Ethan looked at the newcomer, and his brows sank.
The system scan results popped up almost instantly.
35 Tier — peak.
That was leagues above the group he'd just crushed.
More importantly, this guy's internal energy structure was weird as hell. On top of the usual power, there was a fire-aspect energy Ethan had never seen before, cycling nonstop through his flesh, his bones, and his core.
A heavier focus settled into Ethan's eyes.
He lifted his right hand. Translucent lightning spun in his palm, compressing fast until it became a massive sphere of thunder.
Arcs churned inside it. Violet runes coiled around the outer layer, and every twitch left hairline cracks in the air.
"This one's at least worth looking at," Ethan said, staring him down, the provocation completely unhidden.
"Question is—how strong are you when you really start swinging?"
Then he threw the lightning sphere.
It ripped through the sky, dragging a bright electric scar behind it as it smashed toward the peak 35 Tier expert. The man narrowed his eyes, didn't take it head-on, and slid half a step back.
At the same time, crimson energy exploded off him, spreading outward like a sea of fire.
The two auras slammed together midair.
Translucent lightning and that crimson flame-power tore at each other. The violet runes pressed in from the side, trying to sever the opponent's energy flow entirely.
But the fire-aspect force was freakish—Ethan's lightning ripped it open, yet it surged right back out of the tear, like a flame that simply refused to die.
The sky cracked with dense fractures.
The thunder net above the city shuddered under the shockwaves. On the walls, defenders found themselves breathing harder, chests tight from the pressure alone.
Korvath stared up, his face steadily souring. He could tell it without being told—this enemy wasn't in the same league as the earlier trash.
Ethan's body trembled slightly.
His internal aura was unstable. The exhaustion from the nonstop fighting still hadn't fully settled, much less recovered.
Meanwhile the opponent's fire energy only grew more violent. Every collision felt like an entire chain of volcanoes exploding in the heavens.
Too strong.
If the man fully unleashed it, even Ethan might not be able to keep him suppressed.
Ethan adjusted his breathing and pulled back several steps. Translucent lightning spread out from his skin, and his violet wings beat at the same time. Golden runes flooded across the sky, whipping into a storm of symbols that surged straight at the enemy.
The expert raised both hands.
Endless fire-aspect power blasted from his palms, mixed with a strange secondary force, and met the rune storm head-on.
Firelight and electric light collided again and again. Each contact detonated showers of energy fragments—and when those fragments fell to the ground, they burned crater after crater into the wasteland outside the city.
After several exchanges, Ethan started to get pushed back.
He was rocked away over and over. His translucent lightning could tear the flames apart, but it couldn't fully snuff out that bizarre fire energy.
The opponent's strikes grew heavier—like a burning warhammer smashing into Ethan's defenses again and again.
Rumble!
After another brutal clash, the impact sent Ethan flying across the sky.
He steadied himself at a distance, chest rising and falling, eyes calm—no panic at all.
The system interface opened again in his vision. The enemy's data panel expanded layer by layer. Energy structure. Physical strength. Attack pattern. Defensive reactions—everything was rescanned, recalculated.
This guy's stats were ridiculous.
Body defense, burst output, recovery speed, fire control—almost no obvious weak points. If Ethan kept grinding him head-on, he wasn't breaking that defense anytime soon.
But when the system scan reached the waist and abdomen—
Ethan's gaze stopped.
There was a fissure there. Tiny. Almost invisible.
It was hidden around the opponent's midsection, usually covered by fire energy, impossible to spot with the naked eye. It didn't look serious. It didn't even seem to affect his movement.
But every time the man mobilized a large-scale surge of power, that fissure would briefly open—
And a noticeable amount of aura leaked out from it.
Ethan locked onto that spot, and the light in his eyes sharpened, little by little.
This wasn't some ordinary wound.
It was a gap—one that couldn't fully seal when energy circulated.
If he kept hitting it, he could crack open what looked like an airtight defense.
Once he saw it, Ethan didn't hesitate.
Translucent lightning detonated under his feet. He became a streak of electricity, cutting through the fire-aspect shockwaves filling the sky and driving straight for the man's waist and abdomen.
Behind him, the violet wings pulled in tight. Every ounce of power was compressed back into his fist, forming a layered glow—clear lightning overlapped with violet light, dense enough to look almost solid.
The enemy expert had already slipped into something close to a frenzy.
In his eyes, nobody in this world could truly stop him.
After several head-on clashes, he'd convinced himself Ethan was being suppressed. So he just kept releasing power—wave after wave of fire energy smashing outward—never once bothering to notice the aura leaking from his midsection.
Ethan seized that moment.
He appeared in front of him without warning.
The man's expression snapped. He started to raise his hand—
Too late.
Ethan's fist was already buried in his stomach, landing with surgical precision right on the tiny fissure.
Boom!
That punch carried almost everything Ethan could force out of himself right now.
Translucent lightning, violet runes, and that tyrannical Infernal Abyss lightning all poured into the fissure at once.
The impact didn't explode outward.
It drilled in through that gap—into the man's insides—then burst from the waist and abdomen in a violent internal bloom.
Dreadok's eyes bulged.
His whole body lurched, and the punch sent him flying back through the air.
At his waist, the fissure that had been nothing more than a hairline mark flared with blinding electric light. Fire-aspect energy sprayed out in chaotic jets, no longer able to maintain a stable circulation.
He clearly hadn't believed Ethan could find his weak point.
But Ethan wasn't giving him time to recover.
While Dreadok was still off-balance, Ethan shot forward again, fists hammering out in rapid succession. Every blow avoided the thickest outer layer of flame defense and landed right around that leaking crack.
The first punch tore the flames apart.
The second punch shook the energy layer until it fractured.
The third drove translucent lightning deep into the fissure.
Dreadok tried to counterattack, but the moment he mobilized his power, more unstable aura blasted from the gap. His movement stalled for a split second—
And Ethan's fourth punch was already coming down.
Crack.
That tiny fissure was forced open into a real breach.
