Chapter 1447: Rebirth Through Self-Destruction

Lunethar's clenched fists were still aimed forward. It had no time to redirect them.

Ethan drew one fist back and used his other hand to adjust his balance. White lightning coiled down from his shoulder to his knuckles as the surrounding air compressed, forming a visible depression around his fist.

"Watch this!"

He punched straight down.

Less than two seconds had passed between Ethan's reappearance and the attack. Lunethar couldn't dodge, so it concentrated its remaining energy around the top of its head, reinforcing its defenses.

But it had never intended to rely on defense alone.

Its two arms couldn't make it back in time.

So it grew another one.

The force of Ethan's punch had already shattered the outer defenses above Lunethar's head. His fist was less than four inches from its skull when it came to an abrupt stop.

A newly formed hand had caught his wrist.

The arm had grown directly from the top of Lunethar's head. Its five fingers locked around Ethan's wrist, stopping his punch by force.

Ethan froze for a split second.

That was all the time Lunethar needed.

Its original arms swept back in from both sides. The massive palms struck Ethan simultaneously, and the impact thundered across the domain. A circular shock wave spread outward along the top of Lunethar's head.

Ethan went flying.

He slammed into the ground and tumbled across the field of black particles. Even digging both feet in couldn't stop his momentum, so he fired an energy sphere behind himself. The blast pushed him in the opposite direction, finally bringing him to a stop dozens of feet away.

Something warm touched the corner of his mouth.

Ethan wiped away the blood and slowly stood. His wings spread behind him again, but he didn't counterattack. He simply stared at Lunethar across the scattered black particles.

Strangely, Lunethar didn't pursue him either.

It remained where it was, six eyes fixed on Ethan while the other two examined its own body. The temporary arm on top of its head began to wither and soon disappeared completely.

Then new bulges appeared around the joints of its original arms.

One. Two...

Four new arms grew from its sides. Together with its original pair, Lunethar now had six. All six hands rose to shield its head, but it made no move to attack.

This was the perfect chance to pursue Ethan.

Why had it stopped?

Ethan didn't risk approaching.

Unease rose inside him. He opened his palm and condensed an energy sphere, using the feedback from its fluctuations to examine Lunethar.

He soon found the problem.

The white lightning he'd left inside Lunethar was gone.

"You're destroying your own genes so you can rebuild yourself from the collapse?"

Ethan's expression darkened.

"You're insane."

Lunethar wasn't defending itself or charging an ordinary attack. It was deliberately destroying the genes Ethan had rewritten, trying to make its entire body collapse so it could use its terrifying regeneration to reconstruct itself from scratch.

It took nerve to try something like that.

Its body would have to endure the full damage caused by the destruction of its genes. If its regeneration failed to keep pace with the collapse, it would die instantly.

But if it succeeded, its new body would undergo a fundamental transformation.

Ethan beat his wings and flew higher. Energy compressed rapidly in his palms, forming several white spheres that he fired at Lunethar from different directions.

At the same time, the surrounding white-eyes turned under his control and forced their way back into Lunethar through the sockets covering its body. Carrying corrupted genetic information, they tried to disrupt the destruction and rebirth from within.

The energy spheres struck next.

The explosions tore away Lunethar's outer tissue, but the transformation continued. New flesh kept filling the wounds, while all six arms remained locked around its head.

All Ethan could do was place his hopes on the white-eyes that had entered its body.

The situation could become extremely dangerous.

Or it could all end in the next instant.

Elsewhere, the situation was much clearer.

This space hadn't existed for long, and the creatures it produced weren't particularly difficult to defeat. Their only troublesome trait was their regeneration. As long as some of their energy remained, even a body torn to pieces would pull itself back together.

A purplish-red energy sphere tore across the battlefield.

Every monster in its path was crushed head-on. Before their scattered remains could regenerate, violent energy erupted from within and destroyed them a second time.

Kaelira hovered at the edge of the battlefield, her purplish-red wings spread behind her. This area had already become her territory. Any monster that tried to approach was slowed by the energy radiating from her.

She raised an even larger energy sphere between both hands and pushed it toward the ground.

Instead of exploding on impact, the sphere rolled along the edge of the battlefield. Violent pressure spread close to the ground, shattering the crawling monsters before they even touched it.

Not even the tentacles being besieged by the Emerald Castle army lasted more than a few seconds. Purplish-red light rolled over their bases. Their tough outer hides caved inward before the entire tentacles were crushed into the ground and exploded into showers of debris.

Feylora stood at the center of the group, pale green energy continuously spreading from her body.

Threads of energy connected her to every one of her companions, slowly restoring the power they spent in battle. But she always reserved a portion and sent it toward the white point of light at the center of the space.

She knew Ethan was inside.

She also knew he was fighting Lunethar.

The white point kept flickering, sometimes expanding and sometimes contracting. The fluctuations coming from within sometimes seemed to warn everyone away. At other times, they resembled a call for help.

No one had time to examine them more carefully.

More and more monsters were being born around them, and their shells were tougher than those of the first wave. The new eye monsters crawled forward through the golden sword light, while the underground tentacles could now withstand the Emerald Castle soldiers' attacks head-on.

Something was changing inside this space, and the enemies were growing stronger with it.

Inside the white point, a deafening impact came from underground.

Ethan had been punched into the ground.

The earth formed from black particles cracked outward from the point of impact, with fissures rapidly spreading dozens of feet. Lunethar followed close behind. Its newly grown legs hit the ground, launching its enormous body into the air before it came crashing down in a brutal stomp.

The impact traveled deep underground.

The ground beneath Ethan collapsed again, forcing him more than a dozen feet deeper. Broken particles poured down from above, completely filling the narrow pit.

Lunethar's attempt to destroy its genes had failed.

The collapse had been far more horrific than it expected. It hadn't achieved a true rebirth. Parts of its body still carried Ethan's rewritten genes, and the white-eyes inside continued disrupting it from within.

But even in failure, the resulting chaos had allowed it to forcefully grow legs and additional arms.

Irritation and rage built in Lunethar's chest.

Ethan hadn't just rewritten its body. He had seized control of the eyes it created and turned them against it.

That black deer had been right.

This man really was a pain to deal with.

"You're such a pain in the ass!"