On the other side, Ethan was already moving.

He turned into a streak of transparent light and swept forward.

No elaborate setup. No wasted motion. That clear, razor-straight flash cut in from directly in front of Veyrakas—then in the next instant, Ethan was already in his face, driving a punch at his head.

Before the fist even landed, the gold light around Veyrakas detonated outward.

Infernal Abyss holy radiance scattered in a violent burst. Sheets of gold flared off his body like a curtain snapping open all at once.

Ethan’s punch was about to connect—

And Veyrakas became a golden afterimage and vanished from where he’d been.

Ethan’s fist cut through empty space. His eyes tightened.

In the next breath, he twisted and fired a lightning strike behind him.

It wasn’t a blind shot. He chased the lingering trail of Veyrakas’ aura.

Transparent lightning snapped off his fingers, tracking along faint fluctuations in the void. The path was brutally straight, like it had already decided where it was going to end.

When Veyrakas reappeared, gold still wrapped his body.

He didn’t retreat. He raised a hand and slammed out a beam of holy light.

The golden surge met Ethan’s lightning head-on.

The two blinding forces collided in midair. The contact point exploded into a searing knot of energy, and the shockwave rolled outward. Nearby space twisted under the pressure, like a clear curtain being violently wrinkled from the center.

Before the roar even finished, another blast cracked from the side.

Veyrakas reflexively turned his head.

Anya stood with both hands spread, palms and finger gaps crawling with bright red lightning.

That lightning kept expanding until it filled the space around her. Inside the red glow were hair-thin, even sharper strands of transparent lightning, layered and interwoven in dense sheets.

Then the energy condensed.

In the blink of an eye, it became a giant serpent that lunged straight at Kaelthar.

Kaelthar countered at the same time.

He pressed both hands down. Ice-blue cold currents folded inward, and a massive ice sphere formed rapidly in front of him.

It wasn’t just a ball of ice. The freezing force inside had been compressed to the limit, and bursts of cold vapor kept popping across its surface. The moment it left his control, it slammed head-on into the lightning serpent.

The next instant, red and blue detonated together.

The ice sphere shattered. The serpent broke apart. The burst of light nearly swallowed that entire stretch of void.

The booming impact echoed at high altitude, making even the warship’s outer armor shiver faintly.

"Can’t afford to get distracted in a fight."

A voice suddenly brushed right against Veyrakas’ ear.

Ethan’s voice.

Veyrakas’ stomach tightened. Pure instinct took over—he threw a punch toward where the sound came from.

Golden holy light erupted with the strike, blasting straight toward his back-right side. Where it passed, it dragged a streak of gold through space itself.

But he hit nothing.

The punch tore into empty void.

Veyrakas’ expression shifted. A bad feeling surged up hard, and he jerked backward in a frantic retreat.

Too late.

Ethan was already behind him.

No warning at all—like a transparent flash that had grown out of his shadow.

Then Ethan’s transparent lightning detonated point-blank, slamming straight into Veyrakas’ body.

"AAH—!"

Veyrakas screamed.

That single misread—one heartbeat of wrong judgment—had cost him the only window to dodge.

The transparent lightning hit cleanly. His gold-wrapped body convulsed as current flooded through his limbs and bones in an instant.

His eyes went wide as he realized something was seriously wrong.

He was losing control of his body.

Numbness and stabbing pain crawled up from his limbs and spine at the same time, and his movements turned sticky—lagging, unresponsive, like his joints had suddenly forgotten how to obey.

Ethan didn’t give him a second to recover.

The instant the shock hit, he stepped forward on the lingering afterglow of that fading lightning and appeared right in front of Veyrakas, driving another punch.

This one was closer. Faster.

His fist shot straight for Veyrakas’ nose, the pressure already slamming into Veyrakas’ face—

And at the last possible moment, a golden barrier snapped into existence.

It sprang out so fast it was practically flush with Veyrakas’ body. A hard plane of gold unfolded between them, stopping Ethan’s punch dead.

Ethan felt it cleanly: his knuckles didn’t hit flesh.

They struck something hard, cold, and violently rebounding, like he’d punched a wall of compressed light.

Crash!

The golden barrier shattered a heartbeat later.

But that single heartbeat was enough.

Veyrakas clawed back partial control of his body.

He didn’t try to trade again. He retreated immediately, turning into a streak of gold and pulling distance in a burst. Only when he’d backed off far enough did he stop and stabilize.

Ethan stood where he was, watching the broken gold fragments dissolve into the void. A trace of surprise flickered in his eyes.

Infernal Abyss holy light could do emergency reactive defense like that?

Interesting.

But even if Veyrakas had escaped, his rhythm was clearly wrecked.

He’d eaten that transparent lightning too solidly. Now every time he lifted an arm, turned, or shifted position, there was a faint unnatural stiffness in the motion. The gold glow around him was no longer as smooth or complete as it had been at the start.

That "rush-you-down" pressure he’d opened with had already dulled.

Meanwhile, Anya and Kaelthar had reached full heat.

Red and blue power kept colliding through the void.

Kaelthar’s ice was heavy and direct. Every ice sphere, ice shield, and ice spike he formed carried the pressure of freezing space itself. Anya’s bright red lightning was faster and nastier—when it cut through space, it also dragged down razor-thin strands of transparent lightning in the same sweep. They traded blow after blow, and neither one could truly suppress the other.

A bright red bolt ripped across the air and slammed into a massive blue ice sphere.

In the bloom of exploding light, Anya shouted and threw both hands high.

Above her, red energy began to spin—faster and faster—until it condensed into a bright red dragon.

It circled once over her head, electricity boiling across its body, then as she snapped both arms down, it smashed forward.

Kaelthar’s expression finally changed.

He looked up at that lightning dragon, and for the first time a clear jolt passed through his eyes.

He’d assumed the one facing him was just a small girl. Even with a strange power, she shouldn’t have been able to reach this level.

But now the dragon rolled through the sky, scales, claws, and horns all woven from savage current. Layered red light flooded the void around it, and even Kaelthar’s previously steady ice field started trembling under the pressure.

He didn’t dare hold back anymore.

Kaelthar slammed his hands together. His eyes closed, and in that instant he mobilized every last thread of his freezing power.

Ice-blue energy surged from his shoulders, arms, and chest. Cold gathered at high altitude above him in a violent convergence. The temperature plunged. Frost thickened over the warship’s hull again—heavier than before. 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

A moment later, a huge ice dragon manifested above him—crystal-clear, head raised high, its entire body radiating bone-deep chill.

Then red and blue collided head-on.

The instant the two dragons touched, the whole void boomed with a muffled roar. Bright red lightning raced along the ice-blue body, while the ice dragon snapped its jaws around the other’s neck, tail and claws tangling in a brutal clinch.

They coiled and slammed and tore at each other in the sky. Red and blue bursts alternated like detonations. Energy shards sprayed in every direction.

With each collision, ripples rang through space itself, and even the distant clouds were churned into ragged scraps.

For a moment, neither side could gain a clear advantage.

Anya kept both hands raised, forcing the lightning dragon to press the attack.

Her face had flushed deep red, breath coming faster and faster. Her power wasn’t weak—but her physical body still wasn’t as tough as Kaelthar’s. Sustaining an attack at this scale was an enormous burden.

Red current kept snapping off her arms and shoulders. Even her fingers started to tremble.