As Ethan and Chris each dropped a Winged Clan expert, the Winged Clanâs numbers cratered right out of the gate.
Theyâd started with sixteen.
In a blink, four were gone.
Only twelve remained.
Their faces turned murderousânot just from anger, but from the sick realization that everything they "knew" was wrong.
The intel they had said the target was weak, propped up by two soulless thralls. One of those thralls had supposedly already been killed, meaning he shouldâve had only one left.
But what they were seeing now didnât match at all.
Not only were there
two
thralls again, Ethan himself was terrifyingly strong.
Now they were down to twelve. Four were tied up trying to contain Aerisara. The other soulless thrall was a monsterâeight of them could barely hold it back. And on top of that, there were two humans who could
one-shot
them.
What had been an advantage flipped into a losing fight in seconds.
"Retreat," the leader said, decisively. "Go back and report to Lord Aeralon!"
The remaining Winged Clan didnât argue. They broke off immediately, abandoning the fight and trying to scatter.
The instant their pressure let upâ
Dopey tore free of the bindings and appeared beside the leader like a nightmare teleporting into reality.
A fist came down.
The leaderâs eyes blew wide. He tried to evade, but it was already too late. He slapped a
Tempest Shield
onto himself and wrapped his wings around his body like armor.
BOOMâ!
The punch detonated his wings into bloody fragments.
And it didnât stop.
Dopeyâs fist drove straight through his torso.
The leaderâs face twisted with pure unwillingnessâthen his body went limp, dropping like a rock toward the ground.
On the other side, Aerisara broke free as well.
A
Death Maelstrom
bloomed, swallowing a
Tier 29
Winged Clan expert whole. He fought inside it, half-visible through the ripping black windâ
Then Aerisara sent several
Cyclone Blades
slicing into the storm.
The blades disappeared into the maelstrom, and the struggling figure inside was cut apart, killed on the spot.
Aerisara had been strong even in life. As a created thrall, an ordinary Tier 29 expert simply wasnât enough to suppress her.
At the same time, Ethan and Chris saw the retreat for what it wasâan attempt to escapeâand moved without hesitation.
Ethan
teleported
to one Winged Clan expertâs flank and swung the poleaxe down hard.
The Winged Clan expertâs expression went feral. He countered with a
Cyclone Blade
, slashing straight at Ethan.
He was confident heâd split Ethan in half before that poleaxe could land.
He was
Tier 26
âtwo full Tiers higher than Ethan. That kind of confidence felt natural.
Reality was cruel.
The Cyclone Blade vanished as it neared Ethanâgone so completely it was like it had never existed.
And Ethanâs poleaxe, wrapped in black light, smashed into him.
No suspense. No miracle defense.
One hit turned his body into pulp.
Ethan had only just reached Stage A, but even using just the triple-force
Annihilation Strike
, a Tier 26 expert couldnât withstand it.
Because of
Body Refinement
, Ethanâs raw strength ran more than a full Tier above others at the same level. As a Stage A early-stage fighter, his physical power was at least around
midâTier 25
. Killing a Tier 26 with Annihilation Strike wasnât difficult.
Chris moved just as cleanly.
He threw
Void Malediction
onto a fleeing Winged Clan expert.
Black light latched onto the targetâs body. The manâs flight stuttered midair, like his muscles suddenly forgot how to work. Pain flashed across his face.
That was all Chris needed.
Still invisible, he sprang up and drove his spear forward.
With his weaponâs sharpened edge, plus the strength amplification from his abilities, the spear punched into the enemyâs chest and tore straight through.
Chris yanked the spear free and slipped away, vanishing again.
Both times, Chris didnât use
Ambush Strike
.
Heâd chosen Tier 25 targets. With strength amplification, the stealth damage boost, and the black edge heâd layered onto his weapon for extra cutting power, that was already enough to kill Tier 25 cleanly.
Ambush Strike would break invisibilityâand after using it, he couldnât cloak again for a minute. Unless it was life-or-death, he couldnât afford that.
In a fight like this, if his stealth dropped and they focused him, heâd probably die. He didnât have Ethanâs absurd bag of tricks to keep himself alive.
While invisible, he had a speed boost and damage reduction. And with the enemy unable to see him, even if someone tried to hit him, he was confident he could withdraw safely.
But at this point, the Winged Clan didnât even have the presence of mind to hunt him down.
Teammates were dying one after another. Whatever will theyâd had to fight had already been gutted.
