The moment the alarm blared, Silverlake City compound snapped into a tense, battle-ready state.

All over the city, people’s hearts jumped.

They really came.

At the main gate, rows of heavy artillery swiveled and locked onto the incoming crowd. The gate commander grabbed a bullhorn and shouted at the top of his lungs.

"You up front—stop where you are! If you take one more step, we open fire!"

His voice echoed off the walls, loud enough to rattle teeth.

The attackers didn’t even slow down. It was like they hadn’t heard a word.

"Damn it... they’re asking to die!" the commander spat.

"Fire!"

The order dropped, and the artillery roared.

Boom boom boom boom!

One deafening blast after another. Shells streaked out, dragging tails of flame, arcing straight toward the charging mass.

Then—midair—the shells stopped.

Like they’d hit an invisible wall.

And in the next heartbeat, they turned.

They turned around and flew back toward the compound.

"HOLY SHIT!!"

"Scatter—MOVE!"

Boom boom boom boom!

The impacts came like the end of the world. The gatehouse vanished into smoke and debris. The entrance collapsed into a jagged ruin, and the guards were shredded—dead and screaming and buried under concrete.

Most of them were only Tier 6. They didn’t stand a chance against their own artillery.

"Cough—cough..." The gate commander dragged himself out from the wreckage, face gray with dust and shock, staring at the crater that used to be his gate.

He couldn’t wrap his head around it.

How the hell did artillery shells... change direction?

He didn’t get time to keep wondering.

Fallen Star City’s people were already at the ruins.

"You—!" he tried, voice cracking, trying to force out one more threat.

He didn’t finish.

A storm of abilities tore through him, ripping him apart in an instant.

"How dare you come to my Silverlake City compound and cause trouble!"

A furious roar rolled across the square as Enhanced poured in from every direction, converging on the gate like a flood.

They’d clearly been ready for this.

Even with plenty of people refusing to mobilize, the Riverton City compound had still brought tens of thousands—no, hundreds of thousands—of Enhanced into Silverlake. And they were here now.

In minutes, the gate plaza and the rubble-choked entrance were packed shoulder to shoulder with Enhanced—well over a hundred thousand, and more still rushing in.

Pure numbers-wise, it was an overwhelming advantage over Fallen Star City’s side.

At the front of the crowd stood the current Deputy Commander of Silverlake City compound, Darren. He stared at the attackers, eyes cold.

"Who the hell are you?"

His lips curled. "Just twenty thousand people, and you think you can touch Silverlake City compound? You got a death wish?"

From above, a calm voice drifted down—so level it barely sounded like a command.

"Everyone who came out..." Pause. "Kill them."

The instant that voice fell, Fallen Star Guard surged forward without a second of hesitation. At the same time, waves of long-range abilities rolled out—crushing pressure sweeping straight into the massed crowd.

"Arrogant." Darren snorted. "Fine. Don’t blame us for bullying you with numbers."

He lifted a hand.

"Kill!"

More than a hundred thousand Enhanced charged to meet them, and the air filled with flashing skills—fire, ice, blades of wind, bullets of light—everything slamming forward in a chaotic storm.

The two sides’ attacks collided...

And Silverlake’s line collapsed almost immediately.

They had more people, sure. But their skills were weaker by an entire level. Their attacks simply got swallowed.

Fallen Star’s abilities hit the crowd like falling buildings—each impact tearing open gaps, each gap instantly filling with bodies dropping, blood spraying, screams snapping off mid-syllable.

Then the fighters met at close range.

And it got worse.

It was a rout the moment they made contact.

Against Fallen Star Guard—where even the weakest were Tier 9 peak—Silverlake’s Enhanced might as well have been lambs thrown into a tiger pit. They were smashed aside, torn apart, cut down before they could even raise a second skill.

Most of Silverlake’s people were Tier 6 or Tier 7. A smaller chunk were Tier 8.

Tier 9?

Pathetically few.

This wasn’t a battle between forces.

It was one-sided slaughter between two completely different tiers of power.

Darren’s eyes bulged so wide they looked ready to pop. His face was pure disbelief.

"How is this possible...?"

"How can they be this strong?!"

