Behind them, Owin’s ruin continued to collapse.
Massive blocks of architecture crashed down with muffled detonations, dragging columns of dust hundreds of meters high into the air. The energy conduits that had once run throughout the entire area went dark one by one, leaving behind a shadowed expanse of wreckage beneath the green sky that still hung overhead.
Laira didn’t stop.
She held Ethan and used her last reserves of strength to fly clear of the collapse zone. On the other side, Ruo Yan clung to the Necromancer’s back. The puppet was severely damaged, but it could still move, carrying her in long bounding leaps across the fractured ground.
A few kilometers later, Laira finally descended.
They landed in a cluster of crumbling structures nestled between two ridges of black rock. The walls here had been eaten away by time, leaving only a few tilted domes that were enough to block the line of sight from a distance.
The moment his feet touched the ground, Ethan retracted the Thunder Wings.
Fifteen hundred Thunder-Iron Feathers became streams of purple-silver light that withdrew one by one into the Primordial Armor on his left arm. The loss of pressure made his body feel slightly lighter, but the emptiness inside his Heavenly Gate became all the more pronounced.
He took two more steps and braced a hand against a section of wall.
Laira immediately took hold of his arm.
"Sit down."
"I can still stand."
"I know." Laira looked at him, her voice even. "But what’s the point?"
Ethan was quiet for a moment. In the end, he sat down at the base of the wall.
Laira sat beside him. She tucked her dragon wings back, though the wing that had been rebuilt by the Thunder Wings still had a few feeble sparks of electricity running between the metal feathers. The Thunder Flame had gone out completely, with only a faint warmth around her body proving the newly awakened power still existed.
Ruo Yan’s condition was even worse.
After the Necromancer set her down, she had to grip its arm just to stay upright. The wound on her shoulder had mostly stopped bleeding, but her ashen complexion made it clear she had also hit her limit.
Ruo Yan didn’t rest right away.
The first thing she did was place her hand on the inheritance mark.
A faint ring of light appeared around her wrist, and layers of information flowed into her consciousness.
She closed her eyes and checked for a long while before finally exhaling.
"The Puppet Archive is intact."
Ethan glanced over.
"The three cores?"
"All in there."
The last bit of tension on Ruo Yan’s face finally eased.
The three old puppets had used their own bodies to protect Ethan while he was fusing the Thunder Wings. To her, the value of those three cores far exceeded most of the materials Owin had left behind.
"What about the rest?"
"Most of the important materials were transferred before the space collapsed. Some unfinished puppet bodies, blueprints, and Puppet Cores were also saved." Ruo Yan paused, then frowned slightly. "But we still lost a lot."
Laira leaned her shoulder against the wall and said slowly,
"You just picked up an entire vault from Owin and you’re still upset?"
Ruo Yan looked at her.
"Didn’t you hear what he said? Some of the things left in there were items even he forgot the use for. For all we know, the stuff that got crushed at the end was the best of the lot."
"Could also have been the kind that explodes when you touch it."
Ruo Yan went quiet.
Owin’s answer of "probably" when she had asked whether the vault contained anything dangerous surfaced in her mind again.
She raised a hand and rubbed her forehead.
"Don’t remind me."
The green flames in the Necromancer’s eye sockets flickered faintly.
Ruo Yan immediately turned to look at it.
"You think you’re in any position to laugh?"
The Necromancer promptly turned its head to look in a different direction.
Laira laughed out loud.
Even Ethan’s mouth curved slightly.
After nearly twelve hours of being besieged, three puppets destroyed, Laira and Ruo Yan both nearly killed, they had ultimately discovered the entire place was just an amusement dreamed up by Owin and the Necromancer after a drinking session.
It would have been stranger if Ruo Yan weren’t in despair.
But however unreliable Owin might be, everything he left behind was real.
Ethan closed his eyes for a few seconds, then opened the Eye of Truth at its lowest setting.
He didn’t observe the surroundings but focused instead on the skill he had just received.
[Cataclysmic Thunder Gate.]
[Type: Active skill.]
[Rank: Mythical.]
[Current status: Deep dormancy.]
[Accumulated energy: 0%.]
[Energy crystals can be absorbed to shorten the awakening process.]
