaze sharpening like drawn steel.

Ethan raised his hand and pointed at the vortex.

"If they can come through…"

His voice was a verdict.

"Then so can we."

Kaelira's jaw tightened. Her chest rose and fell with the weight of memory—burning walls, fallen soldiers, children screaming beneath a sky on fire.

She lifted her head, and when she spoke, her voice was ice.

"Then we fight."

"No matter what kind of nation Kormaldor is—"

She raised her sword high. A surge of violet-pink energy burst skyward, splitting the clouds.

"They will pay for the blood they spilled in Sol'Rakka."

Ethan nodded once.

He didn't hesitate.

The vortex loomed before them like a gate to another world, and his army surged forward behind him, pouring into the light like a tidal wave of vengeance.

—The world flipped.

—The ground vanished beneath their feet.

—A low hum filled the air, deep and resonant.

And then the light faded.

What lay before them was no ordinary land.

It was another world entirely.

The sky was choked with floating fortresses—light-class, mid-class, and massive dreadnoughts—packed so densely they formed a continent of steel suspended in the air.

Each one pulsed with rune-lit menace, weapons fully charged and ready to fire.

Below, the city stretched out in cold, brutal symmetry.

Silver-gray towers stabbed into the clouds. Energy conduits snaked through the streets like glowing veins, feeding power to every corner of the metropolis.

On either side of the roads stood ranks of soldiers clad in exo-skeletal armor, their plating etched with shifting light patterns. The force radiating off them was so intense it made the air feel like it might crack.

Ethan drew a long breath, eyes scanning the alien skyline.

"Kormaldor… so it really is a nation built on technology."

Now he understood why the enemy had been so formidable.

Those exoskeletal suits didn't just enhance a soldier's strength—they multiplied it. Twofold, threefold, more. And with the Sky Fortresses feeding them energy in real time, they weren't soldiers anymore.

They were walking weapons.

"This just got a lot more complicated…"

He knew the truth, clear as steel:

If they tried to fight this head-on, no matter how elite his forces were, they wouldn't win easily. Maybe not at all.

Then it happened.

A sharp, shrieking alarm split the air.

Fweee! Fweee! Fweee!

Massive beams of scanning light swept across the sky like searchlights from some mechanical god.

Kormaldor's surveillance towers had spotted them.

"Hostile incursion detected!"

"Breach alert triggered!"

"All exo units—launch!"

It was like the entire city had been waiting for this moment.

In an instant, the skyline erupted.

Thousands of exosuit soldiers shot into the air in perfect formation, rising with terrifying speed and precision. They moved like a swarm of metal hornets, each one a blur of armor and thrusters.

The sky darkened under their numbers.

Ethan's brow tightened. "That's… way too many."

Kaelira gripped her spear, her palm slick with sweat.

Behind her, the warriors of Sol'Rakka were visibly shaken.

They'd never seen anything like this—enemies who could fly, fire in bursts, and hit with the strength of ten men.

But there was no turning back now.

Ethan's voice rang out like a blade drawn in the dark.

"All units—engage!"

Emerald Castle's army surged forward first.

Veterans of countless battles, they didn't flinch at the sight of high-tech monsters. They roared into the fray, blades flashing, war cries burning.

But the moment steel met steel, the difference was obvious.

Kormaldor's exo-soldiers were faster. Stronger. Sharper.

One of them could hold off three, even four Sol'Rakkan warriors at once.

The front lines buckled.

Screams and explosions tore through the air.

Kaelira's face went pale. "No… my people can't hold them!"

And then—

BOOM!!!

A blinding column of energy slammed down from the sky, gold and white spiraling together like a divine blade.

Ethan's Sky Fortress had arrived.

Hovering above the battlefield like a god of war, it unleashed its fury.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Each blast tore through the enemy ranks, vaporizing exo-soldiers like paper in a furnace.

Sol'Rakka's warriors finally caught a breath.

They rallied beneath the Sky Fortress, pulling back into its shadow, using its massive frame as a shield.

Ethan's voice thundered across the comms:

"All units—form up around the Sky Fortress! Tighten ranks! We hold here!"

The armies of Sol'Rakka and Emerald Castle converged, shoulder to shoulder beneath the fortress's energy shield.

Together, they began to form a new front—tight, disciplined, unbreakable.

Ethan knew the rules here had changed.

In a world like Kormaldor, scattered skirmishes meant certain death.

Only unity—tight formations, overlapping firepower, and coordinated defense—could turn the tide.

...