Watching his people drop in swaths—like wheat getting scythed down—Darren’s stomach sank.

He snapped at a man behind him, "Go. Get the Silverlake City compound Enhanced—every last one of them. So what if they’re strong? We’ve got numbers. We’ll grind them down!"

The man’s expression darkened. "We tried. We can’t move them. The Silverlake people are practically cheering for us to die."

"Bunch of backstabbing bastards." Darren’s face twisted.

His eyes flicked up to the sky.

Those people sitting on the backs of giant birds—calm, almost bored—had to be the leaders.

Darren scrambled up onto a higher chunk of rubble and shouted up at them, forcing his voice into something that sounded diplomatic.

"Honored guests—what did we do to offend you, for you to go to such lengths to attack our compound?"

"We’re all Atlas Federation people. In the apocalypse, surviving is hard enough. There’s no need for us to slaughter each other like this!"

"If we’ve wronged you somehow, then when our Commander returns, how about he personally visits to apologize?"

A calm voice answered from above.

"Your Commander..." A beat. "You mean him?"

Something dropped from the sky.

It hit the ground with a dull, ugly thump.

When everyone saw what it was, the air went cold.

A human head.

"Garrett!!" Darren recognized it instantly.

Around him, several high-ranking people from Riverton froze too, eyes blown wide.

"Wasn’t Garrett supposed to be leading people to Fallen Star City...? How—"

"You’re... Fallen Star City?" Darren’s voice came out hoarse as he stared up at Ethan and the others, horror finally catching up to him.

Ethan didn’t bother replying.

His gaze stayed fixed on the compound interior, sharp and watchful.

There were still a few Void Realm freaks inside. Those were the ones he cared about. As for the rest? He didn’t feel like lifting a finger. The Guard could handle it.

"Garrett!"

A wailing scream cut through the chaos.

A man in his fifties came charging out of the compound like he’d lost his mind. He threw himself to the ground, scooped up the head, and howled over it like his throat was being torn out.

It was Garrett Knox’s father—Malcolm Knox, former chairman of Knox Industries before the world ended.

After the apocalypse he’d stopped running things directly, but Riverton City compound’s rise still leaned heavily on him.

Staring into his son’s dead, unblinking eyes, Malcolm snapped.

He looked up at Ethan and the others with pure, irrational hatred.

"It was you! You killed Garrett!?"

Ethan frowned. "This old man’s loud."

"Got it." Big Mike grinned and lifted a hand.

A [Rain of Flames] came crashing down on that spot.

"Protect Mr. Knox!" Shields flared into place around Malcolm, and several people dove to tackle him flat.

It didn’t matter.

Big Mike’s [Rain of Flames] swallowed the area whole.

In seconds, everyone in that patch of ground was burned to ash.

Everyone except Malcolm.

He lay there untouched, a black energy barrier wrapped around him like a shell, blocking the heat and flame. 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

A voice followed—cold, contemptuous.

"My slave... and you think you’re allowed to touch him?"

Three figures emerged from inside the compound, walking out slowly like they owned the sunlight.

The moment Malcolm saw them, he looked like a drowning man spotting shore. He scrambled forward and dropped to his knees in front of them.

"My lords—please! You have to avenge my son!"

"Relax." The one in front—Monroe—spoke without emotion. "They killed my slave. That means... they all die."

Ethan rolled his eyes. "Man, you’re really committing to the villain speech."

"Yesterday, some guy just as ugly as you tried posturing too." He tipped his head. "I took my poleaxe and chopped his head clean off. Not sure if you knew him."

The three of them stiffened.

"!!!"

"Marek... you killed Marek?" Monroe’s eyes went wide, locked on Ethan like he was seeing something impossible.

"No." His voice sharpened with denial. "That’s impossible. With your level, there’s no way you could kill Marek!"

Ethan smiled, almost friendly. "You wanna test that?"

In the next instant, he teleported.

One blink, and he was right in front of the three of them.

Chris and the others didn’t hesitate—they pulled back fast, creating distance like it was muscle memory.

Ethan had already warned them: one of these guys was Tier 20, the other two were Tier 19.

This wasn’t their fight.