[The scale of the Thunder Gate opening can be adjusted.]
[The greater the output, the higher the energy consumption.]
Ethan’s gaze paused on the last two lines.
The previous activation had drained nearly all the remaining energy in Owin’s ruin. The scale at which it opened was immense, powerful enough to punch through the doors and carve up the terrain beyond.
But that didn’t mean every use had to reach that level.
As long as enough energy was accumulated, he could open a smaller Thunder Gate, trading range for lower consumption.
Even so, given his current situation, the skill was still a resource-devouring beast.
Ethan looked at the remaining crystals inside the Primordial Armor and let out a quiet breath.
Laira turned her head at once.
"Something wrong?"
"I just received a very powerful skill."
"I saw."
"And a very expensive one."
Laira thought for a few seconds.
"Then from now on, we kill the ones who come for the Thunder Wings and take their crystals."
Ethan looked at her.
"You say that like it’s a normal job."
Laira raised an eyebrow.
"They want to kill us first. I’m just collecting spoils."
Ruo Yan, sitting not far away, cut in flatly.
"This time I agree with her."
Laira immediately looked over.
"Finally you say something pleasant."
"I’m only saying you’re right about this one thing."
"That’s enough."
Ethan didn’t continue the debate.
He leaned his head against the wall and looked at the green sky through the collapsed section of roof.
This was still the challenge space.
Owin’s ruin had only been one zone inside it.
They had escaped the workshop, but they were still very far from truly leaving this place.
The same went for the survivors.
Over twenty kilometers from the Owin area, a green circle of light abruptly appeared in a rocky valley.
Four Elves tumbled out of the warped space.
The older Elf rolled several times across the ground before propping himself up with one arm. Half of his left forearm had been charred black, the cloak on his back was nearly shredded by lightning, and even the bow he had used for years was reduced to a stub.
The other three weren’t much better.
One of them stood up and immediately looked behind them.
On the horizon, the massive pillar of dust from Owin’s ruin was still clearly visible.
"That thing... what was it?"
No one answered right away.
The older Elf took out a recording crystal.
Its surface lit up.
The final moments inside the great hall appeared in sharp detail.
Ethan standing at the front.
Three thousand Thunder-Iron Feathers forming a colossal channel.
Behind him, the black gate wreathed in lightning.
Then white-purple light flooding the entire image.
The older Elf watched the footage one more time, then switched it off.
A younger Elf lowered his voice.
"Do we still have to kill him?"
"You want to go back?"
The other fell silent at once.
The older Elf looked at the pillar of dust in the distance, his expression grim.
"In our current state, going back is just dying."
"Then what about Brakk and Aldren..."
"That’s no longer our concern."
He tucked the recording crystal away.
"First, we leave the challenge space."
The Elf beside him frowned.
"And after that?"
The older Elf turned, his gaze growing cold.
"After that, we bring all of this back to the clan."
He tapped the crystal lightly.
"Ethan Ashford possesses the Mythical Thunder Wings. His Red Dragon Partner has the other half. He also just obtained a lightning skill capable of draining an entire ruin’s energy."
"You think the elders will let that go?"
The other hesitated.
"But he’s only Silver-rank."
"That’s exactly why he has to be killed early."
The older Elf spoke very slowly.
"Today he’s Silver-rank."
"What if in a few years he reaches Gold-rank, King level, or goes even higher?"
No one answered.
The silence said enough.
The older Elf turned away.
"Move. From now on, avoid the Owin area. If we encounter Ethan before finding the exit, do not engage."
He no longer saw Ethan as prey that a handful of people could handle.
At the very least, inside the challenge space, they had to survive first.
As for today’s debt...
Someone else would settle it.
In another direction, five Beastkin were moving across a stretch of barren flatland.
No one spoke.
Brakk was dead.
His body had been left behind in the ruin.
One Beastkin stopped at the base of a large boulder and took out the Red Fang emblem. A layer of dried blood still coated the metal surface.
He set the emblem on the ground.
Mana flowed in.
A red war axe appeared above it.
After a few breaths, the war axe split into two pieces.
The sign that the warband’s leader had fallen.
The Beastkin around him all bowed their heads.
One spoke hoarsely.
"The dragon killed him."
The one holding the emblem shook his head.
