novelraw Chapter 1037: Power Taken by Force
Chapter 1037: Power Taken by Force
Ethan raised a hand and pulled out a large number of spatial spheres.
They glinted with cold light in his palm. As he flicked them out one by one, they scattered to different positions.
The moment they touched the drifting void energy, dense patterns lit up across their surfaces, like invisible mouths snapping open.
The void force around them was immediately dragged in at high speed—threads, wisps, then visible black streams—until it was all siphoned into the spheres.
When the absorption finished, the spatial spheres automatically shot back, returning to Ethan’s hand.
Ethan didn’t hesitate. The instant he had them back, he began extracting the void power inside.
Compressed, sealed energy was drawn out from the spheres in thick surges, pouring from his palm into his body.
The moment it entered him, Ethan’s expression changed. The power was brutally domineering—yet it carried an almost absurd driving force, like someone had stuffed an entire new sea of energy straight into his body.
His strength skyrocketed—visibly.
Not a simple sense of fullness, but swelling by multiples, by tens of times.
Energy rushed through his limbs and bones. Every inch of flesh in his body was lit by that force. Even the surrounding "air" was shoved back by the pressure spilling off him.
Lines on the Powered Combat Armor flared one by one, then were drowned beneath even stronger light. Hanging in the high sky, his presence leapt dozens of times above what it had been.
Ethan’s breathing turned sharp.
Even he hadn’t expected these void energies to bring benefits this exaggerated. He fought to suppress the surging power inside him while feeling that near-explosive ascent, the excitement in his eyes almost turning solid.
But right as he was caught in that rising wave—
A seam split open in the sky not far away.
It came too fast, like someone casually tore space from the other side.
A figure stepped out. Before his stance had even fully settled, his voice dropped down first.
"What’s wrong with you? Cleaning up a bunch of trash takes you this long? Is all the power the master gave you just wasted?"
The moment he spoke, his tone was open impatience and contempt.
But when he truly saw the battlefield—especially when he sensed the fierce energy radiating from the Emerald Castle side—he clearly paused.
That was all the reaction he got.
Because Ethan had already moved.
Ethan’s eyes had been locked on the intruder from the start.
The instant the man emerged from the rift, Ethan’s newly surged power roared out. White lightning spread from his body, sketching a blinding net across the high sky, then condensing into a denser thunderstorm that crashed down toward him.
The strike was fast and vicious—no testing, no warning.
White lightning wrapped in from every direction. The moment it touched the space around the man, it dyed the entire region a bleak, killing white.
The man was clearly startled.
He hadn’t expected that the second he appeared, Ethan wouldn’t waste a single word—he’d go straight for the kill.
Startled or not, his reaction wasn’t slow. He flipped a palm and unleashed his own power. In midair, it rapidly condensed into a gigantic phantom shaped like a flying fish, and it slammed down into the white thunderstorm.
The two forces collided head-on.
The instant they hit, heaven and earth trembled.
White lightning and the flying-fish phantom tore at each other. Light and shock spread outward in all directions. Space boomed dully under the impact, and even the distant fissures that still hadn’t fully closed shook along with it.
And in the wake of that clash, Ethan rose again, stopping at the same height, face-to-face with the man.
He didn’t rush to press the attack.
Instead, he lifted his right fist and tapped it lightly against his chest twice.
The motion wasn’t heavy, but it was unmistakable.
"Emerald Castle Lord—Ethan!"
The moment the words fell, the man across from him visibly froze.
He clearly hadn’t expected Ethan to use Elysion’s own ritual to issue a challenge. The contempt and casualness from before were reeled back in completely.
His expression turned solemn in a heartbeat. Then he stepped back slowly, raised his own fist, and struck his chest three times with full seriousness.
"Elysion—Central Warfront. First Vanguard Commander... Kaejirolar!"
This time, both sides had truly declared name and rank.
Ethan heard it, and the corner of his mouth slowly curved into a smile.
In the brief gap of that first exchange, he’d already had the system scan Kaejirolar’s panel. The man wasn’t weak—but he wasn’t so strong that Ethan had no way to handle him.
As long as he kept the Powered Combat Armor active, and with the fused strength he now carried—
This one could die.
Since the necessary ritual was done, Ethan had no interest in dragging it out.
Power exploded from him. Under the push of that force, his body swelled several times over—not a loss-of-control mutation, but pure pressure propped up by strength alone.
White lightning crawled across his enlarged frame. Then it compressed madly in front of his palm, forming an Energy Disc so huge it was almost unbelievable.
The moment the disc formed, the surrounding air was sliced into screaming, piercing whines.
In the next instant, Ethan swung his arm and hurled it with all his strength.
The gigantic Energy Disc cut sideways across the high sky, its edge dragging a straight, blinding trail. Wherever it passed, even space itself was scraped into fine ripples.
Kaejirolar’s pupils blew wide. At this point, he didn’t dare show the slightest carelessness. With a flip of his palm, he ripped the sapphire-blue gemstone right out of his own chest.
The moment it left his body, the surrounding energy fluctuations changed.
The gem itself was like a pure energy demolition charge, compressing an astonishing amount of power inside. The second it landed in his hand, rings of deep-blue light waves rolled off its surface.
Even a trace of leaked glow made the heavens and earth around them tremble lightly.
And then the Energy Disc was already there.
The instant they collided, a harsh zzzt—zzzt screeched out.
The high-speed spinning Energy Disc slammed down hard on the sapphire gem, grinding and shaving at it without mercy. White sparks and shattered energy fragments sprayed in every direction.
That Energy Disc—something that should’ve been able to carve open an entire enemy line—was actually stopped cold.
Not only did it fail to break the gem, it was slowly being consumed instead, worn down inch by inch in the prolonged clash.
Ethan’s eyes lit up.
He wasn’t frustrated.
He was even more excited.
If something could block an Energy Disc at this level, its value wouldn’t be low. Not even close.
The next moment—
Boom!
Power detonated inside Ethan again. His entire body turned into a streak of white lightning and vanished from where he’d been.
The speed was terrifying—faster even than the Energy Disc’s own advance.
He shot straight toward the collision’s center. In the instant before the Energy Disc fully dissipated, he arrived with perfect timing—killing distance and appearing right in front of Kaejirolar.
Kaejirolar didn’t have time to react at all.
All that reflected in his eyes was a stabbing flash of white—and then Ethan had already forced his way into the very center of the energy blast, one hand snapping out and closing firmly around the sapphire gemstone.
The moment his palm made contact, a savage, abundant power surged up from the gem’s surface.