The green-skins shook their heads, forcing down that uneasy feeling. Then they snarled at Ethanâs group, barking something harsh and guttural.
Ethan glanced at Skinny Pete.
"He says weâve ruined their good life," Pete translated. "We either submit... or die."
Ethan squinted at him. "He just yelled once and you got all that out of it?"
Pete lifted both hands. "Thatâs the vibe. Same meaning."
"Alright, sure."
Ethan looked the green-skins over, unimpressed. "Not that strong, but they sure love acting big. Same disease as the Seorin people."
He spoke calmly, like he was assigning chores.
"Five Tier 22. Seven Tier 23. Perfect for you guys to warm up on. One Tier 23 each. The Tier 22sâChris, you handle those."
"No problem," Chris said.
Eight versus thirteen, with most of them higher Tierâyeah, there was pressure.
But only pressure. Nothing more.
Choi Tae-jun watched Ethanâs group casually
discussing
the "honored ones" like they were livestock and couldnât help the cold smile creeping onto his face.
Letâs see how you die in a minute.
The green-skins, meanwhile, were genuinely pissed.
"RAAAHâ!"
With the leaderâs roar, the rest attacked at once.
The ground rippled.
Vines erupted out of nowhere, whipping up like living ropes and lunging for Ethanâs team, twisting to strangle and shred.
Garrick reacted instantly, throwing up a
protective dome
around everyone.
The vines slammed into the shield, sending waves of ripples across its surfaceâbut they couldnât break through.
Then the sky lit up.
A
Rain of Flames
came crashing down, searing hot. The fire washed over the vines and burned them to ash in seconds.
"Ice Blade Storm." Miaâs voice cut through, calm and sharp.
The area around the green-skins turned white in a blink. A violent blizzard of ice blades spun into a grinding storm, tearing at them from every angle.
"Twister!" Skinny Pete added immediately, throwing a roaring tornado into the mix to amplify Miaâs stormâlike he was making sure they got the full experience.
The green-skins clearly hadnât expected humans on this planet to hit that hard.
Vines surged up again, but this time they werenât attackingâthey were protecting. In a heartbeat, the monsters wrapped themselves tight, layer after layer, forming thick vine cocoons.
The two storms shredded vines apart...
...and more vines grew right back, replacing them almost instantly.
"This wonât work." Chris shook his head once.
Then he vanished.
Invisibilityâclean and sudden. He slipped out of the domeâs protection and into the open.
Once Chris moved, the others stopped huddling behind the shield too. Weapons came outâblades, polearms, whatever each of them preferredâand they charged.
The cocoons were wrapped too tightly for ranged skills to matter. Anything they destroyed just regenerated.
So fine.
Close-range it was.
Seeing them rush in, the green-skins abandoned the cocoon state immediately. Staying wrapped up like that meant they couldnât moveâbasically turning themselves into targets.
These monsters had plenty of combat experience. A pale
spiritwood shield
formed over their bodies, hardening into armor. At the same time, thick wooden clubs manifested in their handsâmassive, brutal thingsâand they surged forward.
And thenâ
A long spear wreathed in black light flashed out of nowhere.
It slammed into the forehead of the green-skin charging in front.
Psshhkâ!
With all Chrisâs buffs stacked, the spear punched straight through the spiritwood shield like it wasnât there and pierced the monsterâs skull clean through.
Instant kill.
Chris yanked the spear free.
And his body blurred out of sight again, disappearing like a ghost.
"â!!"
The scene was so wrong it stunned everyone watching.
Seorin Enhanced froze with their mouths half-open.
"How is that possible?!"
"These monsters were unstoppable! We had so many people and we still couldnât kill themâhow did he just one-shot it?!"
They couldnât process it.
But the corpse on the groundâstill, lifelessâdidnât care about their disbelief.
In that moment, something inside the Seorin defenders cracked.
Their faith collapsed.
Theyâd fed these monsters like royalty. Theyâd even sent women to them.
And now, when it actually mattered... these "honored ones" were dropping like cheap meat.
Choi Tae-junâs face looked like it had been carved out of stoneâugly and rigid. He sucked in a hard breath.
"Itâs fine," he muttered, forcing himself to believe it. "Maybe that one got careless. There are still plenty left. We still have a chance."
The green-skins were just as shaken.
