Chapter 86: Thunder Flame Sky Net
Ethan opened his eyes.
Purple-silver lightning flashed through his pupils, then quickly receded.
The first thing he saw was Laira.
She was standing in front of him, her clothes slashed in many places, her entire body covered in blood. Her left shoulder was swollen from a cracked bone, and her right wing was riddled with wounds.
Then Ethan looked at Ruo Yan.
An arrow was still embedded in her shoulder. Her blood-soaked fingers were struggling to maintain the Soul Threads, and her face had gone so pale there wasn’t a trace of color left.
The Necromancer stood behind her, its staff broken down to nearly half. The green flames in its eye sockets were so weak they could go out at any moment.
Beside Ethan lay three small gray puppet cores.
Not a single wooden puppet stood there anymore.
His gaze lingered on the three cores for several seconds.
Then Ethan slowly got to his feet.
"How long was I out?"
Ruo Yan exhaled. When she saw he was truly awake, the Soul Threads that had been pulled taut finally loosened.
"Almost twelve hours."
Ethan looked at the arrow in her shoulder.
"They did this?"
Ruo Yan knew he wasn’t only asking about her wound. Her gaze shifted to the three puppet cores.
"They were protecting you."
Ethan’s hand clenched tight.
He bent down, picked up each puppet core one by one, and placed them inside the Primordial Armor’s storage.
"I’ll find a way to fix them."
Ruo Yan looked at him. Her lips moved slightly but she said nothing.
Laira stepped to Ethan’s side. Her new wing had been fully restored, but her face still showed the exhaustion of nearly twelve hours of fighting.
She reached up and touched his face, confirming he was really awake.
"Are you still in pain?"
Ethan placed his hand over the back of hers.
"Yes."
Laira frowned immediately.
He looked at her injured shoulder and continued. "But not as much as you."
Laira was silent for a moment, then wrapped her arms around his neck. The embrace didn’t last long. She held him for just a few seconds before letting go, turning to face the ones on the other side.
Aldren had retreated to the Elf contingent’s side.
The composure on his face was completely gone.
Brakk no longer showed the same greed either. He looked at the Thunder Wing on Ethan’s back, then at the Thunder Flame burning around Laira.
’They’ve only just entered Silver-rank.’
But the energy radiating from both of them was nothing like ordinary Silver-rank.
Aldren understood best what had happened.
A Mythical treasure split in two.
Now both halves had owners and had begun to resonate.
If Ethan and Laira were given time to adapt, no one in this room would have another chance.
He raised his hand immediately.
"Attack together! They just broke through and haven’t stabilized yet. This is our last chance!"
The Elves behind him drew their bows in unison.
Brakk looked at Ethan, then gritted his teeth and raised his war axe. The remaining Beastkin began gathering behind him.
The fragment of green stone still on Aldren’s forehead glowed, redirecting every surviving retrieval puppet at once.
All of them aimed at Ethan and Laira.
Ethan didn’t stand on the ground waiting.
The Thunder Wing behind him beat downward.
Boom!
Lightning erupted.
Ethan’s body left the ground, shooting straight into the air. He couldn’t hold perfect balance yet, but the Thunder-Iron Feathers automatically adjusted their angles, stabilizing his body within seconds.
Laira smiled.
Both her wings spread wide.
The right was a deep red dragon wing. The left was a dragon wing sheathed in fifteen hundred Thunder-Iron Feathers, fire and lightning running continuously along the frame.
She beat her wings and flew up beside Ethan.
The two halves of the Thunder Wings resonated instantly.
Thousands of electric arcs appeared between them, linking Ethan’s wing to Laira’s left wing.
From below looking up, it was as if a single enormous Mythical pair of wings was being shared between two people.
Korr raised his head, the energy core on his chest vibrating strongly.
He watched the arcs of electricity connecting the two halves, then spoke slowly. "Those aren’t two Legendary treasures."
The Stoneweaver members turned to him.
Korr kept his eyes on the two silhouettes in the sky.
