Just as Aeralon was about to fly down and claim the roc’s crystal core, a figure suddenly streaked toward them from the distance.

"Aerisara?!" The instant he recognized her, Aeralon’s face lit up with shock and joy. "You’re alive! That’s—this is perfect!"

Then, in the next breath, his expression hardened.

"No... something’s wrong." His brow furrowed. "Why can’t I sense your soul fluctuations? What is this?"

The other Winged Clan experts were confused too, eyes flicking back and forth.

"I get it!" A Winged Clan expert—one of the ones who’d participated in the earlier siege against Ethan—blurted out in horror. "That human... he created Captain Aerisara into a soulless thrall!"

"Soulless thrall?" Aeralon’s face dropped into pure darkness.

"Yes." The expert swallowed. "We fought his soulless thrall before. This is exactly what it looked like."

That was all it took.

Aeralon’s rage detonated.

"AAAH—!" His voice shook the mountains. "You dared... you dared turn Aerisara into a soulless thrall!"

"I will grind you to dust. I’ll tear you apart piece by piece—" His eyes were practically burning. "I’ll make the entire human race pay with blood!"

The bellow rolled through the deep forest. Even the Winged Clan behind him instinctively shrank their necks.

This was it. Aeralon was fully enraged.

Humans were finished.

Aerisara flew up to them.

And then—without warning—she started taking off her clothes.

Every Winged Clan expert froze like their brains had shorted out. Eyes went wide. Mouths hung open.

Aerisara was the goddess of their ranks. Plenty of them had fantasized about her—only to bury it because Aeralon had basically claimed her. But fantasies were fantasies, and nobody was about to look away from this.

"Stop!" Aeralon roared.

He shot forward and reached for her.

Watching the woman he’d always wanted do something like this—even knowing she wasn’t truly "her" anymore—still hit him like a slap in the face.

"Even as a soulless thrall," he snarled, "you’re mine!"

Aerisara’s face didn’t change. No emotion, no hesitation.

She raised a hand and fired her strongest single-target move—Cyclone Blade.

Aeralon didn’t bother dodging. He threw up an energy shield and kept charging, intent on grabbing her.

The Cyclone Blade slammed into his shield.

The shield shuddered violently... then cracked and shattered.

Aeralon’s eyes widened. He hadn’t expected that—he hadn’t expected her to be able to break his shield.

"So becoming a soulless thrall boosted your strength," he said, voice turning cold.

But in his mind, it didn’t change the result.

With a casual flick of his hand, a Gale Bind snapped into place, locking Aerisara down. Then he lunged again, reaching for her.

Some of the Winged Clan behind him sighed, disappointed. 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

Guess the "show" was over.

Then a voice—tight with surprise—cut through.

"Wait... what’s with all that fog down there?"

Everyone looked down.

Around where the roc had fallen, thick white mist had started to billow out from nowhere, swelling fast and hiding the ground.

"Shit!" Several Winged Clan faces changed at once.

Wings snapped open. A violent gust tore downward, and within seconds the fog was blown apart.

But when the mist cleared—

There was nothing there.

The roc’s body was gone.

"—?!"

For a beat, the entire airspace went silent.

Then every Winged Clan expert’s eyes widened.

"Damn it—dirty as hell!" someone cursed. "A freaking honey trap?!"

Aeralon saw it too.

And his fury shot straight through the ceiling.

"AAAAH—!" His veins bulged. "I don’t care who you are—when I get my hands on you, I’ll make you beg for death and never get it!"

They’d paid a horrific price to bring that beast down.

And someone had stolen the prize at the last second.

In his centuries of life, Aeralon had never been this enraged.

He whirled on his remaining men. "Why are you standing there?! Go find it!"

"Yes!"

The Winged Clan experts immediately dove downward, fanning out as they rushed to search the area.

Aeralon wanted to dive down too—but Aerisara, who’d just broken free of his restraint, cut him off.

