Chapter 91: Reappearance of Authority (Patreon)

Little Guang moved first. No warning, no feeling things out.

She raised her right hand, fingers spread wide.

Physical-type Ether energy poured out from within her — gone was the restrained, telegraph-free style from before. This time she went all-out the instant her hand rose.

Orange-white light burst from her palm, and hundreds of Ether longswords condensed into shape in midair.

The blades gleamed with a silver-white physical-type Ether sheen, each one carrying enough killing power to slice clean through a Lord-class carapace.

"Fall." Little Guang closed her fingers.

Hundreds of blade-lights wove into an airtight matrix, crashing down from every angle and every height at once, locking the entire area around Avarus in an inescapable cage.

The dark red carapace on the ground let out a shrill crack as the first wave of blades struck, fragments scattering outward in bursts of dark red dust. Avarus moved.

But it didn't dodge — it didn't so much as shift a single step.

Its two arms spread slowly open, the thick, carapace-plated forelimbs extending to either side. The motion wasn't fast, but every degree of the opening carried an odd, ancient sense of ritual.

At the same time, the crack across its abdomen split wide. The "mouth" that spanned its entire belly tore fully open.

Dark red light gushed out from the fissure, bright enough that Wise squinted on reflex.

The instant Little Guang's rain of blades touched that light, most of them were knocked aside — the light itself carried some kind of repulsive force, shoving the physical-type Ether energy back out.

The remaining blades sank into Avarus's carapace, but failed to do any real damage.

The carapace patterns flickered wildly at the point of contact as the Miasmic Shield's energy automatically converged on the wound, forcing the blades back out the way raw flesh expels a foreign object.

"Its carapace is insanely hard." Little Guang drew her hand back, words coming fast. "Physical-type Ether penetration is cut by at least forty percent."

"Careful." Wise's gaze stayed locked on the gaping fissure in Avarus's belly. "It's charging something."

The words had barely left his mouth when Avarus let out a roar.

The sound didn't seem to come from its mouth at all — it was more like a low-frequency vibration resonating from its entire abdomen.

Sound waves wrapped in dark red Ether energy pushed outward in every direction, with Avarus at the center.

This wasn't an attack. It was a declaration.

As the dark red energy spread, it rapidly condensed into a translucent barrier.

The barrier's edge kept pushing outward — not fast, but with every meter it advanced, the Miasma concentration in the air jumped another notch.

"Big Bro! That Ether fluctuation—" Belle's voice burst from the comm.

"I know." Wise didn't wait for her to finish.

He and Little Guang stood less than a hundred meters directly in front of Avarus, and that dark red barrier was pressing straight toward them. The distance kept shrinking — seventy meters, sixty, fifty—

"It's a domain." Little Guang's droopy ears flattened back sharply, her voice taut. "It's deploying an Ether Domain!"

"Get ready—" She didn't finish. The barrier had already arrived.

Dark red light surged in from every direction at once, engulfing Wise and Little Guang.

The instant they entered the domain, something went wrong with Wise's body.

It wasn't pain — it was a wave of nausea surging up straight from his stomach with no warning at all, layered with wave after wave of dizziness in his head.

His vision began to darken.

Static and horizontal lines crawled across his sight. It wasn't the light dimming — his optic nerves themselves were shutting down—

"This is wrong—" Wise clenched his back teeth, forcing down the nausea rising in his throat.

He'd seen King-class Ether Domains before, more than once. But a domain that came with built-in negative effects like this? He'd essentially never encountered one.

The overwhelming majority of King-class Ethereals' Ether Domains either strengthened themselves or drove up the Ether concentration inside the domain exponentially.

That could affect people with lower Ether adaptability, sure — but nothing like this lethal state he was in now.

Avarus's domain was an entirely different animal.

This thing's domain didn't warp space, didn't buff itself, didn't do anything a normal King-class was supposed to do.

It did exactly one thing: corrode. It corroded — directly — the nervous system and Ether circuits of every living thing inside the domain.

"Little Guang! Are you okay?!"

"I can still hold on—"

Little Guang's voice came from his right, visibly trembling.

Wise turned his head to look — her face had gone an unnatural shade of white, cold sweat rolling from her temple down her cheek, the hand gripping her longsword shaking violently.

But she was still standing.

