This time, though, Emerald Castle didn’t feel fear.

Only cheers—climbing higher and higher until they shook the air.

Everyone was fired up.

It had been a long time since they’d fought a war this satisfying—one where every ounce of pressure got paid back in blood and thunder.

And more importantly... the haul was insane.

Valgari energy cores by the pile. Weapons and gear. Intact mechanical wreckage. And the biggest prize of all—The Dominion, a top-tier super warship.

It was more than enough to push Emerald Castle up another level.

Ethan stood on the Dominion’s deck, and he couldn’t quite hide the excitement in his own eyes either.

He spread his arms, letting his power roll outward. Transparent and white lightning crawled along the ship’s edges, like it was announcing to the world who this warship belonged to now.

"From this moment on," he said, his voice carrying down to everyone below, "Emerald Castle is the strongest force in this world."

"And from now on—no matter who comes to invade, you’ll be able to wipe them out."

The crowd heard it and their blood fully ignited.

Emerald Castle’s warriors erupted with fierce energy, cheering in waves that crashed over each other. The glow of Powered Combat Armor, magical power, bloodline strength, and all kinds of special auras tangled together like they were about to charge straight into another war.

Ethan watched them with satisfaction, and didn’t say anything more.

Then he led them back to Emerald Castle. From the spoils, he pulled most of the energy cores aside and fed them directly into the castle’s energy-shield system.

Hummm—!

One core after another locked into the array. A deep rumble rolled up from inside the castle, and the energy lines along the outer perimeter lit up fast. Light spread from the ground into the walls, then surged upward from the walls into the sky.

Before long, an extremely heavy defensive barrier rose between heaven and earth. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

It was several times stronger than the old one.

Its coverage was wider. Its output was steadier. And across its surface there was a special fluctuation—something it had absorbed from Valgari tech, faint but unmistakable.

If another enemy came knocking, breaking this shield wouldn’t be easy anymore.

Ethan stood on high ground, taking in the new barrier with a quiet, satisfied focus.

That was when the sky not far away suddenly split open with a spatial rift.

Faint energy shimmered along the edge of the tear—and then a figure tumbled out of it, landing hard on the ground in a messy sprawl.

Ethan frowned and moved instantly.

Transparent lightning surged off him and locked onto the intruder in a snap.

The man trembled so hard his whole body shook. Before Ethan even reached him, he dropped to his knees and started slamming his forehead into the ground.

"Mercy!"

His voice quivered. He was almost flat on his stomach.

"We—we were forced! The Titan Sovereign grabbed us and dragged us in as conscripts. Our civilization is weak—we can only survive as a vassal, but we never wanted to be his cannon fodder..."

"In the battle just now, we hid inside dimensional rifts. We didn’t attack you. I’m sorry—please, great powerhouse, spare us!"

Before he could even finish, more spatial rifts cracked open across the nearby sky.

One after another, figures spilled out.

They were clearly terrified too. Some hit the ground and immediately knelt. Some just lay there, face down, not daring to look up. The power coming off them wasn’t strong—nothing like the Valgari main force from earlier.

But Ethan quickly sensed what was different about them.

Inside them was an extremely unusual kind of void energy.

It wasn’t built for head-on combat—

—but it could open void passages with ridiculous ease, tearing rifts anywhere it wanted. An ability like that was absurdly broken no matter where you put it.

No wonder the Titan Sovereign had captured them and brought them here.

Ethan rubbed his chin, a thoughtful glint flashing through his eyes.

Then he led them to an open stretch of ground just outside Emerald Castle.

"I don’t keep dead weight here."

He looked over the trembling group. His voice stayed calm, but the pressure underneath it left no room for argument.

"If you can show me just how strong your energy really is... I might consider letting you stay."

The moment they heard that, their eyes lit up.

Their homeland had already been destroyed by the Titan Sovereign. Now the Titan Sovereign was dead too. They were truly homeless—nowhere to go, nothing to rely on. If Ethan was willing to give them a place to live, that was the best outcome they could possibly hope for.

At this point, none of them hesitated.

They immediately released their void energy.

Strands of ash-gray and deep, shadowy power rose from their palms, their eyes, and the space around their bodies, drifting forward to gather in front of the clearing.

At first it was only a thin crack.

Then the crack widened. Its edges stabilized. Inside it, patterns appeared—spatial lines like the inside of a dark tunnel.

Before long, working together, they forced open a massive void-energy passage in the space not far ahead.

Ethan was genuinely stunned.

The passage hung across the clearing, its boundary so stable it was almost flawless.

Gray-white and dark energy flowed slowly along the walls. No tearing. No collapse. No signs of runaway instability.

It didn’t feel like an ordinary spatial rift—those always looked like they might snap shut at any second.

This looked like a road that had been carefully laid down, quiet and steady, leading to some distant place.

He honestly hadn’t expected people whose auras weren’t even that strong to pull off spatial control at this level.

"Good!" Ethan suddenly barked.

The group—who’d been kneeling and begging moments ago—jerked in fright. When they looked up at him, there was still panic in their eyes.

But Ethan’s face had already shifted into clear excitement.

He strode to the front of the void passage, and the power inside him rippled outward.

Transparent lightning flowed out of his palm and slid directly into the tunnel.

The current didn’t damage the passage.

Instead it crept along the inner wall, pinning down the nodes of space that were still faintly trembling, one by one.

The tiny ripples that occasionally flickered deep inside the tunnel smoothed out almost immediately. The edges sharpened. The stability climbed again.

Then Ethan opened the system and ran a scan on the passage.

A data panel unfolded at once.

When the result came back, his eyes lit.

This tunnel... could connect straight to Elysion.

Emerald Castle had opened a passage to Elysion before, but that one had never been solid. Dimensional storms would flare up inside it without warning, and any fleet trying to pass through had to creep along—because one mistake could get them swallowed by spatial turbulence.

But this was different.

This passage was absurdly stable.

The system’s scan flickered through repeated checks and still found almost no obvious flaws. The inner wall was smooth, the spatial nodes were arranged in a steady pattern, and the energy flow was clean—like even the most dangerous dimensional tear points had been naturally leveled out by their void energy.