All they wanted now was to run.
Their figures shot higher and higher, wings beating as they fled at top speed toward the distance.
"Shhkâshhkâshhkâshhkâshhk!"
From the rear of the compound, several beams of laser fire lanced into the sky.
They were so fast they didnât even look like projectilesâjust straight lines of light. The remaining Winged Clan didnât have time to react before the shots slammed into them.
Two Winged Clan experts were pierced on the spot. Their bodies went rigid, then dropped like stones.
Another one coughed up a mouthful of blood. His body wobbled mid-flight, nearly losing altitudeâbut he stabilized and kept running.
The last two only let out muffled grunts. They clutched their chests, glanced back once, and then forced their speed even higher.
Ethan tracked it instantly.
The two killed outright were
Tier 25
.
The one spitting blood, heavily wounded, was
Tier 26
.
And the two who only gruntedâ
Tier 27
.
So Maxwell hadnât been bluffing. Those laser cannons were no joke.
Ninety-nine Tier 22 crystal cores in one shot produced a terrifying beamâenough to delete a Tier 25 outright, and even seriously injure Tier 26.
But theyâd missed one critical detail: Tier 25 was the
floor
for this group. Half of these Winged Clan were Tier 27 and above.
Maxwellâs people couldnât accurately judge each targetâs Tier. Five shots later, theyâd only dropped two.
Way less than theyâd expected.
And in that tiny window, the surviving Winged Clan had already opened a huge gap in the sky.
Dopey and Chris couldnât fly. They could only watch them pull away.
Ethan had telekinetic flight, but his speed simply couldnât catch true Winged Clan fliers.
The only one who could pursue was Aerisara.
Ethan moved fastâhe pulled Dopey back into the spatial storage ring, then teleported onto Aerisara and wrapped his arms around her.
No romantic thoughts. No time for that.
Winged Clan flight wasnât like Superman, flat and horizontal. They flew upright, angled forward. There was no stable "standing" position on her back. Holding on was the only option.
"Go," Ethan said hard. "Catch them."
Aerisara didnât hesitate. Her wings snapped once, and she shot after the fleeing Winged Clan.
At near
Stage S
power, her speed was on another level. The distance started shrinking, steadily, relentlesslyâclose enough that Ethan could already pick out silhouettesâ
And then the trap sprung.
Of the six remaining Winged Clan ahead, five abruptly stopped and turned around.
They charged back at Ethan and Aerisara, throwing out waves of
Razor Wind
that tore through the air like spinning blades.
Aerisara was forced to brake. She answered with her own Razor Wind, the two storms colliding in a violent, screaming grind.
Ethan dropped off her, landing into a hover again with a dagger under each foot. He opened
Nullspace Domain
, letting it eat the worst of the cutting wind as it raked at him from every angle.
But his eyes kept snapping to the sixth oneâthe one who hadnât turned back.
The runner.
Ethanâs chest tightened.
Aerisara was pinned by five opponents. She couldnât break free quickly.
And if that last one escaped...
The consequences were unthinkable.
Ethan clenched his jaw and made the call.
He teleported out of the meleeâstraight into open airâand then started spamming
Teleportation
, chasing the fleeing Winged Clan as hard as he could.
The one he was chasing was
Tier 29
.
And his speed was insaneâlike heâd activated some kind of movement skill and kicked it into overdrive.
Ethan blinked after him again and again, but even with continuous teleports, he was only gaining a little at a time.
Teleportation was a Stage D skill, and it had limits: the maximum range per blink was only about two miles.
In combat, two miles was more than enough.
For pursuit across open sky, it was frustratingly short.
The Winged Clan expert could cover two miles in the blink of an eye, too. Ethan was fasterâbarelyâbut not enough to end it quickly.
Still, Ethan wasnât out of cards.
Once heâd closed the gap a bit more, he activated
Absolute Stasis
.
The fleeing Winged Clan expert froze in midair like time itself had grabbed him by the throat.
Ethan kept teleporting.
One second.
That was all he gotâbut it was enough to slash the distance down brutally.
The moment the Winged Clan expert snapped free of the stasis and saw Ethan right behind him, his face twisted.
He whipped a hand out and hurled a massive
Death Maelstrom
at Ethan without slowing down, then surged forward again.
Ethan didnât dare test a Tier 29 attack head-on. He teleported away from the maelstromâs pathâ
âand immediately resumed the chase, blinking after the fleeing figure as the sky ahead narrowed into a single, deadly line.