The Cataclysmic Thunder Gate appeared.
Two black pillars slowly pushed through from the space behind Ethan, rising so high they nearly touched the vaulted ceiling of the great hall. Across their surfaces, ancient lightning patterns lit up one by one, each accompanied by a low peal of thunder echoing from the darkness between the pillars.
The instant the Thunder Gate fully stabilized, the entire ruin shuddered violently.
The nearly depleted energy conduits along the walls all blazed to life at once. The energy that had been spiraling out of control from the spatial core’s collapse was dragged by an invisible pull, converging into hundreds of luminous streams that poured toward the gate behind Ethan.
The lightning around the Thunder Wings also turned chaotic.
A notification appeared before his eyes.
[Cataclysmic Thunder Gate is absorbing surrounding energy.]
[Accumulation rate: 3%.]
[7%.]
[14%.]
The number climbed at a speed that made Ethan raise an eyebrow.
According to the Eye of Truth’s data, the Cataclysmic Thunder Gate required a massive amount of energy to activate. At his current level, if he had to supplement it with crystals bit by bit, he had no idea how many resources a single use would cost.
But the current situation was almost tailor-made.
The entire ruin was collapsing.
The energy accumulated over countless years to sustain the space, the arrays, and the mechanisms was all losing control. If it wasn’t absorbed, it would simply dissipate into the void or explode along with the ruin.
The Cataclysmic Thunder Gate was drinking all of it in.
At the exit, the older Elf’s expression changed immediately.
He had been working with the others to force the gate’s array into operation, but the crystals just placed into the energy grooves suddenly dimmed at a rate visible to the naked eye.
"Stop!"
He yanked his hands off the array.
An Elf beside him didn’t understand what was happening. "We’re almost there!"
"I said stop!"
The older Elf spun around and roared. "It’s draining the gate’s energy!"
The words had barely left his mouth when a green line of light running along the door’s edge went dark. The vanished energy didn’t dissipate. It became a luminous stream that stretched across the great hall and was sucked into the Cataclysmic Thunder Gate.
The stone doors slowed their closing.
Behind Ethan, the patterns on the Thunder Gate brightened another layer.
[29%.]
[36%.]
[43%.]
Panic spread quickly.
The Beastkin pushing against the doors immediately let go. Several turned and bolted outside without waiting for orders, while the smaller races that had been hesitating all along had even less intention of staying.
They had witnessed the Thunder Flame Sky Net.
They had watched Aldren burned to ash.
They had seen Brakk, a Gold-rank tier 9 powerhouse, die at Laira’s hands.
Now the thing behind Ethan was making the entire ruin offer up its energy.
No one wanted to stay and find out what that gate was for.
Only the older Elf remained where he stood.
He looked at Ethan through the gap between the two doors, his expression shifting continuously. After the battle, he understood Ethan’s condition better than anyone here.
The Thunder Wings had almost no energy left.
Laira was exhausted.
Ruo Yan was in no shape to sustain a prolonged fight.
Just a little more time, and they could have died inside the ruin.
But the gate that had just appeared had ruined everything.
The older Elf ground his teeth.
He knew he was among those who had rallied the others to keep trying to kill Ethan. If the other side made it out of here, what awaited him afterward might be worse than death.
"Destroy the gate!"
The Elves who had been running froze.
"Elder..."
"Do you think he’ll let us go?"
The older Elf raised his cracked bow. "If that thing finishes charging, none of us have a chance!"
Mana gathered on the arrowhead.
A few Elves who were still wavering gritted their teeth and turned back. The rest lacked the courage and kept running toward the door, choosing to save themselves.
Three magic arrows and two beams of light shot toward the Cataclysmic Thunder Gate.
Laira immediately moved to shield Ethan, but he raised his hand and held her back.
"No need."
The first attack entered the roughly ten-meter radius around the Thunder Gate.
The light on the arrow suddenly dimmed.
The mana was stripped from the technique’s structure, then turned into tiny motes of light and was sucked toward the gate.
The arrow fell to the stone floor, completely drained.
The two magic blasts behind it fared no better. They were stretched into thin ribbons of light and dissolved rapidly.
[52%.]
[58%.]
The older Elf went rigid.
Their own attacks had just become fuel for the very thing trying to kill them.
"Run!"
No one waited for the order.
The formation collapsed instantly.
Some Elves turned and dashed for the door. The Beastkin group split in multiple directions, searching for other exits in the great hall. The creatures from the smaller races only cared about getting as far from the radius as possible.
Ethan watched it all, but he didn’t rush to activate the Thunder Gate.
The energy level kept climbing.
[67%.]
[74%.]
At the same time, he opened the Eye of Truth.
Pain shot through both eyes immediately, but Ethan only narrowed the observation range to the area directly ahead.
The gate.
The hall’s structure.
The load-bearing columns.
The escape route outside.
The positions of the fleeing Elves and Beastkin.
Layer after layer of information appeared.
The Cataclysmic Thunder Gate had an enormous destruction radius. If he simply let it discharge straight ahead, the doors would certainly be wiped out, but the entire vaulted ceiling above could also come crashing down.
Ethan didn’t want to break through the gate only to be buried under tens of thousands of tons of stone.
He needed to control the direction of the blast.
And the moment he thought of that, the fifteen hundred feathers behind his back trembled faintly.
Ethan understood at once.
"Laira."
"Right here."
"Give me the Thunder Wings."
Laira needed only an instant to understand what he meant.
She opened her left wing.
Fifteen hundred Thunder-Iron Feathers immediately detached from the dragon wing and rose into the air. At the same time, every feather behind Ethan’s back also left its position.
