Chapter 1438: Two Names Changed Everything

The pebble struck the bottom of the crater with a faint echo.

"If you're alive, say something."

The others descended and landed beside Ethan.

Seraphine raised a shield around the group. Everyone stared into the crater, waiting for Malverin to respond.

At last, footsteps rose from below.

Malverin slowly stood, holding one broken half of his scepter in each hand.

"Of course I'm alive."

His voice remained steady, but it couldn't hide his exhaustion and irritation.

Ethan frowned.

Malverin had lost his church and the dark blue mud. Even the final pillar he'd summoned had been stopped.

Yet he was still fighting.

What was he after?

The bird-beaked mask on Malverin's face began to come loose.

Its fastenings fell away one by one, and the long beak slid down, revealing an old man's face.

Ethan stared at him, struck by an odd sense of familiarity.

He had never met Malverin before.

Yet the man's eyes, the shape of his face, even the way he looked at others all resembled someone Ethan had encountered not long ago.

"Have we met somewhere before?"

Malverin looked up.

He removed the mask completely and held it in one hand. The two halves of his scepter left his grasp and floated beside him.

A brilliant white light shone from both pieces.

The broken ends drifted together and rejoined without leaving a seam. The restored scepter then floated behind Malverin.

"Do we know each other?" Malverin asked flatly.

"We do."

He placed the bird-beaked mask back over his face.

"But we only just met."

The scepter behind him suddenly accelerated, stabbing straight for Ethan's chest.

A row of stone spikes burst from behind Malverin and followed it.

Ethan calmly watched the attacks approach.

An energy sphere appeared in each hand. He brought his palms together, slamming the two spheres into each other.

There was no explosion.

White energy expanded in every direction, rapidly forming an isolated space.

White light swallowed their surroundings.

From Malverin's perspective, Ethan and everyone else vanished at once. Deprived of their targets, the restored scepter and stone spikes hovered motionless in the air.

Malverin gripped the edge of his mask and scanned the area warily.

In one corner of the white space, Ethan stood with an energy sphere floating above his palm, watching him coldly.

"Whether we know each other or not—"

White wings spread from Ethan's back.

"—there's one way to find out."

Ethan charged.

The energy sphere remained where it was, then shifted through space and appeared behind Malverin.

Ethan himself arrived in front of him.

He pulled his right fist back and drove his left into Malverin's stomach.

The instant his knuckles connected, compressed white energy punched through Malverin and erupted forward in a massive shock wave.

Malverin was launched into the air.

The energy sphere behind him met his body and sank into his back.

Time stopped.

Malverin remained suspended in the posture of someone being hurled through the air. His scepter and stone spikes froze with him, unable to move.

The pure white space gradually turned gray.

In the end, only a pale color somewhere between gray and white remained.

Holding another energy sphere, Ethan walked into the gray-white space. The wings behind him beat gently, carrying him to Malverin's side.

He studied the bird-beaked mask from up close.

"You look a lot like someone."

Ethan spoke the man's name.

"He called himself Silas."

Malverin's pupils contracted.

"He also had a younger brother named Adrian."

Ethan watched the changes in Malverin's eyes.

"Remember now?"

Malverin's frozen fingers began to tremble.

A sharp gleam erupted from the scepter. Like a blade, it sliced through the gray-white space from within.

Cracks spread outward from Malverin's body.

Time resumed.

Freed from the restraint, Malverin extended a piece of stone from his palm. He gripped it as it lengthened into a straight stone arrow.

"Silas…"

He walked toward Ethan.

"Adrian…"

His breathing grew faster behind the bird-beaked mask.

"Ethan, what did you just say?"

Malverin crossed the distance between them in a single step and swung his scepter down at Ethan. At the same time, the stone arrow shot from his palm toward Ethan's shoulder.

The gray-white space had shattered.

But if it was broken, Ethan could simply put it back together.

Still holding the energy sphere, Ethan shifted aside and avoided the descending scepter. He appeared beside Malverin and slammed the sphere against his head.

Time stopped again.

Drawn by the energy sphere, the scattered fragments of gray-white space returned from every direction. The cracks sealed one after another until the entire space had reassembled into a seamless gray-white wall.

Ethan stared at Malverin, frozen in front of him.

"What happened to Adrian?"

Boom!

The energy sphere erupted beside Malverin's head, smashing him toward the ground.

Ethan descended after him.

A new energy sphere hovered above his right palm, while his left hand gripped part of the gray-white space itself. His eyes turned pure white as the clouds began gathering overhead.

"I asked you what happened to him!"

White lightning fell from the sky.

Malverin lay on the ground. The thunder snapped him partially out of his daze.

The restored scepter flew over him on its own and turned sideways, forming a fragile shield.

The white lightning came too fast.

The scepter's defense couldn't block all of it.

Malverin finally reacted, reaching toward the weapon above him.

"What are you doing?!"

For the first time, panic filled his voice.

"You're the only proof our family ever existed!"

"What are you doing?!"

But Malverin was too late.

The lightning pierced the outer defense and struck the otherwise ordinary-looking scepter.

The shaft fought desperately to hold back the lightning.

Sharp cracks rang out one after another as the point of contact began disappearing inch by inch.

Malverin reached for it, but his hand caught only scattering arcs of white lightning.

The bolt pierced the scepter, then poured into his body.

Bone-deep cold spread through him.

A sense of loss came with it.

Malverin couldn't understand the feeling.

He had killed an entire city.

So why did losing a single scepter hurt?

The old friend who had accompanied him for so many years was already gone.

Yet amid the cold and grief, another emotion was growing out of control.

At last, he had found traces of his two sons.

"Hahaha!"

Malverin rose from the ground, his laughter swelling.

"Ethan!"

He stared at Ethan and staggered forward.

"Tell me what happened to my sons!"

Stone arrows formed one after another behind him.

"Tell me!"

They all shot forward at once.

A longsword of multicolored stone appeared in Malverin's right hand. He charged across the shattered ground, straight at Ethan.