So their earlier instinct hadnât been paranoia after allâthese humans really
could
threaten them.
Unfortunately, realizing that now didnât help. The moment theyâd stepped into the fight, there was no clean way to back out.
They slowed, spread their stance, and started scanning the battlefield warily, no longer acting like kings.
That was when Sean charged in first, raising his staff and smashing it down toward a green-skinâs head.
The monster snorted and swung its massive wooden club up to meet him.
BANGâ!
The impact cracked through the air.
Sean slid back two steps.
The green-skin, though, stumbled backward more than tenâits arm bending at an ugly angle.
A Tier 23 green-skin, and it still lost the strength contest.
Seanâs full-body metalization gave him a brutal boost to both defense and raw power, and his body-training strength stacked on top of that. Pure physical force alone was already enough for him to fight across Tiers.
But being the first one in also made him the first target.
Vines burst out from all directions and wrapped him tight, layer after layer. Sean strained, snapping a fewâonly for even more to grow in and replace them immediately, locking him down again.
"Damn it," Sean spat. "Nature-type abilities are such a pain."
The vines cinched tighter, and sharp thorns formed along them, stabbing, trying to pierce into his body.
Too bad for themâbetween
Thornmail
and metalization, those spikes couldnât punch through his skin at all.
A
Rain of Flames
dropped from above and burned the vines off him in seconds.
Big Mike laughed like this was the best show heâd seen in a while. "Sean, looks like these guys are kind of a bad matchup for you, huh?"
"A little," Sean admitted, annoyed.
But he didnât stop. He kept watching the vines, then condensed energy into his fist and blasted a punch straight at the green-skin in front of him.
Around the same time, everyone else found their own targets and went to work.
Mia opened with
Soul Spike
, ripping at her opponentâs spirit so hard it couldnât even maintain its spiritwood shield. A
Judgment Beam
followed immediatelyâclean, brutal, and final. The green-skin vanished in a few seconds, reduced to nothing.
Garrick dropped
Suppression Field
, dragging his opponentâs speed into the dirt. Meteors hammered down one after another, and Garrickâs staff kept swingingâone crushing hit after the nextâbeating the monster so hard it couldnât breathe, let alone counter. It tried to bind him with vines, but every time they rose, a meteor smashed them apart.
It didnât last long.
Garrick caved the green-skinâs skull in, literally pounding it into mush.
Henry fought under
Divine Shield
, light flaring around him like a buzzsaw. Any vine that got close was sliced apart. His spear work, paired with
Void Beam
, kept the monster guessing until Henry caught a split-second opening and drove the spear straight through its throat.
Skinny Pete kept tornadoes spinning around him, shredding any vines that dared approach. He pressed his opponent with his spear while layering
Wind Cutter
again and again. When the enemy shield finally cracked, Peteâs spear punched throughâand a follow-up Wind Cutter cleanly took its head off.
Big Mike looked like he was having the time of his life. Flames roared around his body nonstop, making it impossible for vines to get a grip. He kept dropping
Rain of Flames
and hammering in
Dragonflame
, burning his opponent so hard it didnât even get to struggle.
The green-skin was cooked alive in short order.
The ones having the roughest time were Emily and Sean.
Emilyâs
Wind Barrier
could block the vines, but her
Vampiric Vines
did nothing to these targets. Without other reliable offense, she was forced into pure swordplayâand that meant the fight dragged.
Sean was in the same boat. He didnât have a clean answer to the vine spam either. He could outplay with movement, but he kept getting snagged and pinned, and more than once Big Mike had to burn him free.
Before long, everyone had finishedâexcept those two.
As for the Tier 22 green-skins?
Chris had already taken care of all of them.
Chris wasnât "strong for his Tier." He was a problem. Against same-tier enemies, his first strike was almost always a killing strikeâquick, silent, and absolute.
All around them, the Seorin people looked like theyâd been hit so many times theyâd gone numb.
They kept repeating the same words under their breath, over and over:
"How is that possible...?"
Same species. Same "human."
So why did these people feel like something out of a nightmare?
By now, the Seorin defenders understood the truth: relying on the green-skins was a dead end.
Choi Tae-junâs thoughts were already spinning, frantic and slippery, trying to figure out one thingâ
How to get on Ethanâs good side before it was too late.