The moment Ethan laid eyes on him, his brow creased.

System alert:

Enemy Power Level — Tier 26, early stage.

(Hidden Amplification → Tier 26, mid-stage)

…Just as expected. A real problem.

The man gave a slow, crooked smile, his voice dragging up from somewhere deep and cold.

"You've got nerve, storming in here like this."

He raised his staff. The runes along its shaft flared blindingly bright.

"But this is where it ends. Your life—stops now."

As the last word fell, the Sky Fortress itself seemed to awaken.

Energy surged toward him from every direction, invisible tendrils lashing out—wrapping around Ethan's arms, chest, throat like a thousand unseen chains.

The air twisted.

The deck groaned beneath their feet.

The power tried to drag Ethan down, to pull him into some bottomless abyss.

But Ethan's expression didn't flicker. He was calm—eerily so.

Then—

BOOM.

His killing force detonated.

The air split open with a thunderclap.

Above him, a massive Energy Disc unfolded, so vast it swallowed the sky. It spun slowly, its white light howling like a storm. Within its core, faint shapes flickered—wings of gold, the coiled silhouette of a dragon.

Dragon God energy.

And Fairy God energy.

The man's face drained of color.

"What are y—"

He didn't get to finish.

The Disc came down.

CRACK!

His energy shield shattered like glass—no resistance, no recoil, just instant obliteration.

The blade of light carved into his shoulder, and his scream tore across the platform, echoing off steel and stone.

Blood sprayed, mingled with shattered runes.

Clutching his mangled arm, the man stared at Ethan with something he hadn't shown until now—fear.

"You… who the hell are you? That's Dragon God power—Fairy God power! That doesn't exist in this world! Where did you—how did you get that?!"

His voice trembled.

Ethan didn't answer. He was done talking.

He raised his hand again.

The killing force surged like a dam breaking, a flood roaring up from deep inside him.

Dozens of Energy Discs ignited in the air, spinning into existence like halos forged from light and blades. They screamed as they launched, a storm of destruction aimed straight at the enemy.

BOOM!

THUD. THUD. THUD. THUD.

Each strike hit like a hammer on a war drum, shaking the Sky Fortress to its bones.

The man's composure cracked.

He hadn't expected this. Not here. Not in the heart of their own stronghold.

Not from an outsider.

"Kormaldor… grant me your strength!" he shouted, thrusting his staff skyward like a priest begging his god.

And the fortress answered.

All at once, the runes across the Sky Fortress flared to life.

It was like waking a sleeping beast.

Energy pulsed from the deck, the towers, the etched metal veins—rushing toward him in a blinding beam of light that slammed into his body like a divine spear.

Ethan's heart clenched.

—System alert: External energy injection detected.

And then it clicked.

The Sky Fortress wasn't just a warship.

It was a living power core—a massive energy furnace designed to feed every soldier and warlord on board.

No wonder the Kormaldor troops could fight like lunatics, never tiring, never slowing.

But that also meant—

If he could sever the power flow, their strength would collapse with it.

"This just got complicated…"

Ethan muttered under his breath, jaw tight as he forced his breathing steady.

He pulled up the system scan, eyes tracking the flow of energy.

The light paths unfolded before him like a glowing web—complex, layered, alive.

And there—one thin, flickering strand, branching off and feeding directly into the man's chest.

—Energy bottleneck.

Got it.

Ethan didn't hesitate.

His killing force surged again, condensing into a razor-sharp Energy Disc that shimmered with such intensity it seemed to slice the very air around it.

Fwish!

The disc tore downward.

CRACK!

It struck something vital—an energy junction. The glowing conduit snapped like a brittle thread.

In the next instant, the man's surging power collapsed, snuffed out like a flame in a vacuum.

He staggered, face going ghost-pale.

"No… that's not possible—"

But Ethan didn't give him the luxury of disbelief.

A second Energy Disc had already formed in his palm.

Fwish!

The blade of light carved a deadly arc, slashing toward the man's neck.

BOOM!

Blood sprayed. The man screamed, tumbling across the deck in a ragged roll before crashing to a stop.

All around them, the Kormaldor soldiers froze.

They'd believed that as long as the energy kept flowing, no outsider could possibly threaten them.

But now, with just two strikes, Ethan had nearly crippled their strongest commander.

Fear spread like wildfire.

No one moved.

Because they all knew—

Without the Sky Fortress feeding them power, their Tier levels meant nothing. They were just meat in armor.

And then—

Another figure leapt from the depths of the fortress.

A Wolfkin leader.

Unlike the others, his presence warped the air itself. His beast-like skull, thick bone-plated limbs, and eyes burning with savage fire made it clear—this one wasn't just another soldier.

System scan flashed:

—Power Level: Tier 26, peak.

—Threat Level: Extreme.

The Wolfkin sneered, his vertical pupils locked onto Ethan.

"Well, well. Didn't expect to find someone like you out here in the middle of the desert."

His voice was gravel and venom, laced with a quiet promise of violence.

"Looks like we underestimated you."

He raised his hand.

A black-red energy sphere began to form, swelling to the size of a house, runes flickering across its surface in a frenzy.

Then—

BOOM!

The sphere launched like a meteor, screaming toward Ethan.

But just before impact—

It stopped.

An invisible force caught it midair.

Killing force.

The Wolfkin's eyes narrowed. "You—how do you have that power?!"

He took two instinctive steps back, the fear unmistakable.

And in that hesitation—

Ethan moved.

A flash of platinum-white light tore through the air.

He was suddenly there, right in front of the Wolfkin.

His fist came down like a warhammer.

THUD!!!

Killing force poured into the Wolfkin's body, a hundred invisible blades tearing through him from the inside out.

His face twisted in agony. His scream ripped through the bridge like a banshee's wail.

His energy still raged, but under the corrosive flood of killing force, his muscles began to wither, collapsing in on themselves.

Ethan leaned in, voice low and cold, almost casual.

"To me, you're just beasts who never learned how to be men."

The Wolfkin's pupils shrank to pinpricks.

"And you think you can run wild on Sol'Rakka?" Ethan's tone was light, like he was commenting on the weather. "You're not brave. You're just stupid."

Before the words had even finished—

BOOM.

Killing force exploded again.

The Wolfkin's body was torn apart, shredded into chunks that scattered across the deck. He didn't even have time to scream.

Ethan straightened, eyes sweeping over the remains.

Tier 26, peak.

And yet, without the Sky Fortress feeding him power, the guy had been hollow—just a loud shell waiting to crack.

"Paper tiger," Ethan muttered.

No point wasting time on the rest of them.

The real threat wasn't the soldiers.

It was the Sky Fortress itself.

If its main weapon fired, this entire continent would be wiped clean.

...