While Ethan was busy playing tag with a sea of red birds, Chris and the others ducked into a rocky burrow—one Garrick had carved out himself.

The moment they saw Ethan drag the whole flock away, Chris didn’t hesitate. He slipped into invisibility and sprinted back to the battlefield.

The ground was littered with bodies—over a hundred of the red birds Ethan had just dropped.

Chris pulled out his dagger, let that dark glow wrap the blade, and went to work. Quick, clean, practiced—cracking skulls and pulling crystal cores like he’d done it a thousand times. His hands moved so fast it was basically muscle memory.

One core after another disappeared into his pockets.

There were Tier 15, Tier 16, and Tier 17 cores mixed in, but Ethan had clearly been picking targets on purpose. Tier 15 made up the bulk.

When he’d stripped every last corpse, Chris bolted back to the stone hideout.

Everyone swarmed him the second he ducked inside.

"How’d it go?" Henry asked. "How many Tier 15s did the boss get?"

For them, Tier 15 cores mattered way more than Tier 16s and 17s.

"Plenty." Chris couldn’t keep the excitement out of his voice. "About ninety Tier 15 cores. That’s enough to push several of us all the way to peak Tier 15. And with the high-tier cores Ethan already left us, we can jump straight into Stage B."

"Hell yeah!" Skinny Pete said. "Let’s level up fast and go help him. He was getting chased like crazy."

"Seriously," Sean added. "Ever since we came out of the Clearford City Void Realm, I haven’t seen the captain look that rough."

Mia snorted. "That’s because he’s protecting us. If he didn’t have to worry about us, with Absolute Stasis plus Teleportation, those birds would never touch him."

"Yeah, yeah, you’re right," Big Mike said, waving impatiently. "Chris, hurry up and pass the cores out. Stop wasting time."

Chris shot him a flat look, but he still dumped the haul onto the ground.

"Two groups," Chris said. "This place is way too dangerous. We need people on watch."

"Agreed," Garrick said immediately.

They split without argument.

Chris, Garrick, Sean, and Henry sat down first, each grabbing a stack of cores to start absorbing. The rest took positions around the cave mouth and the cracks in the stone, listening for anything that moved.

As core after core sank into their bodies, their auras climbed—fast.

Meanwhile, Ethan—now that he’d figured out telekinetic flight—was having the time of his life.

Everyone was picturing him under insane pressure, but honestly? He didn’t feel that squeezed anymore.

Telekinesis, the skill derived from his innate abilities, had one huge advantage: it was cheap. Probably the lowest cost out of everything he had.

Which made sense. Every ability he’d chosen was busted... and every one of them guzzled energy like a V8.

Telekinetic flight, though? It was just controlling one dagger. He could pop a couple crystal cores and his mental energy would rebound almost immediately.

And the speed was ridiculous. He could come and go whenever he wanted.

So he did.

He kept harassing the flock: if they chased, he ran. If they tried to leave, he swooped in and killed. The birds got so furious they were basically vibrating.

"Haha, I’m out!"

A beat later—

"Oops... I’m back!"

Ethan’s obnoxious voice kept echoing through the sky at random intervals.

If the Fallen Star Squad could see him now, they’d probably question everything they thought they knew about their captain.

The red birds were even worse off—feathers fluffed, tempers exploding, and still completely helpless.

They wanted to ignore him.

They couldn’t.

Because every time they did, he’d swing back around and drop a few dozen of their pack. If they left him alone, he’d just keep killing.

After more than ten minutes of this, the flock leader finally snapped.

It shrieked—one sharp, commanding call—and the entire swarm turned and headed back the way they’d come.

It remembered there were other weird creatures besides this one. If it couldn’t kill him, it would kill the rest.

They’d taken heavy losses today. They were getting paid back one way or another.

Watching them pivot, Ethan gave a cold snort and surged after them. Dozens of black daggers spun out, dancing in formation as he carved down more birds mid-flight.

But this time, the swarm had made up its mind. They didn’t turn. They didn’t bite.

They just flew—hard.

Fast enough that even with Ethan’s harassment, they kept pushing forward. 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

In no time, they were back over the original battlefield.

And when the leader saw what had happened to the bodies below—skulls split, cores stolen—something flashed in its eyes.

It cried out again.

Immediately, tens of thousands of red birds fanned out like a net being thrown.

They spread in every direction and began searching the area.

Ethan’s stomach tightened.

He had no clue how far Chris and the others had gotten. If they were in the middle of a breakthrough and got found now... it’d be a wipe.

He wanted to intercept—but tens of thousands of red birds were already spread out in a giant net. There was no way he could plug every gap.

They’re usually careful, he told himself, trying to stay calm. They shouldn’t be that easy to find...

Reality slapped him immediately.

Off to one side, a huge cluster of red birds started screeching over a dark-red mountain, circling and crying like they’d hit the jackpot.

The moment those calls went up, other birds began converging, pouring toward that spot from every direction.

Ethan activated True Sight and looked—

His face dropped.

In a cave beneath that mountain, Chris and the others were right there.

And as soon as Ethan saw the glow of their ongoing breakthrough, he groaned and smacked his own forehead.

Of course.

The energy fluctuations from leveling up had basically lit a beacon.

No time to think.

Ethan surged over, telekinetic dagger screaming through the air under his boots.

"BOOM! BOOM—BOOM—BOOM!"

The flock was already hammering the mountainside.

The red rock was tough, but under thousands of fire-type blasts and burning feather barrages, it started collapsing fast—chunks cracking loose, the whole face of the slope caving in.

Ethan had barely arrived when birds from all directions dove at him. The swarm split cleanly—about half peeled off to dogpile Ethan, while the other half kept pulverizing the mountain.

Numbers let them do that. They could afford it.

And Ethan... couldn’t.

With tens of thousands swarming, even he couldn’t force his way through to the cave. His daggers were deadly, but against this kind of mass, killing was too slow.

The mountain finally gave.

It collapsed completely, exposing the cave and everyone inside to open sky.

Ethan’s eyes snapped down, heart in his throat.

Below, Mia, Emily, Big Mike, and Skinny Pete were still seated on the ground, heads lowered—still absorbing cores, still leveling.

Chris, Garrick, Sean, and Henry stood around them in a tight guard, bodies tense, eyes up.

Above them, a huge transparent dome of light had formed, sealing them in.

The falling rock from the collapse smashed all around the dome, piling up in a broken ring—but none of it touched the people inside.

Ethan’s eyes flared with relief.

He scanned them fast and his relief turned into a jolt of surprise.

They’d already hit Stage B.

And the dome—Ethan recognized it instantly—was Garrick’s light-type ability: a protective dome, covering roughly a thirty-foot radius. It blocked external attacks completely.

Strong as hell.

The tradeoff was brutal, though: it couldn’t move.

The moment the red birds saw living targets, they went wild.

Fire poured down in sheets. Flaming feathers fell like a meteor shower.

Everything slammed into the dome—

...and vanished on contact, snuffed out like sparks hitting water.

Against a Stage B defensive barrier, their fire-type abilities couldn’t touch the people inside.

Chris whooped and threw Garrick a thumbs-up. "Garrick, you’re a beast!"

"Stop praising me," Garrick snapped, sweat beading at his temples. "And start helping. If they keep hitting it like this, I can’t hold it for long!"

This wasn’t a few enemies. It was tens of thousands. No barrier lasted forever under that kind of pressure.

Sean looked up, frustrated. "We can even hit them from in here?"

Garrick gritted his teeth. "As long as the attack is formed outside the dome, it’s fine!"

Chris’s eyes went wide. "Then say that first!"