"Ethan and the dragon."
He took out another crystal.
In the image, Ethan and Laira hovered in the air, the two halves of the Thunder Wings linked by arcs of lightning.
"Remember both of them."
A Beastkin beside him clenched his fist.
"Do we go back?"
"With what?"
The one holding the emblem looked at those still alive.
Five people.
Three wounded.
None of them in any condition to fight Ethan and Laira.
"We leave the challenge first."
He put the Red Fang emblem away.
"After we return, the warband will decide."
A few of them nodded.
No further explanation was needed.
The Red Fang had rules.
The one who killed their leader would pay.
The smaller races scattered in every direction as well.
Some chose to avoid everyone entirely, wanting only to find the way out.
Others saved every piece of footage to their crystals.
The Thunder Wings.
The Red Dragon.
Owin’s inheritance.
No one may have fully understood Ethan’s Eye of Truth yet, but the fact that he had repeatedly seen through arrays and pinpointed weaknesses was enough for every witness to remember.
That information couldn’t be turned into profit right now.
But the moment they left the challenge space, everything would change.
Intelligence about a Mythical treasure could be traded for the kind of resources most creatures couldn’t accumulate in a lifetime.
The greed hadn’t disappeared.
It had only been temporarily crushed under fear.
In the ruined area, Ruo Yan had rested for a while.
She looked at Ethan recovering with his eyes closed, then spoke up.
"Have you thought about chasing the ones who ran?"
Ethan opened his eyes.
"Right now?"
"After you’ve recovered."
He looked toward the ruin of Owin, now nothing more than a pillar of dust on the horizon.
"No need."
Ruo Yan frowned slightly.
"They know about the Thunder Wings."
"I know."
"They know your face too."
"Yeah."
"Once they leave here, the news will spread."
Ethan was quiet for a moment, then answered calmly.
"That stopped being preventable the moment the battle started."
Aldren, Brakk, the Elves, the Beastkin, Korr, and many other races had all seen him.
Even if he killed every last person who had just fled, he couldn’t be certain there weren’t recordings or other methods of transmission already prepared in advance.
More importantly, hunting them down one by one across a vast challenge space was far more dangerous than letting them go.
Ruo Yan understood that.
But she still asked.
"You’re not worried?"
Ethan looked down at the Primordial Armor on his hand.
"I am."
Ruo Yan was slightly surprised.
She had expected him to say he wasn’t afraid.
Ethan continued.
"Which is why I need to be stronger before they come."
Laira, who had been resting with her eyes closed beside him, immediately opened one eye.
"I like that line."
Ruo Yan looked at both of them and sighed.
"I’m starting to feel like becoming your Partner was a very dangerous decision."
Ethan looked at her.
"Regretting it now?"
Ruo Yan answered flatly.
"Too late for that."
The Soul Thread between them hummed softly.
Laira laughed, but just as she was about to say something, the Necromancer standing guard suddenly turned its head toward the distance.
All three of them went quiet at once.
Ethan narrowed his eyes.
Beyond the ridges of black rock, a very faint column of light had just flared and vanished.
Not in the direction of Owin’s ruin.
Not where the fleeing survivors had gone either.
Ruo Yan braced herself and stood up.
"Someone out there?"
"Not sure."
Ethan opened the Eye of Truth for a single instant, then quickly shut it down.
The distance was too great.
All he caught was a spatial fluctuation spreading in a specific direction.
Something inside the challenge world had just changed.
Ethan looked up at the green sky overhead.
They had obtained the Thunder Wings.
Ruo Yan had received the inheritance.
Owin’s ruin had completely collapsed.
But this journey still wasn’t over.
He braced one hand against the wall and stood up.
Laira rose with him.
Ruo Yan looked at him.
"Leaving now?"
"Not yet."
Ethan took out a few energy crystals and tossed one to Laira.
"Recover first."
He looked toward the column of light that had just appeared.
"Then we find the exit."
Far away within the same challenge space, many other groups of creatures had also noticed the fluctuation at the same time.
Elves stopped walking.
Beastkin raised their heads.
Those wandering between zones began shifting direction one by one.
Paths that had been scattered started slowly converging toward the same place.
And on a different route entirely, an enormous ship continued its silent passage through the green sky.