The battlefield was a scorched wasteland of twisted metal and charred meat. On the edge of the circle of fire remained The Scavenger Leader, now a mutilated mass of regenerating muscle and exposed bone, was being hammered by a relentless storm of high-intensity laser fire.

"Keep the cycles tight! Group A, fire! Group B, reload!" Jason roared, holding a bandage to his side.

"Sir! He’s trying to lunge again!" a soldier screamed, leaning into his heavy rifle.

"I don’t care if he tries to fly! Keep him pinned to the dirt!" Jason spat blood. "We hold him here until the Boss gets back, or we die trying!"

The Scavenger Leader let out a distorted, wet howl. Every time he tried to push off the ground, a dozen laser beams would bore into his joints, cauterizing the flesh and forcing him back down. "You maggots...!! I’ll gut you... I’ll eat your children...!!"

"Save your breath for the devil," Jason muttered.

A sonic boom cracked overhead, and Ethan slammed into the center of the crater. The dust hadn’t even settled before he walked through the curtain of fire. The soldiers immediately ceased fire, standing at attention despite their exhaustion.

Ethan looked down at the Scavenger Leader, who was trying to knit his face back together. Ethan let out a short, cold laugh.

"Is this the ’Monster’ that was going to eat me?" Ethan asked, his voice dripping with disdain.

He didn’t wait for an answer. Ethan reached down, grabbed the Scavenger by his skeletal neck, and hoisted his 300-pound frame as if he were a wet rag.

SLAM!

Ethan whipped him into the ground with enough force to create a fresh crater.

"Where’s that hunger now?"

SLAM!

"I heard you wanted to know what a King tastes like."

SLAM!

Ethan treated the "Immortal" Patriarch like a training dummy, thumping him against the hardened earth again and again until the Scavenger’s regeneration couldn’t even keep his shape human. When Ethan finally stopped, the Leader was a broken heap of twitching meat.

"Tell me," Ethan said, tilting his head. "Don’t you have a trump card? A black talisman? A soul-burn? Surely you aren’t this pathetic."

"Go... to hell..." the Scavenger wheezed, his eyes rolling in his head.

In his mind, bitterness tasted worse than blood. Unlike the Celestial lineage, which was obsessed with relics and talismans, the Scavengers relied on raw, physical evolution. Only the Ancestor held the family’s true secret weapon, and he certainly hadn’t shared it with a "disappointment" like him.

Ethan saw the despair in the man’s eyes and smirked. "No cards left? Good. I’ve been wanting to test a new internal function of my Void Body anyway."

Ethan raised his hand, palm turned toward the sky. Suddenly, the air around his fingers began to twist and warp. A tiny, pitch-black sphere the size of a marble manifested above his thumb. It didn’t emit light; it consumed it.

The Scavenger Leader felt a chill that bypassed his nerves and struck his very soul. The primal instinct of a predator told him that this wasn’t just death—it was erasure.

"Wait... stop! I can tell you things! I can serve you!" the Scavenger shrieked, his bravado vanishing instantly. "Please! I’ll give you the coast! I’ll—"

"You’ll give me a demonstration," Ethan interrupted.

He casually tossed the broken body of the Leader toward the marble-sized vortex. As soon as the Scavenger’s flesh touched the event horizon of the tiny void, the laws of physics took over.

"NOOOOO—!"

The scream was cut short as his massive body was stretched, twisted, and sucked into the marble-sized hole. It looked like a man being pulled through a needle’s eye. Bones snapped like dry twigs and flesh was shredded into ribbons of red mist as he was fed into the "grinder" of the void.

Within seconds, there was nothing left. No blood on the sand, no scrap of armor. Just Ethan standing there, closing his hand into a fist as the tiny vortex vanished.

Ethan let out a long breath, a strange, dark warmth spreading through his veins.

[ Spiritual energy intake: 1.2%. Essence refined, ] Crul reported. [ Feedback: The subject’s ’Immortal’ cells have been successfully converted into raw mana. ]

"A bit chewy," Ethan muttered, wiping his hand on his pants.

Jason approached slowly, his boots crunching on the glass-slicked sand. His chest was wrapped in grimy, blood-soaked bandages, and his face was a map of deep lacerations and soot. With the high-grade potions exhausted, his natural regeneration was struggling to keep up with the sheer scale of his injuries.

"Sir," Jason said, his voice raspy and thin.

Ethan turned, the cold violet glow in his eyes fading as he looked at his second-in-command. "Report."

Jason looked back at the wreckage of the convoy. "It’s a disaster, sir. We’ve lost nearly all the heavy transports. The ’Celestial’ talismans turned the trailers into scrap metal. Most of the Worm Nectar was vaporized or leaked into the sand... and the Cold Steel is scattered for miles. We need to call for reinforcements from the base perimeter just to salvage what’s left."

Ethan didn’t respond immediately. He walked past Jason, his gaze drifting over the battlefield. He saw the twisted husks of the armored trucks. He saw the pools of glowing nectar drying in the dirt. But then, his eyes landed on the rows of bodies.

He saw the logistics workers who had charged out with nothing but pistols and wrenches. He saw the young soldiers of the vanguard, some missing limbs, others staring blankly into the distance with hollow eyes. And then, there were the dead—thousands of them, their blue and silver uniforms stained dark with gore, scattered across the wasteland like broken dolls.

The silence of the desert felt heavier than any spiritual pressure he had ever faced.

Ethan bowed his head, his shoulders tensing as he closed his eyes. The "victory" felt like ash in his mouth.

"Sir?" Jason prompted quietly. "Should I coordinate the salvage team for the Cold Steel? The materials are worth—"

"I don’t care about the steel," Ethan interrupted, his voice low and vibrating with a suppressed emotion that made Jason shiver. "I don’t care about the nectar. I don’t care about the trucks."

He looked up, his expression unreadable, but his eyes were fixed on the survivors who were helping each other stand.

"Get everyone who can still walk onto the remaining vehicles," Ethan commanded. "Load the wounded first. We’re going home. Right now."

"But the supplies, sir—"

"Leave them!" Ethan barked, the sound echoing like a gunshot through the canyon. He softened his tone, but the iron remained. "The materials can be replaced. My people cannot. Help the wounded, gather our fallen... and let’s get out of this hellhole."

Jason stood at attention, a flash of genuine respect crossing his battered face. "Understood, sir."

As the survivors began the grim task of clearing the wreckage and boarding the few functional transports, Ethan stood on the edge of the crater, a lone sentinel watching over the dead. He knew the war wasn’t over—the Ancestors were waiting—but for today, the King was simply bringing his children home.