"This isn't a normal King-class domain." Wise forced himself to speak, every word scraping out like it had been dragged across sandpaper. "A normal domain wouldn't directly produce negative effects like this... this is the result of Miasma mutation."

"Miasma mutation?"

"Right. The moment we stepped into the domain, we took a Miasma detonation — one that acted directly on the nervous system and Ether circuits."

Wise sucked in a breath, and the air that filled his lungs was hot and raw. "The Miasma's started affecting our nerves."

Belle's voice came through the comm again, this time thick with tears: "Big Bro! Your brainwave readings are fluctuating abnormally — if this keeps up, you'll—"

"Fairy! Analyze the domain's mechanism!"

"On it — scanning at full power—" Fairy's voice ran nearly twice its usual speed. "Detected: the Miasma particles inside the domain are resonating with your Ether circuits, and the resonance frequency overlaps heavily with the human nervous system's bioelectric frequency — that's the direct cause of your fading consciousness!"

Wise's vision darkened another notch.

Not a gradual fade — a stepwise collapse. The scene before him kept shrinking, his perceivable range narrowing by the second.

His fingers had already started going numb, the numbness spreading from the fingertips into his palm, his wrist, his forearm.

It wasn't the numbness of losing feeling — it was the chaos of disrupted nerve-signal transmission. His fingers were still moving, but the feedback his brain received arrived delayed, out of sync.

His Ether circuits were malfunctioning too.

The Ether energy in his meridians began surging out of control, the once-steady flow shattered into fragments crashing wildly through the channels.

He couldn't afford to wait any longer.

Wise's right hand reached for the band on his wrist on reflex — the shape the Creation Talisman Miguel had given him had taken.

The instant he activated it, the Power of Creation's energy could purge every abnormal state in his body in one flash.

But his hand stopped halfway there.

Little Guang was three steps away, to his right.

The Creation Talisman's effective range was touch — physical contact was required to pass its effect to someone else.

Three steps was nothing, normally — just a lift of the leg. But under the domain's suppression, every step weighed so heavy he could barely move his legs at all.

If he activated the talisman, it would only clear the state for himself alone.

What about Little Guang?

Her condition was worse than his right now — the resonance had already thrown her physical-type Ether circulation into disarray, and the hand gripping her sword was shaking.

If she had to face this suppression alone— no. He couldn't burn his trump card like that.

A mature King-class that had lived three years and wiped out a three-hundred-strong investigation team wasn't going to have just one trick up its sleeve — the domain couldn't be all it had.

If he burned the Creation Talisman this early and Avarus still had other tricks left, they'd truly have no way back.

That left only one choice.

Wise turned.

The motion was far harder than he'd expected.

The domain's suppression of his consciousness had badly skewed his sense of space; the instant he turned, he nearly lost his balance — the ground felt tilted beneath his feet, and every step demanded sheer willpower to override the false signals his brain kept sending.

One step. His legs felt filled with lead, his boot sole coming down on the dark red carapace with a dull thud. Two steps.

He could barely see anything in front of him anymore.

Nothing remained before his eyes but a murky dark red haze, occasionally streaked with flashes of white static.

He was walking entirely on memory now — the memory of where Little Guang stood, which way she was facing, the height her hand would reach when she raised it.

Little Guang. He saw her.

More precisely, he saw a blurred outline.

The edge of a white qipao, dark brown hair hanging at her shoulder, and a left hand slowly rising.

Little Guang's left palm faced upward, fingers spread slightly, orange-white Ether energy flickering unsteadily in her palm—

That was the activation prelude to the Azure Empyrean Sword.

She was preparing to activate the Azure Empyrean Sword.

Not to attack Avarus — to protect him.

At the very edge of losing consciousness, Little Guang meant to force the Azure Empyrean Sword's power awake, tearing open a brief pocket of safety inside the domain to shield Wise from further corrosion.

"Little Guang!" Wise shouted.

It wasn't his usual tone — it was a raw howl, every last breath in his lungs forced out at once.

The burning in his throat caught fire completely with the shout, the pain stinging his eyes.

But he didn't care.

"Grab my hand!"

Little Guang's body went rigid for an instant.

Her ruby eyes, already starting to dim, flared bright again for one second.

It wasn't the glow of Ether energy — it was a reaction at the level of consciousness, some switch buried deep inside her flipped on by those words.

