Chapter 1371: Let Them Bleed First
Standing on Ethan’s poleaxe as it carried him through the air, Grayson finally understood what people meant by telekinetic flight.
Sure, flying was every human’s dream—but his shaking legs were doing a pretty great job of exposing how terrified he was.
The poleaxe was long enough for three people to stand on, yeah, but the handle was still basically a narrow metal shaft. This didn’t feel like "soaring through the skies."
It felt like balancing on a guardrail while being fired out of a cannon.
And Ethan’s telekinetic flight was fast. More than once, Grayson nearly slid right off—only for Henry to snag him from behind and haul him back into place.
Grayson cursed silently the whole way.
This wasn’t fun. This was a safety hazard.
Luckily, it wasn’t far. In just a few minutes, they were back over the area from before.
"That mountain range up ahead," Grayson said, pointing with a stiff finger. "The giant bird flew into the mountains from right there, and the winged guys chased it in immediately after."
Ethan nodded once, then pushed the poleaxe forward, accelerating toward the mountains.
"Um... sir," Grayson said quickly, voice small, "maybe you should drop me off here. I only know where they went in. After that, I’m not gonna be any help to you. I might just get in the way."
He wasn’t delusional. When monsters like that fought, the shockwaves alone could erase someone like him.
Ethan didn’t even look back. "You’re coming."
Grayson’s stomach dropped. "W-what? No, I—I can’t."
Henry glanced over. "Careful saying ’I can’t’ around a bunch of guys. Kinda sounds like a whole different issue. Since you helped with directions, I can recommend a doctor later."
Grayson’s face went blank. "I... that’s not what I meant."
He swallowed. "I mean I’m not strong enough. I’m only Tier 17. I can’t participate in this kind of fight."
Then he rushed on, like he had to get the words out before Ethan shut him down. "And Ethan, I’m gonna say something you probably won’t like. I don’t know how strong those Void Realm creatures are exactly, but they flew right over us—we felt their pressure. That pressure was... insane."
"It’s not that I don’t believe in you. It’s just... we’re only three people, and—"
"I know what you’re trying to say," Ethan cut in, calm and flat. "You don’t need to worry about that. You just stay with us, and when the time comes, you do exactly what I tell you."
He added, like it was the most casual thing in the world, "I’ll keep you alive."
Grayson’s throat bobbed.
"...Okay."
At this point, he was already on the ride. "No" clearly wasn’t an option.
And honestly—fighting alongside Ethan was the dream of half the Atlas Federation survivors. Even if he died, it would at least be a death people remembered.
Way better than getting murdered by Cyrus over a crystal core.
They entered the mountain range quickly. But to avoid exposing themselves, Ethan landed on the ground and switched to moving on foot.
A moment later, Ethan summoned Flyboy.
The mountains were packed with trees—some of them mutated, with branches and vines that whipped out unpredictably, constantly snagging at them like living traps.
Flyboy’s Wind Cutters made quick work of the mess, slicing the vines away and clearing a path so they could move faster.
Grayson froze the instant the winged figure appeared.
"H-he... he... he—!" He pointed at Flyboy, eyes bulging, words completely breaking apart.
Henry glanced at him like Grayson was the weird one. "One of Ethan’s guys. Why’re you freaking out?"
Grayson just stared.
"One of Ethan’s guys?!"
Calling a Void Realm creature "one of his guys" was already insane. But the part that really got him—
Flyboy had appeared so suddenly Grayson hadn’t sensed a thing. No footsteps. No approach. No warning.
Just... there.
The fact Grayson wasn’t screaming at the top of his lungs probably counted as the strongest mental feat of his entire life.
But what happened next made Grayson’s scalp go numb.
Flyboy’s "wind blades" didn’t just clear vines anymore.
Countless Wind Cutters erupted around him, then spiraled into a full-on tornado formation that wrapped around the group like a moving barrier. Any vine, branch, or mutated plant that dared get close was shredded into powder before it could even touch them.
