Ethan stopped, eyes sweeping over the dimensional vortices.

The first bug crawled out.

It wasn’t huge. It didn’t have that heavy, beast-like pressure at a glance either—just an insectoid creature wrapped in a black, hardened shell.

But the moment it dropped onto the deck, the warship’s thick metal sank into a shallow crater under it. Even the air around it wobbled, pressed down by the dimensional force leaking off its body.

Then a second crawled out.

A third.

A fourth.

Each time one landed, another ring of cracks spread across the deck. Their jointed limbs latched into the metal plating. Their chests rose and fell faintly, and under the black shell, a red glow pulsed—bright, dim, bright—like a heartbeat.

That power wasn’t flashy. It didn’t roar outward.

It just sat there, terrifyingly heavy, like slabs of iron laid directly onto space.

The few enemy soldiers still alive started scrambling backward on instinct.

They weren’t just scared of Ethan.

They were scared of these things, too.

Ethan’s brows drew together as the transparent lightning in his palm stretched outward.

He didn’t give the bugs a chance to close in. Power surged through his arms and gathered above the warship into a massive phantom shape.

It was formed from transparent energy, its outline trembling constantly. The instant it appeared, the surrounding space was forced down another notch, as if the air itself had gained weight.

Ethan lifted his hand and pressed forward.

The enormous phantom dove with the motion, howling as it tore through the air, slamming down from above toward the cluster of bugs.

A long trail of light ripped across the sky—an unmistakable line from above Ethan’s head straight to the center of the deck, aimed at the newly formed swarm.

He meant to wipe them out in one hit.

But the instant the phantom crashed down, the bugs raised their front limbs in unison.

Their slender joints hooked onto the edges of the transparent phantom. They didn’t shatter.

Instead, they nailed themselves to the deck like anchors.

In the next breath, the red glow in their chests flared. Energy from inside Ethan’s phantom was dragged along their limbs and swallowed into their bodies.

The transparent phantom started thinning.

Layer by layer, that massive power was devoured by the swarm. An attack that should’ve crushed the deck flat was reduced to scraps within a few breaths.

When the final strand of transparent light was torn apart, the entire phantom dispersed—leaving only several deep claw marks gouged into the deck.

Ethan’s eyes sharpened.

These bugs were more trouble than he’d thought.

He didn’t waste energy on more long-range blasts. Transparent lightning snapped inward, gathering around his right fist.

Arcs wrapped his wrist, crawled over his knuckles, and then compressed toward the point of impact until a dense, blinding lump of light formed across his fist.

The deck cracked under his feet.

He burst forward low to the ground, fist driving straight for the nearest bug’s head.

His punch landed.

Bang!

Transparent lightning smashed into black armor. The shockwave swept across the deck, forcing the metal to buckle downward.

The bug’s body skidded back several yards, its limbs throwing sparks as they carved lines into the plating—then it latched on again, steadying itself. On its head, the shell showed only a shallow dent.

Ethan didn’t pause.

His second punch hammered its side.

His third detonated against its back.

Each hit popped with transparent lightning, driving the cracks in the deck farther and farther outward.

But the bugs’ bodies were unnaturally hard. That black shell absorbed the impacts again and again, with only tiny cut marks appearing at the edges where the lightning managed to bite in.

Normal attacks weren’t working.

Ethan’s gaze began to move—tracking, measuring.

He stopped swinging blindly. On the next clash, he twisted sideways, slipping past a bug’s forelimb. His eyes flicked over its head, its back plating, its abdomen—

and as his transparent lightning scraped across its body, its chest flashed into view for a split second.

In that instant, Ethan saw it.

A deep indentation right at the center of its chest.

No thick armor covered it.

Instead, a blood-red gemstone was embedded there.

Energy churned inside the gem, but the glow wasn’t stable. Every time it pulsed, the bug’s body hitched—just slightly—like it was stuttering mid-breath.

Ethan flicked his gaze to the other bugs and immediately spotted the same deep indentation on each of their chests—each one set with that same blood-red gemstone.

His conclusion shifted on the spot.

Those red gems were the real cores.

And the power inside them wasn’t stable. 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

He lunged again. Transparent lightning spilled out under his feet and swept around the bugs, forming a sealed ring. The moment they tried to scatter, space itself was pressed down by the electric glow. Their limbs barely lifted before transparent arcs whipped up and bound them in place.

Ethan blinked in front of one of them.

His left hand slammed down on its head, pinning it. His right hand reached straight for that dark, hollow depression in its chest.

The bug thrashed violently, its forelimbs clawing at Ethan’s arm hard enough to shudder the deck. Under its feet, metal plating cracked and collapsed in wide patches.

Ethan didn’t let go.

His fingers hooked the edge of the red gem. Transparent lightning drove down his fingertips and into the hollow.

A shrieking tear sounded from where the gem was fused to flesh and shell. The red light inside the gem started spasming wildly.

Then Ethan’s arm tightened—

and he ripped the red gemstone out of its chest by brute force.

The bug went rigid.

With its core gone, the power it had been storing erupted out through the empty cavity, venting in a harsh, uneven surge. The red glow under its black shell extinguished at speed, and that heavy dimensional pressure scattered just as fast.

The bug began to wither.

Its limbs drew inward one by one. The hard shell dulled, losing its sheen, until the whole thing collapsed into a dry, shriveled corpse that slammed onto the deck.

Ethan glanced down at the blood-red gem in his hand.

Then he turned to the remaining bugs.

They were backing off now.

They made no sound, but they avoided his eyes like animals that had just watched the alpha get torn apart. Their limbs hammered the deck in rapid clicks as they tried to force their way out of the lightning seal.

In the distance, the old man saw what was happening. The snow-white gem in his forehead flashed in a chaotic stutter. His mouth opened as if to bark another order—

but only a dry rasp squeezed out.

Ethan didn’t give them the chance.

One by one, he crushed the rest the same way—transparent lightning locking down their movement while his hand drove into the chest indentation and tore out the red gemstone.

Every time he yanked a core free, another bug’s power drained away. The black shells dried out. Bodies caved in and toppled across the fractured deck, sprawled at ugly angles.

In just moments, every bug that had crawled out of those dimensional vortices was dead.

Ethan put away the red gemstones. His body blurred into a streak of lightning that cut across the cracked deck—and in the next instant he was in front of the old man.

He clamped a hand onto the old man’s shoulder and forced him in place.

The old man shuddered. Every last bit of color drained from his face.

Ethan looked straight at the snow-white energy gem embedded in his forehead. His voice stayed calm.

"I’m interested in the white gem on your head. You gonna take it off and hand it over... or do I take it myself?"

The old man started shaking even harder.

With that white gem, he could command the troops on the ship. He could even use that eerie power to summon dimensional vortices. But his own strength wasn’t remotely enough to face Ethan head-on.

Now that Ethan had his shoulder, the old man couldn’t retreat even half a step. Bone creaked faintly under Ethan’s fingers—pressure building, steady and merciless.

If Ethan wanted to, he could crush the old man right here.