"That’s one Mythical treasure split between two people."
The room fell silent for a moment.
Laira raised her hand.
Red-purple Thunder Flame blazed between her fingers.
Ethan lifted his left hand. Hundreds of feathers immediately detached from his wing and circled his body.
He looked down at Aldren, Brakk, and every force gathered below.
"Your twelve hours are up."
Aldren brought his hand down.
"Full attack!"
The Elves released their bowstrings in unison.
Hundreds of magic arrows shot skyward. Behind them came blasts from staves, vines formed from energy, and three arrays rapidly expanding outward.
Brakk and the five remaining Beastkin charged forward. They couldn’t fly, but the combat arts from their war axes and long spears could still reach airborne targets.
The retrieval puppets also raised their arms.
Dozens of magic barrels lit up simultaneously.
In just seconds, nearly the entire airspace in front of Ethan and Laira was blanketed with incoming fire.
Ethan opened the Eye of Truth.
The world in his field of vision shifted instantly.
Hundreds of attacks were no longer chaotic streaks of light. Every arrow had a trajectory. Every array had a junction point. Every puppet was linked to the green stone on Aldren’s forehead by razor-thin threads of energy.
The entire battlefield was a web.
Aldren at the center.
The Elves forming three array clusters.
The retrieval puppets serving as attack nodes.
The Beastkin weapons connected to their bodies by crude streams of energy.
Korr and the Stoneweavers occupied a completely separate zone. They weren’t attacking, nor were they linked to any array.
Ruo Yan and the Necromancer were below, just behind the old defensive perimeter.
Ethan saw it all.
But this time, he didn’t just stand and observe.
The Thunder Wing beat hard.
Ethan’s body vanished in a streak of purple-silver electricity.
Hundreds of arrows pierced through the spot where he had just been. A few changed direction to chase him, but feathers that had detached from his wing automatically assembled a small shield behind him.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Arrows struck Thunder-Iron and shattered.
Ethan reappeared over thirty meters from his previous position. He still hadn’t fully adjusted to the new speed, but the Primordial Armor had already stabilized his body before he could lose balance.
On the opposite side, Laira shot in the other direction.
Flame and lightning left a red-purple trail across the sky. Energy vines tried to grab her, but the instant they touched the Thunder Flame, they were incinerated.
The two split apart to either side.
The electric arcs connecting both halves of the Thunder Wings immediately stretched out.
Aldren saw it and his expression shifted.
"Don’t let them separate! Break the link between them!"
The Elves switched targets at once.
All three arrays fired massive beams of light, aimed straight at the arcs connecting Ethan and Laira.
Ethan gave it only a glance.
Two hundred Thunder-Iron Feathers immediately flew from his wing.
They didn’t block the magic blasts directly. Each feather moved to the exact point each energy stream would pass through, then formed a curve that deflected them off course.
The three magic blasts collided with each other in midair.
Boom!
The explosion shook the Elf formation below.
Laira glanced at Ethan.
The two didn’t need to speak.
Through the Partner bond and the resonance of the Thunder Wings, she had already sensed his intention.
Laira continued flying to the left.
Ethan moved to the right.
The distance between them widened to nearly a hundred meters.
The fifteen hundred feathers behind Ethan began to separate.
Not a few dozen.
Not a few hundred.
All of them.
The feathers rose, distributing themselves across the entire airspace above the room. Each one stopped at its own point, but all remained connected to the Primordial Armor by thin arcs of lightning.
Laira also opened her left wing.
Fifteen hundred Thunder-Iron Feathers detached from the wing frame and flew toward the opposite side.
Her deep red dragon wing alone was enough to keep her aloft. The remaining Thunder-Iron segments only held the structure of the once-injured section, but didn’t cost her the ability to fly.
Three thousand feathers appeared across the sky.
At first, they looked like countless purple-silver points of light.
Then bolts of lightning began linking each one to the next.
One line.
Ten lines.
Hundreds of lines.
In just seconds, a massive net of lightning had formed across the entire room.
