Chapter 1330: Every Death Made Another

The moment Ethan heard the word king, an idea snapped into place.

If she was a king—

Could he start with a handshake?

"A king?" Ethan put on an intrigued look. "Then I’d love to know what kind of king you are."

In his palm, an energy sphere compressed slowly.

He tucked the white lightning under his skin, keeping it from leaking any obvious glow.

And to keep himself from failing again, he’d set up a few small tricks in advance.

Ethan extended his hand toward Cindara.

His posture looked almost... respectful.

Cindara studied him and let out an exasperated little laugh.

She didn’t take his hand.

Instead, she rose into the air.

A throne appeared behind her. Cindara leaned back into it, propping her cheek with one hand as she looked down at Ethan like he was entertainment.

"Did you forget something?" she asked.

"I’m the king here."

She lifted an arm and pointed at him, curling her finger lightly.

An invisible force seized Ethan at once.

His body lifted off the ground, flipped upside down in midair, then got hurled away like a thrown doll.

A white wall rose directly in his path.

BAM!

Ethan’s back slammed into it.

Cindara vanished from the throne and blinked in front of him. She grabbed him by the throat and drove him deeper into the wall again.

This was the contact Ethan had been waiting for.

His hands clamped onto her forearm, ready to drive the compressed energy in his palm straight into her body.

But Cindara was still cautious.

The instant the impact was done, she released him and retreated.

No time. No sustained touch.

A fireball flew in immediately, blotting out his vision from the front.

Ethan dropped off the wall.

He kicked backward, blasting apart the white stone layer behind him, and slipped into the space beyond the wall, using the remaining chunks of stone as cover from the flames.

Cindara floated in the distance.

She lifted a finger.

Every rock around Ethan vanished out of thin air.

With nothing left to block it, the fire didn’t die.

It multiplied.

The original blaze replicated into several more flames, boxing Ethan in from different directions.

He wasn’t surprised.

This was Cindara’s mental world.

Whether stone existed at all was up to her.

Ethan crossed his arms over his head.

The flames themselves weren’t the biggest threat.

The real danger was Cindara hiding behind them.

Like now.

The fire wrapped around Ethan’s body, serving mostly as a curtain.

Cindara appeared behind him without a sound.

Her fist had already finished charging, driving straight into his back.

Ethan had expected her to close in.

But even if his mind reacted in time, his body was half a beat late.

In plain terms—

His limbs weren’t sharp enough.

The energy sphere in his palm still hadn’t been delivered.

Her punch landed squarely.

Ethan’s body bowed backward as he got launched into the air. Rings of shockwaves burst outward from him, expanding as they blew the surrounding flames apart.

Cindara was already above him.

She lifted one leg and stomped down from high overhead.

BOOM!

Ethan was driven into the white ground.

The impact cracked both the wall and the floor at once, fractures racing out in all directions around his body.

Grinding through the pain, he braced on his arms, trying to push himself up—

Cindara bent down and grabbed his head.

She lifted him one-handed into the air.

Effortless. Like picking up an ant.

"Feels good?" Cindara watched his face. "Want to do it again?"

She loosened her fingers slowly.

Ethan dropped back to the ground.

Cindara crouched in front of him, her fingertips brushing lightly over his shoulder and chest.

Before her hand had even fully withdrawn, Ethan snapped forward and caught her wrist.

Five fingers locked.

Not letting go. Not this time.

Cindara stared at him, expression flat.

Flames rose again around them, climbing up along both their bodies like a closing cage.

Ethan still didn’t release her.

He even pushed it further—bringing his other hand up onto her, using her as leverage to haul himself upright.

Watching him stand little by little, Cindara let out a soft sigh.

Then she raised her foot and stomped down onto his knee.

CRACK!

Agony shot from his leg through his whole body.

Ethan had only just straightened up when a pain-choked sound ripped out of him, and he collapsed back to the floor.

But his eyes never left Cindara.

And there was the faintest curve at his mouth—almost a smile.

Cindara looked down at him.

A final counterattack?

Honestly... kind of tragic.

She raised a hand and snapped her fingers.

All of Ethan’s injuries vanished.

His knee returned to normal. The pain in his back and chest faded. Even his breathing smoothed out again.

"I’m leaving for now." Cindara stood.

She didn’t look at Ethan. She stared toward another part of the blank world instead.

"You can play with it first."

"Don’t play it to death."

No one knew who she was talking to.

When the last word fell, Cindara disappeared.

Ethan stood up from the white ground and stared at the spot she’d vanished from. Slowly, his grin widened.

She thought she’d already won.

But that contact just now hadn’t been pointless.

Ethan raised his hand, about to use the power he’d left inside Cindara to affect her from the inside—

A snow-white slash of swordlight cut in from the side and forcibly interrupted him.

He tilted his head aside.

The blade skimmed past his cheek, carving a perfectly straight line through the blank space.

A Cindara—pure white from head to toe—appeared in front of him. Skin, clothes, the longsword in her hand... not a single speck of any other color.

Her first strike missed. She immediately rolled her wrist and swept the blade horizontally toward Ethan’s chest.

At the same time, the empty world around them began to contract.

Eight walls rose from different directions, closing around the two of them, forming an octagonal cage with no exit.

Ethan’s body was fully restored now.

He stepped back to avoid the second slash, then slid in close along the sword’s line and drove a punch into white-Cindara’s abdomen.

His fist had barely made contact—he hadn’t even put real power into it yet—

When the white Cindara broke apart on her own, dissolving into countless white particles that scattered away.

Ethan’s brows knit.

Footsteps sounded on both sides.

Two identical white Cindaras stepped out near the walls, longswords angled toward his throat and his back.

"Splitting?" Ethan stared at them. "Don’t tell me you multiply every time."

The two white Cindaras didn’t answer.

They rushed him together.

Ethan stopped testing.

A white energy sphere formed in his hand, and he slammed it straight into the ground at his feet.

BOOM!

Power spread outward across the floor like a shockwave. It swallowed the two Cindaras first, then crashed into the walls of the octagonal cage.

White lightning crawled over the walls in a continuous web, wiping out new clones the moment they appeared in different spots.

One became two.

Two became more.

Every time his power tore them apart, the white Cindaras reappeared farther away—and their numbers climbed right along with it.