Chapter 596: The Trail of Blood and Feathers
Ethan manually piloted the mech, guiding it slowly across the ocean. The waters beneath shimmered calm and unbroken, no ripples of disturbance, no signs that anything had happened here.
With no clues to be found, he pushed the engines harder, angling Shatterstar toward Lyla’s last recorded GPS location.
What lay beneath was less an island than a jagged reef rising from the sea, no more than two hundred meters around. Ethan zoomed in on the coordinates, and there it was on the display: Lyla’s phone.
His heart sank at the sight.
The area around it bore clear signs of battle. Lyla and Astrid had fought here—and they had been attacked. Whoever their enemies were, they had been powerful. Ethan’s eyes caught on a glimmer in the distance: a golden feather lodged in the reef.
A Golden Falcon’s feather. Astrid’s.
Ethan’s chest tightened. What kind of enemy could force Astrid to reveal her true form? Pure-blood beast clans rarely transformed unless truly pressed, unless they faced opponents who could threaten their very lives. For Astrid to not only transform but also shed feathers in combat—was there really someone this strong on Earth?
The thought unsettled him. Astrid was stronger than Blackie, her aura pressing at the peak of late War God rank. He didn’t understand why Earth’s suppressive force seemed to target only humans, while beast clans moved freely. And Astrid’s growth since arriving had been extraordinary, greater even than Blackie’s, though she had consumed fewer Energy Cores.
But Ethan hadn’t been watching Blackie closely of late. That creature had long surpassed War God rank. Energy Cores no longer served him. Blackie had found another path.
Back in the days at the General’s Tomb, the Whitmore family’s power grid had collapsed time and again. Ethan eventually discovered why: Blackie had been strapping himself to high-voltage power lines, letting torrents of raw electricity course through his body. Somehow, impossibly, it had worked. His strength had vaulted to Saint rank.
Even more astonishing, his breakthrough on Earth had drawn no heavenly tribulation at all. But once he crossed into Saint rank, electricity lost its use for him. His attributes had fallen out of balance. Lightning was overwhelming within him, while wind, water, and fire lagged far behind. If he wanted to ascend further, he would need to bring those weaker elements in line.
Ethan brought Shatterstar to a hover and leapt from the cockpit, dropping straight to the reef. He landed beside the broken phone and the feather. He picked them up slowly, his face hardening as his fingers closed around them.
Lyla’s phone was shattered, as though struck down violently. Astrid’s feather still held a trace of blood, faint but undeniable. He could feel the echo of her aura in it.
"Soul manifestation..." Ethan’s voice was low and dangerous.
His eyes burned, his hair lifting as though in a storm. His clothes whipped in the windless air. Power erupted from him in waves as his Soul Energy surged outward, unfolding into Soul Sense that spread like a vast net in all directions.
"Lyla... where are you? You can’t be hurt..." His words came in a frantic whisper, more to himself than to the world.
The force of his Soul Sense pushed outward until it reached its limit—two hundred miles in every direction, even probing deep beneath the sea. Yet there was nothing. No trace of her.
His chest constricted with desperation. His eyes reddened, his whole body trembling with the strain.
At last, he clenched his jaw, bent his knees, and launched himself skyward. In a breath, he was back inside Shatterstar, lowering into the VR capsule.
"Shatterstar," he commanded, his voice raw, "interface with my Mindscape. Amplify it."
The mech responded with a low hum that reverberated through his bones.
Ethan poured his Soul Energy outward again, this time channeling it through Shatterstar’s neural core.
The radius expanded instantly to five hundred miles.
"Bigger..." he muttered, jaw clenched as he forced more power into the surge.
The strain was unbearable. Pain tore through his skull, as though his mind itself were splitting apart.
Hum... hum...
The air around the mech distorted, dense ripples spreading outward as his Soul Energy swept southward in a vast arc. Clouds dissolved in its wake. The calm ocean below rippled violently under the weight of his search.
One thousand miles. Ethan forced himself to scan every inch.
The range teemed with life—schools of fish, pods of dolphins, creatures swarming in the deep. The ocean’s vitality was staggering, a hundred times richer than anything he had sensed on land. Yet the energy was chaotic, scattered, every individual signature faint and fragmented.
And then something stirred inside him. The Tree of Life embedded in his body reacted, its little sprout—Yaya’s true form—swaying within his soul as endless life energy poured in from all directions.
Ethan faltered for a moment. He hadn’t even noticed before, too blinded by panic and rage to pay attention to himself. But now that awareness returned, the change was undeniable. His body was absorbing the ocean’s vast vitality.
Still, he shoved the thought aside. None of it mattered. Not while Lyla was missing.
His expanded sense brushed over several Energy users scattered across remote isles to the south, but their strength was unimpressive. He dismissed them all instantly.
If Astrid had been wounded, then the enemy had to be far stronger than that.
Beneath the surface, however, he did discover a handful of formidable magical beasts. The strongest was a massive blue whale, pulsing with half-step War God strength. But even with such strength, the creature’s aura was hollow—it had never awakened intelligence.
Ethan frowned. Could this be the reason Earth allowed magical beasts to grow so freely? Their growth came slower, bound by the difficulty of developing true consciousness.
He dismissed the whale, but the thought lingered. Could Astrid’s enemy have been an intelligent beast? Something powerful enough to match her, yet clever enough to target her and Lyla?
"Hm?"
Just as he began to pull back his focus, his attention snagged on a speck of land.
A tiny island, no more than five hundred square meters.
At its center stood a shack of corrugated metal, and beside it, a speedboat bobbing on the waves. Inside the shack, two men lounged.
At first, Ethan would have ignored them. Their auras were mundane, no energy to speak of. But as his Soul Sense brushed over them, their conversation drifted into his awareness.
"What’s the deal with those two women the boss is escorting himself?"
"No idea. But damn, they’re gorgeous. Especially that blonde one. I wouldn’t mind getting a taste..."
"Shut it. You want to die? Even the boss doesn’t dare touch them."
"I was just saying, relax. I wouldn’t actually—"
Their words froze Ethan’s blood.
Two women. Escorted personally. A blonde.
His expression turned sharp, fury flooding his veins.
Without a second’s hesitation, he shoved Shatterstar into maximum thrust. The mech streaked across the waves like a blade of light, closing the distance in an instant.
The island rushed up to meet him.
Whoosh!
BOOM!
Ethan didn’t bother with subtlety. He dropped from the mech like a falling meteor, landing squarely on the tin-roofed shack. The structure crumpled beneath his weight as the earth itself shuddered from the impact.