"You’re looking for death!" Aeralon was so furious he didn’t care about any old ties anymore. He lifted a hand and hurled a massive cyclone straight at her.

Aerisara didn’t flinch. She fired a cyclone of her own to meet it head-on.

But the gap in strength was real.

The two cyclones collided, and Aerisara’s storm broke apart almost immediately. Aeralon’s larger cyclone swallowed her whole, grinding her up in its spinning wind.

Aeralon didn’t even spare her a glance after that. He shot downward, straight toward the forest floor.

He’d barely dropped a short distance when a figure burst out of the dense woods below and smashed a fist up at him.

It looked like a plain, straightforward punch.

But the moment Aeralon felt the pressure behind it, his heart sank.

Danger.

He snapped a Wind Cutter down at the attacker and retreated at the same time, backing off in midair.

The fist collided with the Wind Cutter.

The Wind Cutter shattered on impact.

And the punch didn’t slow.

It kept coming, straight for Aeralon’s chest.

Aeralon’s face tightened. Wind energy flooded into his right hand, compressing into a cyclone wrapped tightly around his fist. He drove it forward to meet the punch head-on.

"BOOM!"

A loud explosion cracked through the air.

The compressed cyclone was blown apart like it was made of paper. Their fists collided—and a sharp crack rang out.

Aeralon’s arm snapped.

His body was launched backward more than a hundred feet.

"How... how is it this strong?" Aeralon stared at the attacker, stunned.

He’d thought that in this world—aside from those two ferocious beasts—he was untouchable.

He’d been wrong.

And then he noticed something that made his scalp go cold.

That thing... was also a soulless thrall.

"How is there a soulless thrall this strong?!" The words came out rough.

The enemy didn’t give him even a breath.

Its body blurred, springing forward again, another punch screaming toward him.

After taking one hit, Aeralon wasn’t about to trade blows again. He kicked his speed to the limit and shot straight up into the sky.

The thrall chased, but it couldn’t fly.

At less than three feet away, it hit its limit and dropped back down.

Aeralon finally exhaled. "Hah..."

Thank god.

It couldn’t fly.

The moment it landed and realized it couldn’t reach him, Dopey pivoted and charged the other Winged Clan experts instead.

Meanwhile, Aerisara had forced her way out of the cyclone, and she and the other soulless thrall—Flyboy—were both tangled up with a swarm of Winged Clan fighters, weaving and striking, buying time.

But against that many enemies, they weren’t doing great.

Then Dopey crashed into the crowd like a wrecking ball—plowing through them, killing one Winged Clan expert per punch. The sheer brutality of it made the Winged Clan fighters recoil in panic.

Not far away, Ethan and the other two were hidden inside a cave he’d dug out ahead of time. Thick leaves and tangled brush covered the entrance so completely you’d never notice it from above.

Once the roc folded its wings, its body wasn’t that huge. It could still squeeze inside.

The cave wasn’t actually far from the battlefield, but the trees here were absurdly dense. From the air, you couldn’t see anything beneath the canopy. The only way to find this place was to search on foot.

And with three thralls tying them up, the Winged Clan wouldn’t have time to comb the ground properly—at least not yet.

Ethan knew the clock was ticking anyway.

There were simply too many of them.

Dopey’s body was tough enough to hold out, but the other two soulless thralls probably couldn’t last much longer—especially Flyboy. Tier 29 peak or not, getting swarmed by that many Winged Clan experts could easily be the end for him.

As for Aerisara...

That depended on whether Aeralon still had any sentiment left to spare.

But Ethan wasn’t worried.

Even if those two died, there were still over a thousand Winged Clan out there. He could always catch two more decent ones.

And if he could take down the guy named Aeralon?

Everything today would be worth it.

Seconds dragged by.

Ethan watched the outside like a hawk, nerves tight and focused. Henry worked desperately, racing to treat the roc’s injuries.

And Grayson...

Grayson was completely dazed.

His brain had blown past panic, skipped over stress, and landed somewhere deep in this-can’t-be-real territory.