The concussion wave unleashed by the supreme master left a lethal resonance ripping through the air above the summit altar platform. Captain Danu lay unconscious near a fractured concrete pillar, while Naya was cornered at the edge of the altar platform, ringed by hissing, searing purple cosmic particles.

Zulfa stood tall at the center of the altar, locking his glare onto the mastermind, whose form had partially mutated into a pure luminous entity. Though his right arm remained entirely paralyzed from the electrical backcurrent in the engine room below, the youth's eyes blazed with an unyielding, ironclad resolve.

"You think you can defeat me with a paralyzed arm, Engineer?" the mastermind echoed mockingly, the transparent energy wings on his back rippling slowly to forge a gravitational vortex sucking floating stone debris into the air.

Zulfa didn't answer with words. He drew a deep breath, using his left hand to rummage into the inner pocket of his tactical jacket. There rested the final remnant of his father's legacy: a pure Aether-Tech encrypted memory chip holding the original frequency core blueprints of the Arkian cosmic pillar.

"I might have lost the use of my right arm, Vian..." Zulfa shouted aloud, clutching the memory chip tight in his left hand. "...but I never lost my understanding of how your system works!"

Without hesitation, Zulfa vaulted forward with the last of his leg strength, launching into a finishing strike blending modern mechanics with cosmic sorcery.

The mastermind grunted cynically, sweeping his right arm to release a wave of pure purple energy force. "A thoroughly foolish decision!"

BARRR-GH!

The purple energy blast slammed squarely into the emergency shield Zulfa triggered from his mechanical ring. The visual effects of the impact were staggering; deep purple and brilliant blue shockwaves clashed fiercely, forging a blinding flare of light that split the tower's colossal glass dome and rained crystal-clear shards across the summit floor beneath the raging night storm.

Zulfa was hurled back several meters, his boot heels scraping across the stone altar surface to throw off sparks. Yet he didn't yield. Darting in a zig-zag pattern to dodge the snapping gravity vectors, Zulfa hurled his father's Aether-Tech memory chip straight into the center of the spinning satellite relay disc hovering above the mastermind's head.

"Taste this—feedback frequencies from your past!" Zulfa roared.

The moment the memory chip fed inside and touched the cosmic energy core, the satellite transmission system suffered catastrophic distortion.

Bzzzt—Click!

Rizzzt!

The purple glow blanketing the mastermind's body flickered wildly. The previously stable cosmic data flow suffered a massive frequency glitch, fracturing the mastermind's energy concentration instantly. The semi-divine entity let out a stifled shriek as his biological systems convulsed violently under the intrusion of Dr. Aris's legacy override code.

"Argh... what did you do to my system?!" the mastermind snarled in a raspy voice, rage boiling over as he realized his supremacy slipping away.

"It's called debugging, bastard!" Zulfa snapped back, leveraging the enemy's instability to charge straight forward.

A brutal close-quarters brawl erupted. Though relying solely on his left hand, Zulfa spun his frame, unleashing an electromagnetic shock module strike straight at the mastermind's chest. Impact after impact detonated across the altar, spawning shockwaves that shook the tower's entire structure down to its bedrock.

Naya, previously cornered at the altar's edge, spotted the opening and screamed a warning: "Zulfa, strike his core point just left of his wing! That's his energy synchronization source!"

Zulfa glanced briefly, channeling every remaining ounce of strength in his body to leap high, zeroing in directly on the mastermind's left flank with his shock module in hand.

Yet the mastermind moved vastly faster than anticipated. At the final fraction of a second, the mastermind's eyes flared with blinding light. With lightning speed, he flicked his right hand, unleashing a shockwave of gravity that froze Zulfa's mid-air leap dead in its tracks.

Zulfa was trapped within an invisible field, his body suspended rigid, unable to move an inch forward or back.

The mastermind glided close to Zulfa with a terrifying, triumphant smirk stretched across his face. His energy wings beat ferociously, absorbing the scattered memory chip fragments littering the altar.

"An exceptionally impressive effort, young Engineer... You genuinely almost shattered my console," the mastermind whispered right beside Zulfa's ear, his voice ringing cold and dripping with absolute victory. "Yet this game ends here."

Before Zulfa could engage his final emergency defense, the mastermind clamped his glowing left hand around Zulfa's throat, hoisting the youth into the air with effortless ease.

"Zulfa!" Naya shrieked hysterically, attempting to rise and sprint toward the altar, only for the lingering energy wash around the platform to slam her back down to the stone floor.

Zulfa clawed at the mastermind's choking grip, struggling with all his might as oxygen rapidly drained from his lungs. His vision began to blur, and a strange, roaring hum filled his head.

Before him, the mastermind threw open his right palm wide. Purple cosmic light particles began gathering across his hand, forging a swirling energy maw poised to suck the final remnants of consciousness straight out of Zulfa's soul to perfect his absolute divine form before the universe.