Daigo heard Skinny Pete’s shout and his eyes lit up.

There’s a chance!

He practically bounced on his heels and yelled back, "You got it! I’ll arrange it right away!"

He’d barely finished speaking when his whole body suddenly locked up.

Then he toppled over like a board, stiff and straight, and hit the ground with a dull thud.

"???"

Everyone just stared.

"What the hell was that?" Big Mike blurted.

Ethan’s gaze slid sideways, half-amused, straight to Mia. "Why’d you kill him?"

Mia ducked her head, suddenly shy. "Captain... I thought he had to be plotting something. Trying to mess with our unity, so I..."

"...."

"Mia, you’re overthinking it," Big Mike said, looking like the world’s most upstanding citizen.

"Seriously," Skinny Pete chimed in, nodding hard.

"I think Mia did the right thing," Emily sniffed. "The second you idiots heard ’porn stars,’ your eyes started glowing. Hmph. Good. Now you don’t get to see anything."

Ethan sighed and shook his head. "Yeah... what a waste."

"Captain..." Mia bit her lip and looked up at him. "Did you... really want to see them?"

"As if." Ethan straightened up instantly, righteous as a preacher. "I meant it’s a waste we didn’t get the crystal cores. Now we’ll have to go dig them out ourselves."

"Oh." Mia nodded, still not totally convinced.

Big Mike leaned in close to Ethan’s ear anyway and whispered, "Captain... we can still go find the porn stars ourselves later."

"Get out of here," Ethan muttered, shooing him. "Kill first. Henry’s recording. If your creepy face gets caught on camera, it’ll wreck our image."

"No problem, Captain," Skinny Pete said, patting his chest like a professional. "I’ll edit it. I’ll cut that part out later."

What they didn’t know was that they were being broadcast live to the entire Atlas Federation—and every second of that exchange had gone out, frame for frame, to every screen.

There was no helping it. Nobody wanted to miss a single moment of a fight this insane. People were watching more seriously than they ever had watching borderline-thirsty streamers before the apocalypse.

Thankfully, most viewers didn’t think anything was "wrong" with it. Plenty of them wore that exact same I get it look.

If anything, Fallen Star Squad acting like real people made them feel even more real.

With Daigo Yamamoto dead, negotiations died with him—and the battle kicked back into motion.

But on the Yamato side, most of the defenders had already lost the will to fight.

This wasn’t even the same weight class. How were they supposed to win?

Still, orders were orders. They didn’t dare run.

So they charged in anyway, faces pale, hands shaking, hoping they wouldn’t be the next ones erased.

Up in a central building inside the compound, Kenta and the others watched Daigo drop—and all their expressions changed.

"Now what?" someone hissed. "They’re not taking negotiations?"

"It’s the approach," Kenta said sharply. "Send someone else."

He was clinging to negotiation like it was a life raft. Because if this kept going, a compound with hundreds of thousands of people would be turned into a graveyard—one body at a time.

"Every war is about profit," Kenta said, voice tight. "If talks failed, it’s because the price wasn’t high enough. Send another person. Let them name their terms—whatever they ask for, we agree."

When Kenta said that, the rest of the room exchanged looks—then, one by one, they lowered their heads.

No one wanted to be the one walking out there to die.

In the end, Kenta had to point at someone. Only then did the unlucky guy start wobbling toward the battlefield on shaking legs.

He found a spot that was slightly concealed, lifted a megaphone, and forced the words out.

"To our friends from the Atlas Federation..."

Before he could finish—

A long sword punched straight through his skull.

"Who the hell is friends with you?" Ethan said, rolling his eyes.

He’d made up his mind. No more letting them talk. Kill first. Sort it out later.

That brutal, pathetic scene made Kenta and the others’ eyelids twitch.

But across the Atlas Federation, people watching the live feed nearly lost their minds.

"So aggressive... I love it!"

Ethan’s ruthlessness was famous. Even the big shots in Atlas City were wary of him.

But right now, with the whole Federation watching? Everyone suddenly felt like the way Ethan crushed people—cold, clean, unapologetic—was weirdly... hot.

Kenta’s face twisted.