It covered the Elf contingent.
Covered the Red Fang warband.
Covered the retrieval puppets.
Covered Aldren himself.
But the mesh around Ruo Yan, the Necromancer, and the Stoneweavers automatically parted, leaving gaps completely free of electricity.
Korr looked at the open space above his head, then at the zones locked tight by the lightning net.
He understood that Ethan hadn’t lost control at all.
The Eye of Truth was helping him distinguish every target among dozens of creatures and thousands of energy streams.
Aldren realized it too.
He immediately shouted, "Raise barriers!"
All three Elf groups channeled energy simultaneously.
The arrays that were already open linked together at once, forming a green barrier that covered the entire formation.
Those standing inside had barely exhaled when Ethan closed his left hand.
The lightning net descended.
Boom!
Thousands of electric bolts struck the barrier.
The green membrane shuddered violently but didn’t break immediately. The Elves maintaining the arrays all went pale at once, the energy in their bodies being drained at a terrifying rate.
Aldren looked up at Ethan.
"Lightning alone isn’t enough to break this barrier!"
The words had barely left his mouth when Laira flew to the highest point of the net.
Her long red hair was blown back by the energy surge. Her dragon wings spread wide, Thunder Flame erupting continuously around her body.
She looked at Ethan through the thousands of electric lines.
"Can you hold it?"
Ethan was simultaneously controlling three thousand feathers, but his expression remained calm.
"Burn it."
The corner of Laira’s lips curved up.
She placed her hand on the nearest arc of lightning.
Thunder Flame poured out.
The red-purple fire instantly raced along the bolt, transmitting into the first feather. From there, it spread to the surrounding feathers and continued propagating across the entire net.
A thousand.
Two thousand.
Three thousand.
In less than a single breath, the purple-silver lightning net was engulfed in red flame.
The temperature in the room surged.
But the Thunder Flame didn’t just burn the air.
It latched onto the barrier.
Sparks of fire pierced through the green membrane, seeking out the energy streams sustaining the arrays.
Aldren’s expression changed.
"Cut the links! Now!"
Too late.
The Thunder Flame traced back through the energy network.
The first Elf who had been channeling energy into the barrier was struck by lightning instantly. His body seized up, and the red-purple fire followed his arm straight into his Heavenly Gate.
He screamed and collapsed.
Then the second.
The third.
The entire Elf array system had become a pathway leading the Thunder Flame directly into their own bodies.
Explosions rang out one after another.
Magic bows shattered.
Staves caught fire.
A massive crack appeared in the green barrier, and then the entire surface blew apart.
Boom!
The Thunder Flame Sky Net descended.
Every Elf who hadn’t severed their link in time was knocked down at once. Most didn’t die immediately, but their Heavenly Gates and weapons were scorched by the Thunder Flame, leaving them unable to continue fighting.
Aldren used the green stone on his forehead to send a fluctuation to the retrieval puppets.
He wanted them to rush forward as shields.
The moment the fluctuation went out, Ethan saw a new energy line connecting Aldren to every puppet.
The lightning in the net changed direction.
It didn’t strike the metal armor directly.
It all channeled into that link.
Each puppet froze.
The lights on their chests shifted from red to purple.
Thunder Flame went straight into their energy cores.
One exploded.
Then the second.
Dozens of consecutive explosions erupted across the battlefield. Metal shards flew in every direction, forcing the surviving Beastkin and Elves to scramble for cover on their own.
The green stone on Aldren’s forehead shook violently.
The crack that already existed spread rapidly.
He severed the link at once, but the feedback still sent blood streaming from the corners of his eyes.
Brakk didn’t wait any longer.
He understood the formation had collapsed. If they kept standing under the lightning net, everyone would be burned alive one by one.
Brakk raised his war axe and poured every last drop of Gold-rank energy into the weapon.
Powerful energy erupted, blasting away the nearby lines of lightning.
He let out a roar and launched himself off the ground.
The war axe cleaved toward Laira.