Three thousand feathers divided into two long rows.
They didn’t form a Sky Net.
Each one stopped at a point Ethan had identified through the Eye of Truth, stretching from both sides of the Thunder Gate all the way to the doors ahead.
Purple-silver lightning linked them together.
In just seconds, a colossal corridor of lightning had been erected.
Laira looked at the structure, her orange-red eyes brightening slightly.
"Want me to add Thunder Flame?"
Ethan glanced at her pallid face.
"Save it."
"I still have strength left."
"I know."
He looked at Ruo Yan being supported by the Necromancer behind them.
"But after the gate breaks, you need to carry her out."
Laira wanted to say something. In the end, she only gave a soft huff and pulled the Thunder Flame around her hands back.
"Fine."
The older Elf had already run close to the door.
He turned to look, just in time to see three thousand feathers forming a channel between Ethan and the gate.
A flash of terror lit his eyes.
"Don’t let him finish!"
He pulled out a green crystal and crushed it.
Space around four Elves immediately warped.
Another Elf who had just arrived screamed, "Take us with you!"
The older Elf didn’t even turn his head.
The teleportation circle could only carry a limited number. Those outside his group held no value now.
A four-winged creature saw it happen and its expression turned vicious.
"You’re using us as shields?"
"If you want to live, find your own way."
The older Elf answered coldly.
The light circle beneath his feet began to contract.
The alliance from moments ago shattered into pieces.
Beastkin ran in one direction.
Elves scrambled to get into the teleportation zone.
The smaller races threw themselves toward gaps in the collapsed walls.
No one cared about killing Ethan anymore.
The only thing any of them wanted now was to survive.
[89%.]
[93%.]
[97%.]
The energy around the great hall was drained until every light on the walls went dark simultaneously.
Only the Thunder Gate blazed behind Ethan.
[100%.]
[Absorption complete.]
[The Cataclysmic Thunder Gate has opened.]
The instant the notification appeared, every sound in the great hall seemed to be crushed flat.
The falling chunks of stone slowed in everyone’s perception.
The wind stopped blowing.
Even the thunder vanished.
Inside the pitch-black gate, a single white-purple point of light slowly appeared.
No bigger than a fingertip.
Then it rapidly grew.
The Thunder Wings behind Ethan’s back shook violently.
All three thousand feathers rotated their tips forward in unison.
A line of information appeared.
[Guidance structure complete.]
[Destruction radius has been adjusted.]
[Deviation: 0.7%.]
Ethan looked at the doors that were nearly sealed shut.
Through the last sliver of gap, he could still make out a few silhouettes fleeing.
He had no intention of hunting every last one of them down.
But those still in the path of the blast were no longer within the scope of people he needed to protect.
Ethan extended his left hand.
"Open."
BOOM!
A single clap of thunder detonated.
What poured from the Cataclysmic Thunder Gate was nothing like ordinary lightning.
It was a colossal torrent of white-purple electricity.
It tore through three thousand feathers, was compressed by the lines of lightning, and roared straight ahead.
The ancient stone doors held for less than a single breath.
The array inscriptions across their surface caught fire all at once.
Metal melted.
Stone turned to dust.
Then the entire center section of the doors was erased from sight by the torrent of lightning.
A few creatures who hadn’t cleared the blast path were swallowed by the light in an instant. The older Elf’s teleportation circle had snapped shut just before the torrent swept through, leaving the handful who hadn’t squeezed in to vanish completely in the sea of electricity.
The torrent continued surging outward.
But thanks to the three thousand guiding feathers, the energy didn’t fan out into a massive arc.
The Thunder Wings continuously pulled stray bolts back into alignment, forcing them to converge into a single line.
The destruction radius narrowed.
The piercing power increased.
The lightning torrent tore through the ruin’s entrance and carved a long trench across the ground outside before finally dissipating among the ruins.
A few seconds later, the light vanished.
The entire great hall plunged into darkness.
Purple cracks appeared across the two pillars behind Ethan.
[The Cataclysmic Thunder Gate has completed its first activation.]
[Skill entering deep dormancy.]
[Energy reserves: 0%.]
[Energy crystals required for reactivation.]
The Thunder Gate dissolved into countless bolts of electricity and disappeared.
The moment the pressure around his body vanished, Ethan felt his entire frame grow heavy.
The Thunder Wings behind him also lost nearly all their light.
He had barely started to lean when Laira appeared at his side, wrapping an arm around his waist.
"Ethan."
"I’m fine."
Laira looked at him resting more than half his weight against her.
"You’re leaning on me."
Ethan was quiet for a moment.
"Then I still haven’t fallen."
Laira laughed, her tired wings trembling softly.
"All right, I’ll count that as your win."
Ahead, nearly half the doors had been erased.
Light from outside flooded into the great hall.
Ethan looked through the massive hole.
Far in the distance, a few silhouettes could still be seen fleeing the area in a frenzy.
Elves.
Beastkin.
And other races.
They had survived.
And they had seen nearly everything that had just happened.
Ethan didn’t chase them.
He no longer had the energy for it either.
Behind them, the entire great hall let out a long, groaning crack.
The ceiling began to collapse.
Ethan looked at Laira.
"Go."
Laira immediately pulled him close and beat her wings.
Ruo Yan also pulled on her Soul Threads, directing the Necromancer to follow.
Four figures shot through the hole the Cataclysmic Thunder Gate had blown open.
The moment they cleared the great hall, the roof behind them caved in.
Wall after ancient wall toppled one after another.
Dust surged into the sky.
In the end, the entirety of Owin’s ruin vanished in a drawn-out roar of collapse.