The fight ended fast.

But Ethan didn’t relax.

He reached down, took Anya’s small hand, and led her forward.

The two of them walked through the lingering aftershocks of power, step by step, toward the spot where Veyrakas and Kaelthar had vanished.

Specks of light and energy fragments still drifted in the void. From a distance, it looked like leftover embers after a fire.

But Ethan was never the type to get careless at a moment like this.

With enemies, he was always cautious.

He left no road back.

The closer they got, the heavier Ethan’s gaze became.

On the surface, everything had gone quiet... but once he was close enough, he still caught something that felt off.

It wasn’t obvious. No complete aura. No clear energy pulse.

Just a trace—so faint, so thin it nearly blended into the void.

So there was still a problem.

Ethan stopped and spread his fingers.

Transparent lightning burst from his palm. A few long, thin arcs snapped between his fingers first—then the current split into two streams and shot out along different lines.

They flew into what looked like empty space— 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

But the moment they reached a certain point, two clear blooms of electricity detonated in the void.

Anya’s eyes widened.

She saw the hit reaction perfectly—rebounding current, space shivering, light bursting. They’d clearly struck something.

Yet to her eyes, there was still nothing there. Only empty darkness.

Ethan squeezed her hand, his tone softening slightly.

"It’s done. Those two are gone—body and soul."

Anya looked up at him, and only then did the tension in her shoulders slowly ease.

She really was strong now, but she was still a little girl.

When it came to something invisible—something you couldn’t touch, couldn’t see, and could only confirm by instinct and sensing—fear still crept up from somewhere deep and stubborn.

That wasn’t something one or two battles could erase. It took time. It took repetition. It took surviving it enough times that you learned how to press the fear down.

Ethan murmured a few more quiet reassurances, then brought her back to the warship.

The hatch sealed. The energy systems reconnected. The ship’s interior hum returned as everything spun back up.

Logically, now that Kaelthar and Veyrakas were dealt with, all they had to do was resume their route and leave this region behind.

But right as the ship was preparing to restart—

Trouble found them again.

The sky in the distance suddenly lit up.

Not one beam.

Countless pillars of light.

They tore open one after another high above, violent energy pouring out nonstop. In seconds it spread into a massive, chaotic web of radiance that draped straight over their warship, enclosing it.

Under that harsh light, space trembled in waves. Even the warship’s outer defenses began to hum with a low vibration.

Then more than a hundred figures hovered high overhead, staring down at them.

They’d clearly followed the residual fluctuations left behind by the earlier battle.

"This power is insanely thick—there had to be a big fight here just now."

"Not many chances to loot a battlefield like this. We got lucky. Might grab something huge."

"Boss, look—there’s even a warship over there!"

"That weapons system looks advanced as hell. If we steal it and study it, maybe we can mass-produce it."

"So what are we waiting for? Take it!"

...

They didn’t hesitate for long.

Once they confirmed the target, they dove straight toward the warship.

In an instant, more than a hundred figures pressed down together. Every color of energy exploded off their bodies—messy, chaotic, undisciplined—but they had numbers. From a distance, it looked like a dirty flood of power crashing in.

They’d barely entered the warship’s engagement range when the ship itself moved.

Thick energy lines lit across the hull in rapid sequences. Several weapon ports snapped open at the same time.

In the next second, terrifying firepower erupted from inside the ship. Dense beams wove into a brutal kill-net and swallowed the entire group.

The man in front went wide-eyed.

His face filled with disbelief. He clearly hadn’t expected that after such a massive fight, the ship would still be able to maintain this level of output.

All he’d seen was the chaos left on the battlefield. He had no idea that during Ethan’s fight, the warship’s weapons system hadn’t even been used.

Before he could react further, the first concentrated volley came down.

Countless energy beams detonated in the sky—crossing, slicing, drilling through. The attackers didn’t even get a complete defense up before they were punched open.

Explosions chained together. Severed limbs and broken energy fragments rained down from above. With a single sweep of fire, half of them were dead.

The leader’s expression finally broke.

He stopped caring about "looting" entirely. He yanked a reddish-brown gemstone from his clothing and slammed it into his chest.

The instant it touched his body, his aura changed violently. Savage power surged from his sternum into every limb. Muscle, bone, his entire frame began to swell.

In only a few breaths, he expanded dozens of times over.

At the same time, a strange blood-red gemstone appeared in the center of his forehead.

It continuously leaked power. Blood-red light streamed across his gigantic body, condensing a massive phantom between heaven and earth. The pressure was so heavy that even the survivors around him instinctively pulled back.

Inside the warship’s control area, Ethan watched it—and just grinned.

"Didn’t think this pack of third-rate trash would dare come at us," he said lightly, though his eyes were cold. "Fine. I’ll send them on their way."

He didn’t waste more words. He pressed the red gemstone on the console beside him.

Deep inside the warship, a hidden system fully awakened.

The ultimate weapon began its countdown.

A low, rapid warning tone sounded through the hull. All core energy started converging toward a single point.

The luminous patterns on the hull flared to their absolute limit. Even the ship itself began to tremble.

A moment later, a beam so intense it was almost blinding erupted from the main cannon and speared into the sky.

The instant it fired, the heavens split with a clean, visible tear.

The leader took it head-on.

The destructive shockwave slammed into him and flung him backward. That massive body—so terrifying a second ago—was instantly webbed with dense cracks, like a blood-red boulder shattered but still barely holding its shape.

He coughed hard twice, then spat a huge mouthful of blood.

But he still refused to yield.

He forced the remaining power inside him to compress inward, shoved both hands forward, and hammered a massive energy sphere toward the main cannon’s line of fire.

It looked impressive, rolling forward with a dark trail carved behind it.

But in front of the warship’s ultimate annihilation cannon, it was nothing.

That energy sphere didn’t even get close. It was pierced and ground apart mid-flight. It never even had the chance to form a full explosion—just broke into countless fragments and vanished into the high void.