They walked—
and the blade-storm walked with them.
Grayson felt the hairs on his arms stand up. He could feel how sharp those Wind Cutters were.
He had zero doubt: if he so much as bumped into that storm, he’d end up just like the vines—ground into meat and mist.
He glued himself behind Henry, barely daring to breathe, his face twisted into something between terror and awe.
This... is one of Ethan’s "guys"?
This wasn’t a teammate.
This was a walking boss fight.
With something like that at his side, that so-called top team in Goldcrest City—Apex Squad—would get wiped in minutes. No, seconds.
Only now did Grayson really understand how terrifying Ethan was.
The rumors out there didn’t even come close. Not one ten-thousandth of it.
They kept moving.
Deep mountains were easy to get turned around in, but the good thing was: neither the giant bird nor the Winged Clan swarm could pass through without leaving signs behind. Broken trees, gouged earth, shredded foliage, churned-up wind patterns—there were tracks everywhere if you knew how to look.
About ten minutes later, the sound of battle finally drifted through the forest—distant, but unmistakable.
Ethan’s eyes lit up. "They’re fighting."
He lowered his voice. "Move. Stay sharp."
He had Flyboy dismiss the Wind Cutter storm, and the group crept forward carefully, using the trees for cover as they closed in.
Ahead, deep in the mountains, the battle had carved out a wide clearing. The surrounding trees had been annihilated—trunks snapped, branches pulverized, the ground torn raw.
A huge ring of Winged Clan experts had a massive bird surrounded, hammering it with relentless attacks.
The roc was drenched in blood. Its condition was terrible—so bad it almost looked like it was flying on pure hatred.
After running for so long, its injuries had only worsened. It had been forced to stop and fight.
Because it understood something simple: if it kept fleeing, it would eventually lose the ability to fight at all.
In this world, it had no one.
No allies. No flock. Not even a single creature of its own kind.
No one was coming to save it. Running longer only meant dying later.
If it couldn’t escape, then it would drag as many of them into the grave as it could.
The clash was violent enough to shake the air.
Wind-type abilities ripped across the clearing in screaming waves.
Winged Clan experts were torn apart one after another, bodies shredded into pieces.
A dying monster was still a monster. The final struggle of a true powerhouse was never something you endured easily.
But the roc wasn’t getting away unscathed either.
Its body was already wrecked. With its physical condition collapsing, even ordinary Winged Clan attacks were carving wounds into it now—and Aeralon’s strikes were outright lethal.
Then, as the roc ripped apart a Tier 29 Winged Clan expert, Aeralon seized the opening.
A massive Cyclone Blade slammed into the roc’s skull.
The blade cut in nearly halfway—so deep it looked like it might kill the beast in a single blow.
It didn’t die instantly...
...but the head trauma was enough.
The roc’s body lost all tension, and it dropped straight down, crashing toward the ground.
Aeralon exhaled like he’d been holding his breath for an hour. "Finally. It’s done."
Their losses had been catastrophic.
A force of nearly five thousand had been reduced to barely over a thousand.
Even for the Winged Clan, that kind of bloodletting was enormous. If the Clan Chief learned the numbers, he’d explode.
But the gain was enormous too.
When Aeralon first came to this world, he’d been Tier 32. Not long after arriving, he’d run into a mysterious-energy surge and broken through to Tier 33.
And now he was about to claim a Tier 35 crystal core.
Once he absorbed the energy inside it, his strength would absolutely rise to at least mid–Tier 34.
At their level, raising even a single Tier was brutally difficult.
Back in their world, he wouldn’t even dream of it without decades of accumulation.
Even in a world soaked in mysterious energy like this one, it would normally take years.
But here? In a short time, he’d climbed two full Tiers.
It was almost absurd.
Yes, they’d lost a lot of people—but Aeralon was confident the Clan Chief wouldn’t blame him.
Compared to losing mid-tier fighters, pushing a high-tier powerhouse upward mattered far more to the Winged Clan.
