Of course, Fallen Star Squad had someone even more brutal.

Ethan.

Dozens of daggers lifted into the air behind him, hovering for half a beat—then shot downward like lightning.

Pfft pfft pfft!

Wherever a dagger passed, heads exploded one after another.

No fancy tricks. No showboating.

Every single blade went straight for the skull—one stab, one kill, no second sound.

They were moving too fast for the people below to even see clearly, let alone dodge.

The squad stood on their flying mounts and just poured damage into the sea of bodies. Emily stayed close, constantly restoring everyone’s mental energy.

Big AOE skills were powerful, sure—but they burned through energy like gasoline. Emily had basically turned into their walking fountain.

Henry was filming from his mount too. Unless it was absolutely necessary, he wasn’t fighting.

So the only ones who dropped into the crowd for close combat were Chris, Sean, and Mia.

Sean didn’t have ranged attacks at all. And Chris’s Corrupting Spear and Mia’s Soul Spike were both single-target—too slow for mowing down a crowd. It made more sense for them to go in and carve.

This fight wasn’t just being livestreamed across the Atlas Federation.

Over in the Yamato Empire’s highest command center, the same scene was playing on their screens.

Clearly, Yamato had set up cameras in that area too.

Atlas viewers were fired up, practically shaking with excitement.

Yamato’s leadership watched with clenched teeth and burning eyes.

"Why haven’t the Infernals come out yet?" Ryuji Takahashi muttered, frowning hard. "Don’t tell me there aren’t any left in there."

"There should be," another high official said quickly. "We’ve had scouts watching the area. Infernals still come out now and then. And a few days ago, a whole group went back in—there have to be plenty inside."

"Then why aren’t they coming out?" Takahashi snapped. "It’s a massacre out there. There’s no way they can’t sense it. If they don’t move soon, five hundred thousand people won’t even be enough for them to kill!"

"Let’s... wait a little longer..."

None of them would’ve believed it, not even a month ago.

They used to fear Infernals more than anything.

Now they were desperate, praying for them to show up.

"Look," someone said suddenly, voice rising. He pointed at the feed. "They’re coming out...!"

Takahashi’s eyes flashed. "Good. Finally. And—hah—there’s a lot of them." His mouth twisted into a cold smile. "Now let’s see how you die."

At the summit of Mount Fuji, red figures began crawling up out of the crater.

A whole swarm.

The moment they saw the packed mass of people below, they practically vibrated with excitement—then surged downhill in a brutal rush.

Ethan spotted them instantly.

His eyes lit up. "Didn’t expect there to still be Infernals here."

If they were coming out of the crater...

Then there was a decent chance the volcano connected to a Void Realm entrance.

Ethan’s thoughts flicked fast. So there really might be a Void Realm inside.

He actually chuckled. "Honestly? Yamato’s people are pretty considerate. They even led us right to the doorstep."

Now he understood why half a million people had gathered here.

They weren’t praying.

They were bait.

Someone up top had planned to use the Infernals to kill Fallen Star Squad.

And damn—Yamato’s leadership was ruthless. Using five hundred thousand people as a lure without blinking.

Probably figured if there weren’t enough bodies, the Infernals wouldn’t come out fast enough.

A heartbeat later, the Infernals slammed into the crowd and started feeding—ripping, chewing, tearing through flesh like starving dogs.

Screams erupted everywhere.

Fallen Star Squad in front.

Infernals behind.

And five hundred thousand trapped in the middle, getting shredded from both sides.

Ethan didn’t go after the Infernals right away. He kept slaughtering Yamato’s people instead.

At this moment, the Infernals were basically free labor. Let them help "clean up" first.

There were only a little over a hundred of them, but more than ten were Stage B (Tier 18). That alone neatly filled the gap in Ethan’s Tier 18 crystal core supply.

Nice.

The fight didn’t even last ten minutes.

Out of the five hundred thousand-plus Yamato Enhanced, more than three hundred thousand died. Over a hundred thousand managed to escape. The ground was a ruin of bodies and broken skills, smeared into chaos.

And then, the hundred-plus Infernals finally turned their attention to Ethan and the others.

Ethan’s smile widened. "Alright," he said lightly. "I hereby announce our partnership is over. Time to start stabbing each other in the back."

"Rooooar—!"

The Infernals bellowed and lunged, surging toward the squad in a red wave.

Ethan snorted. "The second I hit Stage B, you were all trash in my eyes."

He lifted a hand.

"Absolute Stasis."

Everything around them froze.

Not metaphorically. Not "slowed down."

Frozen.

The Infernals were locked mid-charge, claws out, jaws open, bodies stretched forward—like someone hit pause on the world.

Dozens of daggers flashed out.

In an instant, they punched through the skulls of more than ten Stage B Infernals and dozens of Tier 17s.

One second later, the world resumed.

Those Infernals still slid forward a short distance from their momentum... then dropped straight to the ground like their strings had been cut.

The remaining Infernals jerked to a stop, horror spreading across their ugly faces as they stared at the bodies.

"What...?" Chris muttered, stunned. "How did they just—die?"

The others looked the same. They all knew their captain had done it—but seeing it was another story.

Ethan’s skill was beyond broken. "Same-tier invincible" didn’t even begin to cover it anymore.

But the most shocked weren’t the people on the battlefield.

It was the people watching the livestream.

All they saw was the video hiccup for a split second. Then it came back—and suddenly dozens of Infernals were on the ground, each one with a dagger buried in its head.

"The hell?!" someone on the Atlas side shouted at a screen. "It LAGGED at the most important moment! Who can tell me how those Infernals died?!"

Maxwell’s head snapped toward the middle-aged man in charge of the satellite command center. "What just happened? How does a satellite feed lag?"

"It shouldn’t," the man said, already sweating. He frowned hard and immediately dialed the control center. "Give me a moment. I’ll have them check."

"Fast," Charles said, visibly irritated. "That was the key moment. A lag there is basically murder."

The man hung up a short time later, wearing a baffled, almost haunted expression.

Maxwell narrowed his eyes. "What?"

"I asked them to pull the record," the man said slowly. "They checked everything. It’s all normal. No lag."

Charles stared at him. "No lag? Then what the hell was that?"

"I don’t know!" The man looked like he was about to cry. "They checked down to the millisecond. There’s no interruption. It’s like... the scene itself lagged."

"The scene itself lagged?" Charles snapped. "Explain that to me. If it ’lagged,’ did the daggers just magically fly into their heads on their own?!"

"Whitaker," Maxwell said, cutting in, "don’t corner him. He’s not going to lie about something like this."

Charles took a breath, forced himself to calm down a notch, and looked back at Maxwell. "Then what do you think it is, General Kane?"

Maxwell’s gaze stayed on the screen, voice low.

"I think Ethan did it."

"...How?" someone whispered.

Maxwell didn’t look away. "I don’t know. But that has to be tied to him. Those daggers are his. Nobody else moved—or maybe..." His eyes sharpened. "...maybe they couldn’t move."

The room went dead silent.

Then, one by one, people felt goosebumps crawl up their arms.

Because whatever that was...

It wasn’t normal.

It was terrifying.