CHAPTER 785: WE JUST WRAPPED OUR WEAKNESS IN METAL

Ethan stepped out from the command deck of his Sky Fortress, rising into the air to meet the man face-to-face.

He hovered there, eyes sharp as blades. "Sol’Rakka doesn’t provoke other nations," he said coldly. "Your Sky Fortresses were the ones that descended first—slaughtering civilians, leveling cities. And now you ask why we’re here?"

His voice cut through the sky like a drawn sword.

"You really think that’s a question worth asking?"

The man across from him froze.

His mouth opened slightly, but no words came. Instead, he reached to his waist, pulled out a small mechanical sphere, and tossed it toward Ethan.

It spun through the air, stopping neatly in Ethan’s palm.

Dark gold. Cool to the touch. Its surface was etched with dense micro-runes and energy ports, pulsing faintly with residual power.

Ethan’s eyes narrowed. "This is... an exosuit core?"

The man’s voice shifted—softer now, and beneath it, a weariness that couldn’t be faked.

"Our world... Kormaldor... it’s at the end of its rope."

He looked down, as if he could see through the floating platforms to the dying land below.

"Our resources are gone. The energy towers are failing, one by one. If we don’t find a new place to survive... extinction is all that’s left."

He raised his head again.

The arrogance in his gaze had vanished, replaced by something raw and human—desperation.

"I offer you this core... and the technology behind it. Not for pity. Just for a chance to live."

Ethan didn’t answer right away.

He quietly opened his system interface and ran a full-spectrum scan of Kormaldor.

—Surface mineral veins: depleted

—Energy lines: overdrawn

—Ecosystem: near collapse

—City energy tower stability: low

—Civilization trajectory: peak technology → critical decline in primal force

The screen lit up in a wash of red.

No lies. No exaggeration.

This world was dying.

And then came a deeper, more telling data point:

—[Native lifeforms: significantly below Tier-standard combat values]

—[Cause: Overreliance on technology → halted biological evolution → reduced life-tier integrity]

Ethan’s thoughts flashed back—Elira tearing through a Rabbitfolk who, on paper, outclassed her. The Lizardfolk and Wolfkin who looked fierce but crumbled under pressure.

It all made sense now.

"You used technology to patch over your lack of life-tier strength," Ethan said quietly.

The man gave a bitter smile. "Yes. We abandoned training, evolution, all of it. We handed everything over to machines. We thought we’d grown stronger..."

He glanced toward the wreckage of the fallen Sky Fortresses, eyes distant.

"But now we see—we just wrapped our weakness in metal."

Ethan fell silent, chin resting on his hand as he studied the core in his palm.

It sat there like a sleeping heart, its layered runes forming a miniature labyrinth of circuits and conduits. Every so often, a thread of cold light flickered through the seams.

Even without the system’s analysis, he could tell—this was advanced. Far beyond what most factions in the known planes could produce.

Emerald Castle’s army was already powerful enough to sweep through entire Plane Worlds.

But Ethan knew—no matter how strong a soldier was, no matter how high their Tier, if they were equipped with this kind of exosuit tech, their combat power would leap to another level entirely.

Even if he only outfitted his elite units, the result would be a force unlike anything the planes had seen.

From a purely strategic standpoint... this was a damn good deal.

His thumb brushed across the core’s surface, feeling the chill of the alloy, the faint thrum of dormant power.

To say he wasn’t tempted would’ve been a lie.

Just as Ethan was about to speak—ready to accept the deal—

BOOM—rumble-rumble-rumble...

A low, thunderous roar rolled across the sky, as if something massive had torn a hole straight through the clouds.

Then the air itself began to shudder, like warped glass under pressure.

CRACK.

A jagged black fissure split open above Kormaldor.

Everyone on the battlefield looked up at once.

From the depths of that rift, a colossal shadow began to emerge—slow, deliberate, and utterly alien.

It wasn’t like any of Kormaldor’s known species. It looked like a giant carved from ancient wood, every grain of its bark-like skin pulsing with dim green light, as if some ancient forest wraith had been forced into the shape of a stone titan.

"Oh no—! It’s him! He’s back again!!"

Someone shouted, and the entire city of Kormaldor erupted like a kicked hornet’s nest.

The armored troops who had just been locked in combat with Emerald Castle froze mid-motion, instincts overriding orders.

One soldier dropped his half-charged energy rifle and bolted.

Another screamed into his comms while sprinting away.

"Evacuate! Evacuate now! Those things will drain every last drop of our energy!"

"Don’t panic! Prioritize the scientists! Get them back to the main tower—they’re our only hope!"

"All energy towers—lockdown mode! Now, damn it—now!"

In seconds, the battlefield’s lines dissolved into chaos.

The Kormaldor warriors who had been fighting tooth and nail against Emerald Castle were now fleeing en masse, as if their true predator had finally arrived—and their former enemies were suddenly just background noise.

Even Ethan was caught off guard for a moment.

If these tech-obsessed lunatics were panicking like this... just how dangerous was this thing?

He took a deep breath, forcing down the jolt of unease, and pulled up his system’s scan interface, locking onto the massive figure stepping through the rift.

Data scrolled rapidly across his vision.

—[Target: Elderwood Colossus]

—[Power Level: Tier 27 – Early Stage]

Ethan’s pupils contracted. "Shit... Tier 27?"

He’d seen monsters. He’d fought nightmares. But that number still hit like a punch to the gut.

Tier 27 was the edge of the world’s ceiling. The kind of power that made entire civilizations vanish overnight.

For most factions, facing something like this meant one option: pray it was in a good mood.

But Kormaldor wasn’t most factions.

Ethan’s gaze flicked to the distant Sky Citadel, still hovering like a mountain in the clouds.

That thing was a fortress-city, bristling with weaponry. Its main cannons, energy towers, and projection arrays hadn’t even fully activated yet. If they went all in—if they fired everything they had—they might not kill the Elderwood Colossus outright, but they could bury it under enough firepower to keep it from even lifting its head.

Worst case? Just keep hammering it. Even ancient wood breaks under enough high-energy bombardment.

But what Ethan saw made his brow tighten.

There was no coordinated defense. No rallying of troops. No calm, calculated response.

Just people running.

Scattered figures fleeing beneath the steel belly of their own fortress.

They had the firepower to level a Plane World in their hands—and they were acting like terrified scholars who’d just seen a ghost.

All they remembered was one thing:

"Protect the scientists."

A strange, conflicted feeling stirred in Ethan’s chest.

From a technological standpoint, Kormaldor was the undisputed apex of this world.

They’d built cities in the sky.

They’d given ordinary soldiers the strength to touch Tier 26 with exosuits.

They’d launched Sky Fortresses across dimensions to wage war.

But when true catastrophe arrived—

They had no idea how to fight.

No contingency plans. No battle lines.

No willingness to die with the enemy if it came to that.

Not even the courage to unleash their deadliest weapons to their fullest.

Just fear. And flight.

...