Evan briefly considered the idea of pulling Shadow out and abandoning this situation entirely.

Fifteen minutes remained on Shadow Exchange’s cooldown.

If things deteriorated before then, he could always recall Shadow directly into his soul.

He also wanted to take the opportunity to retrieve the spatial device that held Reiner’s body.

They hadn’t been friends. Barely acquaintances, really. But even so, Evan felt he deserved at least a proper burial if it could be managed. He certainly wasn’t going to risk everything for it, if the situation turned dangerous, he would pull Shadow back without ceremony. He wasn’t willing to lose his clone over something like this.

So in the end, he stayed.

He would watch with his own eyes what this madman was doing down here.

The Concept Core in the Duke’s hands began to glow.

He opened it, not physically, but with a gesture of mana that seemed to unseal something from within the crystal, and let it go. The Core remained suspended in midair, motionless, as though it had found its natural place at the exact center of the space.

Then it began to intensify.

The platform reacted almost immediately.

The surface of the platform, which had previously appeared flat and smooth, now revealed a series of grooves forming a strange diagram, concentric circles and precise geometric figures carved into the stone.

Evan couldn’t see them clearly from where Shadow stood, but he could sense the activation of something through the mana.

The crimson violet liquid began flowing from ten separate pores distributed across the platform’s surface. It moved slowly through the grooves, following every curve, every angle, every fork in the diagram. It filled everything, down to the last millimeter.

When the final channel was complete, the platform pulsed.

Once. Twice. As if it had drawn a breath.

Then it began to glow.

The Concept Core suspended in the air seemed to react. Its glow intensified and became unstable, no longer the steady light of an inert crystal, but something alive responding to a call. From within it, waves of Void Energy began to spread, slow and steady like rising tides.

The personnel still nearby stepped back. First one, then the others, then all of them together, not at an order, but from a unanimous instinct telling them that staying too close would be a mistake.

The Duke, however, did not move an inch.

He didn’t seem concerned at all. If anything, a wide smile spread across his face as he watched, as though everything was unfolding exactly as it should.

The Concept Core reached an invisible but unmistakable threshold, and then it released.

There was no physical explosion, no shockwave, no destruction. Instead, a concentrated discharge erupted from the crystal: a beam of dark violet light that shot upward like an outstretched finger and struck the cocoon suspended above, dead center.

The cocoon reacted.

It had been pulsing before, a slow green light, steady like the breathing of someone asleep. But now the rhythm changed. It quickened, again and again, each pulse faster than the last, each flash brighter than the one before, until the entire cocoon was wrapped in a radiance that left no room for shadow.

Then the beam reversed direction.

It returned, from the cocoon back to the Concept Core, but what descended was no longer dark violet. It was a mixture. Violet and pale green intertwined, two different energies that had touched up there and could no longer separate.

The Duke reached out and took the Concept Core.

The mixed energy flowing along the beam did not stop, it transferred. From the crystal to the Duke’s fingers, from his fingers into his body, from his body outward. Within seconds a powerful aura began to emanate from him, expanding slowly until it filled the entire underground cavity.

Evan felt it through his bond with Shadow like something physical. Like standing beneath a sky that was pressing down.

"Hahaha," the Duke laughed.

It wasn’t refined. It wasn’t the laugh of a nobleman. It was raw, unrestrained, the laugh of a man who had waited far too long for this moment and no longer cared to hide it.

"Finally... finally, I’ll be able to break through to the next rank."

His subordinates did not join him. They stood still, pressed as far back as the space allowed, and in their expressions Evan read something that was not excitement.

It was fear.

While this unfolded below, above the city, the sky began to change.

Not gradually. Not the way clouds drift in from a distance and the sky darkens by degrees. It changed all at once.

The sky above BranLeaf began to roar.

Black clouds appeared out of nowhere, coiling in concentric rings above the great stump. The wind rose with sudden violence, strong enough to stagger the lighter combatants. Between the clouds, silent flashes lit up the growing formation, not ordinary lightning, but discharges of a color that had no clear name, somewhere between violet and white.

A feeling spread through the entire city.

Subtle. Oppressive. The kind of thing that cannot be described but that the body recognizes before the mind has time to process it. It was like feeling something very large turn its gaze in your direction.

Cedric stopped attacking.

The Bluehorn Earth Dragon stopped advancing.

The two still faced each other from a distance, but neither was watching the other anymore. Both were staring at the sky.

The Dragon Might that had saturated the battlefield seemed to have shrunk in on itself, as though even the dragon, with all its power, had understood that it was no longer the most dangerous thing present.

The beasts began to retreat.

First one, then others, then all of them together, like a flock of birds changing direction in the same instant for reasons none of them could explain. Survival instinct doesn’t reason. It feels. And what every living creature felt in that moment was simple and universal.

Everyone could sense that something terrible was about to happen.