Chapter 1228: The Mischievous Sphere
Ethan stared up at the two women suspended in midair, worry tightening his chest.
He raised a hand and formed a white barrier beside him, covering Feylora, Auri, and everyone else. Then, in his palm, a white sphere of light began to gather—slowly condensing, brighter by the second. Inside it, translucent lightning drifted and coiled, restrained and elegant, like a shy flower waiting to bloom.
Ethan passed the sphere back to Auri.
"Auri. Throw it."
Auri poked her little head out from his arms and nodded furtively. Cradling the light sphere, she realized it was warm—comfortably warm—and her eyes filled with reluctant attachment. Still, she listened, and tossed it upward.
Seraphina and Andona, still in the air, both felt the power rising from below. They immediately veered aside, ready to let the sphere slam straight into the hammer’s shadow.
But once the sphere reached open air... it kept chasing Seraphina.
A personal grudge.
It had to be a personal grudge.
Ethan shot a look at Auri’s mischievous grin, sighed, and reached out again—seizing control of the sphere mid-flight and forcibly dragging its trajectory back toward the hammer-shadow.
Only then did Seraphina finally exhale and drop to the ground. Andona had already been waiting there. Her golden wings weren’t even folded away yet as she held position just outside the barrier.
Suddenly, Seraphina heard a soft chuckle.
Her dragon head snapped toward Andona, the meaning in her eyes obvious: Was that you?
Behind Andona’s tightly sealed angel mask, there was no expression to read. She only lifted her sword and pointed at the two masses of energy closing in overhead, telling Seraphina to focus on what mattered.
Seraphina narrowed her eyes and looked back up.
Then she heard another quiet laugh.
The next instant, the light sphere collided with the enormous hammer-shadow.
The tiny sphere detonated with terrifying force. White lightning burst outward from within, spearing through the hammer-shadow as if it were paper. A red warning-glow flashed across the hammer’s surface, and cracks exploded out from the puncture point, spiderwebbing in every direction.
"BOOM!"
The blast cracked the sky.
The shockwave ripped through the landscape again, flattening flowers and shrubs, thrashing trees like they were weeds. Auri yelped and instantly dove back into Ethan’s body, refusing to stick her head out again.
The hammer-shadow was scattered by the violent gale. The lingering red light fractured into pieces, then became a storm of sparks that rained down into the mountains. But the power inside the light sphere still hadn’t fully burned out—it hung there in the air, continuing to release a brutal pressure wave.
Seraphina and Andona threw up barriers at the same time, sheltering everyone inside.
Seraphina’s massive dragon body braced at the front, crimson scales rattling under the pounding wind. She spread her wings wide and forcibly blocked the aftershocks falling from above. Andona floated on the other side, her golden wings fanning out feather by feather as Divine Power poured down from her like a curtain, weaving into Seraphina’s strength and forming an even sturdier layer of protection.
Feylora didn’t sit idle, either.
Green healing energy flowed from her palms, sweeping over Ethan, Seraphina, and Andona like a gentle breeze. The heavy drain from blocking attack after attack started to ease as the warmth seeped into their bodies. The cracks on Seraphina’s dragon claws slowly sealed. The dimmed glow along the edges of Andona’s wings brightened again. Even the translucent lightning moving inside Ethan steadied, smoothing out into calmer currents.
Anya stood to the side, staring at the white sphere that still hadn’t fully dispersed, and gradually went slack with awe.
Even after shattering the hammer-shadow, the sphere still had power slowly cycling inside it. Rings of white electricity tightened, then expanded, over and over—like a miniature sun compressed to the brink, hovering in the sky. Anya grabbed Ethan’s hand, her voice full of longing.
"Big brother, you’re amazing! Am I gonna become like that too? I can’t wait!"
Feeling her warmth in his palm, Ethan lowered his gaze to her and smiled.
"Jealous? Want to learn? I’ll teach you."
That single line loosened the tension like someone had finally cut a wire.
Everyone thought the danger was over. Still inside the barrier, they sat down to catch their breath. The clash had come out of nowhere—some people hadn’t even gotten their breathing back under control yet. Now that they had a rare moment to recover, they leaned together and rested. Someone muttered a joke under their breath, and it quickly drew a ripple of laughter.
Seraphina shifted back into human form and sat down beside Ethan, but her eyes never left Andona.
The hatred in that stare wasn’t subtle.
Andona stood quietly off to the side. The angel mask hid her face, and only her golden wings remained half-unfolded. She didn’t respond to Seraphina’s glare at all—and the more she refused to acknowledge it, the more Seraphina’s look sharpened, like she wanted to pin Andona to the earth.
But Auri couldn’t laugh.
After she emerged from Ethan’s body again, her mood stayed low. That strike had stopped the hammer-shadow, sure... but it had also wrecked the flowers and trees around them all over again. Auri looked at the toppled forest in the distance and the grassland peeled open by the shockwave, her little face full of pain.
"What a waste... such a waste..." she murmured, then asked softly, "Did I do that?"
Feylora looked at Auri helplessly, then turned to Ethan, clearly asking him for a solution.
Ethan could only shake his head.
He took out a small blade of grass that looked bursting with life and handed it to Feylora. A soft vitality flowed through it, the leaves swaying gently with a fresh green glow. Feylora sighed. While continuing to use her healing energy to restore everyone’s drained strength, she also lowered her voice and soothed Auri.
Only the "road" of magma left behind by the goat phantom that had charged them earlier still hissed and crackled.
On the charred ground, dark-red lava crawled along the grooves, heat rising in waves that warped the air. Everywhere the goat had stepped, plants had turned to ash—even the soil had been baked into a cracked, black shell.
Then—suddenly—a gigantic goat rose from behind the mountain ridge.
Its appearance made the entire forest go silent for a single heartbeat.
After that came a howl that slammed down from the peak, deafening, like rolling thunder smashing straight into their ears. The sound was heavy and sharp, and it carried the violent fury of erupting magma, shaking the woods hard enough that birds and beasts fled again in panic.
"Holy—! Go—"
Someone tried to shout, but the second half of the cry was crushed under the goat’s roar.
The goat lay sprawled atop the ridge, staring down at them from above. Its body was so huge it didn’t even fit the idea of "goat" anymore. Fire-red magma flowed across the surface of its skin, and thick iron plating wrapped parts of its frame. Its oversized nostrils looked like two dark, cavernous pits, and every time it breathed, it blasted out scorching white steam.
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