Ethan didn't waste a single motion.
His hand clamped around Varaxis's throat—and squeezed.
With a sharp, sickening crack, Varaxis's neck snapped cleanly to the side.
Just like that, the newly crowned Emperor of the Netherreach Empire, ruler of The Nether Sea, was dead—his body limp in Ethan's grip, his reign ended in full view of the battlefield.
For a moment, silence blanketed the sky.
Then—
A roar of triumph erupted from Emerald Castle's forces.
The tension, the fear, the pressure that had been building for so long exploded into raw, unrelenting battle fervor. Countless figures surged forward, energy flaring like a broken dam, crashing down on the enemy lines.
The Nether Sea fleet fell apart almost instantly.
With their supreme commander gone, their comms chain fractured, and their formation unraveling, chaos spread like wildfire. But more than that—it was Kraken's death that shattered their will.
Many of them had been conscripted into this war.
It was never their fight.