She'd heard him.

On the very edge of being swallowed by darkness, she heard Wise's voice.

The left hand condensing the Azure Empyrean Sword's energy stopped.

The orange-white light flickered twice in her palm, then faded away.

Little Guang turned her head. Her vision had blurred so badly she could barely make out anything, and Wise's figure in her eyes had shrunk to nothing but a hazy outline.

But she recognized that outline.

That build, that stance, that hand reaching out toward her—

She reached out her right hand on reflex.

Wise was reaching too.

Their two hands closed the distance in midair — one step, half a step—

But the domain wasn't going to make it that easy.

The fissure in Avarus's belly split wider still, dark red energy pouring out of it at twice the previous concentration.

The Miasma resonance frequency spiked suddenly, slamming straight to its peak.

Wise's vision went nearly black in that instant.

He couldn't see anything at all.

But his hand kept reaching forward.

Not guided by sight — guided by memory.

Of the three steps' distance, he'd covered two. One step remained.

Little Guang's hand was right there ahead — he remembered her height, remembered where she stood, remembered how far she'd reach.

Almost there.

His fingertips brushed something.

Warm. Soft. Trembling faintly.

Her fingers.

Wise's fingers closed tight, gripping that hand firmly.

Little Guang's hand clenched his at the exact same instant.

The moment their hands locked together, some dormant power inside Wise seemed to wake, stirred by a kindred resonance.

There was no warning, no roar of sound — only a sacred, unrefusable pressure descending suddenly over that world.

Dark golden light spilled out from their clasped palms.

The light was faint, just a thin film, seeping out from between their fingers and spreading up their arms into the rest of their bodies.

But that thin sheet of light, the instant it touched Avarus's domain — the domain shattered.

Not smashed. Not torn. Dissolved.

The dark red barrier, where it touched the edge of the dark gold light, melted away as fast as leftover snow under a blazing sun.

The high-concentration Miasma particles broke down, evaporated, and vanished in the dark gold light — not even a trace of residue left.

From Avarus's perspective, its domain was rolled over — from the inside out — by a sheet of dark gold light in under two seconds.

The shockwave of the domain's collapse radiated outward in every direction, centered on their clasped hands.

The dark gold ring of light grew wider and faster by the moment, sweeping across every inch of Miasma-corroded ground in the plaza.

Avarus let out a shriek.

Nothing like the low resonant roar it had used to declare territory before — this cry carried unmistakable shock and fury.

The fissure in its belly snapped half-shut, and every pattern on its carapace surface went dark at once.

This colossal thing that had ruled the core zone for three years actually took a step back.

After spreading across the whole plaza, the dark gold light slowly gathered back into their clasped palms.

The light vanished, but the power that had welled up from some deep source hadn't dispersed — it sank back down, settling deep inside Wise's body, dormant once more at the very bottom of his soul.

Wise opened his eyes.

His sight had returned.

He glanced down at his hand, still clasped with Little Guang's.

The dark gold light was gone, but their hands were still locked together.

Her hand was a size smaller than his, fingertips a little cool, a thin film of sweat on her palm.

He turned to look at Little Guang.

Little Guang was looking back at him too.

Her face was still pale, cold sweat still drying at her temple, but her ruby eyes had cleared again.

No fear. No lingering dread. Only the faint, slightly misty light of someone who'd made it through alive.

Her droopy ears slowly rose back up from where they'd been flattened, and her cowlick perked up bit by bit along with them.

They held each other's gaze for two seconds. Neither said a word. But everything had already been said.

Wise let go of her hand. The motion was gentle, like setting down something fragile.

"You okay?" he asked.

His throat was still dry, but the burning from before was gone.

"I'm fine." Little Guang shook her head, flexing her slightly numb right hand. "Just... my legs feel a little weak."

"Makes sense."

Wise turned back to face the center of the plaza.

Avarus was still standing there.

But its posture had changed — gone was the earlier stillness, that all-dismissing composure.

Its forelimbs had drawn in slightly, the fissure in its belly narrowed to a thin slit, the patterns on its carapace flickering dark and bright by turns — as if it were reassessing the threat level of the two prey standing before it.

This veteran King-class Ethereal no longer dared treat Wise and Little Guang as mere bugs that had wandered into its territory.