The two distinct colors gave Ethan a sudden, profound understanding.

The outer layer radiated an overwhelming, devouring heat, the kind that felt as if it could melt the sun itself. Just being near it made his skin prickle, like standing too close to an open furnace.

Yet at its heart was something far stranger.

The inner blue core emitted a bone-deep cold, a chill so absolute it felt capable of shattering even the hardest ice. The contradiction was unsettling, heat and cold coexisting in perfect balance, neither overpowering the other.

Fire Blaze Radiance.

It embodied the principle of Extreme Negativity Begets Positivity. Even so, Ethan trusted his instincts more than theory. That inner blue fire was the true essence of the Radiance. Though it felt cold beyond reason, he was certain that anything it touched would not freeze. It would simply be erased, broken down past atoms and reduced to nothing at all.

Once the Radiance fully manifested, Ethan flicked his wrist, sending it streaking toward the trapped creature.

That was when a second shock hit him.

This time, the Fire Blaze Radiance was not a beam, nor a spreading glow.

It was a single, tiny flame.

A real, independent, physical entity hovering in the air.

The realization made his fingers itch. Last time, when he had faced the Dragon of Consumption, the other colored lights had only existed as auras, vague manifestations of power. Now, at least this one had condensed into something tangible. If one had solidified, then perhaps the others could as well.

Truthfully, Ethan still did not fully understand his own strength. His abilities were numerous to the point of excess, and despite everything, his actual combat experience was not as deep as it appeared. The eight years he spent in the Sea of Death were brutal, but they were not spent in constant battle. Without those years, he would have been a complete novice, a walking catastrophe who never knew which tool to use at the right moment.

The tiny flame flew forward and gently landed on the creature's surface.

"AOOOUUGH!"

The instant it sensed the Fire Blaze Radiance, the creature went completely berserk. With suicidal fury, it lunged toward the nearest obstacle in reach.

Uncle Jed.

That put him in an awful position. His fighting style was direct and destructive, built around overwhelming force. Now he could only defend, forced to hold back lest a careless blow chip off a fragment of the creature and make things even worse.

In the end, it never broke free of the encirclement.

When Ethan's flame made contact, it did so without weight, like a snowflake brushing against skin. Then the blue fire bloomed.

In less than a second, the creature, a massive form towering over ten meters tall, simply vanished. There was no ash, no dust, no lingering debris. Even the residual particles were consumed, incinerated into absolute void by the Fire Blaze Radiance.

"Holy hell, kid! Where did you learn that?!" Uncle Jed shouted.

He had scrambled backward the instant the flame ignited, panic overriding pride. Even as a former War God of the Sea of Death, he had felt the annihilating aura of that fire. If he had been a few meters closer, he was certain he would have been vaporized along with the creature.

When Ethan looked at him, Uncle Jed's skin was bright lobster-red, steam rolling off his body in visible waves. Only someone with his absurd physical constitution could have endured being that close. Anyone else would have been roasted down to jerky.

Dragon Child hurriedly formed a hand seal, summoning a torrent of water that crashed down over Uncle Jed with a loud hiss. Steam filled the air for nearly a full minute before his skin finally cooled and returned to its usual bronze tone.

"Is it done?" Markham asked as he finally piloted his mech over. "I've got a few more pieces. Burn these too."

He raised a transparent container. Inside floated several bloody, vine-like fragments. While the others had fought, Markham had remained behind, scouring the impact crater. For once, the normally reckless man had been uncharacteristically thorough. Even now, tiny worm-like tendrils were sprouting from the fragments, roots instinctively seeking something to latch onto.

"Just these?" Ethan asked.

"Should be," Markham replied with a nod. "My Dragon Soul sense picked them up."

Ethan motioned for him to place the container on the ground. A spark no larger than a match head appeared on Ethan's fingertip. With a casual flick, he sent it toward the jar.

Whoosh.

The container and everything inside it vanished instantly, erased into the same absolute nothingness.

Only then did Markham finally release a long, shaky breath. The tension drained from his posture so abruptly that Ethan could not help but notice.

"You seem unusually worried about this thing," Ethan said. "Afraid of it?"

Markham rolled his eyes. "Wouldn't you be? The founding ancestor of the Whitmore family died to a creature just like that."

That snapped Ethan's attention fully onto him. "What? These things have appeared before?"

"You can probably piece it together," Markham said. "That thing was born from the fusion of a primate's spirit and an ancient stone, gestating for who knows how long before emerging."

Ethan raised an eyebrow. "You are not talking about that legendary Monkey King figure, are you? So your family founder was not exactly a hero. Got himself clubbed to death?"

"Boss, don't tell me you believe those fairy tales," Markham scoffed, waving a hand. "That 'monkey' was a demonic ape the moment it came into existence. It ruined countless lives. Anyway, I don't know the full story. When I was a kid, I got punished once and had to kneel in the family shrine for hours. I found a few torn pages from an ancient text hidden under one of the spirit tablets. There was a passage about it. I barely remember the details. Seeing that thing today just stirred up the memory."

Ethan nodded. Myths were rarely reliable, especially those passed down by ordinary storytellers and embellished over generations.

With the matter resolved, Ethan gathered everyone together. It was time to move.

As for the journey to Ember City, he already had a plan.

One word defined it.

Brutality.

This time, they would answer violence with overwhelming violence.

The trip proceeded without interruption. They boarded Shatterstar and immediately departed the waters east of Crescent Isle, heading straight toward the northeastern territories of Dragonspire. Ethan chose the most direct maritime route, cutting cleanly across the ocean.

As they approached the airspace above Magnolia Valley, a warning chime echoed through the cockpit.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Detecting unknown array energy fluctuations ahead.

Ethan eased Shatterstar to a controlled halt.

To the naked eye, the sky ahead was perfectly clear.

Even so, he trusted the ship's sensors without hesitation. Closing his eyes, he extended his Soul Sense, using Shatterstar as an amplifier to probe the space ahead.

Almost immediately, he felt it.

There was nothing to see, but his expanded perception encountered a faint, uniform resistance, like pressing against a membrane as thin as a cicada's wing, no more than a centimeter thick.

Beyond that barrier, there was nothing. No ambient Energy at all. On the side closer to land, however, he detected the faintest whisper of Energy fluctuations. They were incredibly sparse, but compared to the absolute void beyond the barrier, the difference was unmistakable.

Ethan expanded his sense even further. With Shatterstar's amplification, his perception stretched outward until it reached its limit.

His suspicion was confirmed.

This unknown array had one simple yet staggering purpose. It was a containment field, designed to trap the Energy leaking from Magnolia Valley's VR Capsules and prevent it from dispersing into the wider world.

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