Negotiation was dead. Completely.

Do I really have to watch my compound—something I built from nothing—get destroyed right in front of me?

He felt sick with it.

He was furious. He was unwilling.

But what did it matter? Their strength was right there. Unavoidable. Crushing.

"Kenta," someone whispered urgently, "we should run while they still haven’t noticed us."

"Yeah. This compound is done. If we leave now, we might still live. If we wait until they reach us, it’s over."

Kenta stared at the endless stream of his people falling outside. Finally, he clenched his jaw hard enough to hurt.

"Go."

The moment he said it, the compound’s upper leadership abandoned the cannon fodder they’d been throwing into the grinder and fled out the back.

But the instant they stepped through the rear exit—

Four giant birds dropped from the sky and landed right in front of them, blocking the way.

Ethan had noticed that central building from the start. It was way too luxurious not to be where the leadership hid. So he’d told Flint and the others to keep an eye on it—if anyone tried to slip out, stop them immediately.

Kenta’s stomach sank when he saw the birds.

"You—go." He pointed at several bodyguards behind him. "Test them."

They were "mounts," after all. That meant they couldn’t possibly be as strong as the people riding them—otherwise they wouldn’t be mounts.

That was the logic Kenta was clinging to.

The bodyguards swallowed, drew weapons, and charged, swinging hard at Flint and the others.

Flint’s eyes flashed with pure contempt.

Right as they got close, he snapped his wings.

Wind Cutters burst into existence—sharp, invisible blades that carved through the bodyguards in an instant, slicing them into pieces.

These birds had been eating the corpses of Tier 16 Infernals every day. Their strength had long since climbed to Stage C (Tier 12). Flint, the strongest of them all, had even reached Tier 13.

A few Tier 10 nobodies were never going to touch them.

Kenta and the others just stood there, stunned, faces turning ashen.

Even the mounts were this vicious?

How was anyone supposed to survive?

They scrambled back into the building, desperate, tripping over each other to get inside.

Flint and the others didn’t pursue. Their job wasn’t to kill the people inside—it was to make sure nobody escaped. Once the targets went back in, the birds rose again and circled high overhead.

Back on the battlefield...

After Ethan and the squad slaughtered more than thirty thousand Enhanced who’d rushed them, the rest finally broke.

Someone turned and ran.

And once the first one fled, the dam burst. More and more people threw down the fight and bolted for the compound’s edges.

The crowd slammed into the walls in their panic, collapsing sections as they stampeded out. In seconds, the whole place dissolved into a tide of bodies fleeing in every direction.

Ethan and the others couldn’t be bothered to chase.

They simply carved a straight path toward the center of the compound, killing anything that got in their way.

Inside the central building, Kenta and his people were drowning in fear.

They wanted to run—but they couldn’t.

About ten minutes later, Ethan and the others stepped into the building.

And for the first time, Kenta saw the "bandits" up close.

They were so young. So casually built. Faces that shouldn’t have belonged to the ones who’d just turned his home into hell.

He couldn’t reconcile it.

"Why...?" Kenta asked, voice bitter.

"Seriously?" Ethan said, rolling his eyes. "You’re asking that? You’re the Yamato Empire. You specialize in ambushes, surprise strikes... and backstabbing. Leaving you alive is just asking for trouble."

"The Atlas Federation always brags about having principles!" Kenta snapped. "Does your leadership know you’re doing this?!"

"Yeah." Ethan shrugged. "And our first rule is not leaving dangerous enemies behind."

"You..."

Kenta’s throat worked. Then he forced the question out anyway, like it was the last card he had.

"Fine. Say it. What do you want before you’ll let us go?"

Ethan smiled—small, almost friendly.

"You really think we crossed an ocean to negotiate?"

"I don’t believe you," Kenta said, voice shaking. "You’re not—"

"I kept you alive," Ethan cut in calmly, "because fear spreads faster when leaders break first."

Kenta went rigid.

Ethan turned his head slightly, eyes sweeping the room. "Kill the rest," he said, bored. "Oh—and those two behind him? Break their hands and legs, but keep them alive. Their abilities are decent."

"Got it."