"Ethan... you didn’t get it?" Henry asked, genuinely confused.

It was kind of shocking, honestly. Ethan messing up was rare.

"Bad read," Ethan said, grimacing.

His original plan had been clean: one punch to cripple the Flamebird leader, grab it, jump back onto the poleaxe—then Absolute Stasis would end right on schedule. Henry and Ethan would cover Skinny Pete while Pete used Beast Control on the leader. One smooth sequence. Done.

But Absolute Stasis ended about half a second earlier than Ethan expected.

Half a second didn’t sound like much.

It wrecked everything.

"Why would it be shorter?" Ethan muttered, frowning hard.

He glanced back at the sky-filling mass of Flamebirds.

"...Was it because there were too many of them?"

He narrowed his eyes, thinking fast. "If the number of targets is too big... or if what you’re trying to lock down is too strong... does that cut the duration of Absolute Stasis?"

So far, that was the only explanation that made sense.

Skinny Pete swallowed. "Then... Captain, what now?"

"It’s fine," Ethan said. "I’ll recover a bit and we go again. I hit that leader hard. Next time we get close, I’m grabbing it."

Skinny Pete hesitated, then said carefully, "What if... me and Henry wait down below? You drag it down to us and I’ll control it there?"

His voice was small, and Ethan didn’t blame him. That last drop had clearly left a mark.

Ethan thought for a moment, then shook his head. "Too far from the ground. I’ll get surrounded before I can bring it down."

With Absolute Stasis only holding for a little over a second, and with Teleportation unable to carry a living target... that second wasn’t enough for him to break out of the flock while holding the leader.

And Ethan had seen the look in those birds’ eyes when he grabbed their boss.

They weren’t going to "fight." They were going to die trying.

If it was just Ethan, slipping the encirclement was doable.

If it was Ethan dragging a massive, living Flamebird leader?

Yeah. No chance.

So the best move was still the same: Skinny Pete stayed close, Ethan delivered the leader right to him, Pete controlled it on the spot—and then the leader would command the rest of the flock.

Skinny Pete’s face twisted. "So... I still have to go up there."

"Yeah," Ethan said. "But it’ll work this time."

As they tailed the flock from a safe distance, Ethan kept chewing crystal cores, letting his mental energy refill.

The Flamebirds didn’t turn back. With their leader injured, they were in a hurry—focused on getting it home, not on chasing.

Ten minutes later, Ethan’s eyes sharpened.

"Move."

The instant he spoke, the poleaxe jumped forward—accelerating hard until the wind screamed off the blade.

They caught the flock in a rush.

"SKREEE—!"

The Flamebirds whipped around and shrieked, furious.

Ethan ignored them and drove straight at the leader.

The leader was obvious now—two Tier 17 Flamebirds were literally carrying it by the sides as it flew, and the air around that cluster was packed the tightest.

The moment the flock realized Ethan was making another run at their boss, they went completely feral.

They didn’t even bother with abilities.

They just swarmed—wings and claws and bodies, a living wall dropping out of the sky to block them.

Ethan yanked two metal rods from his storage ring and started swinging left and right, forcing a path through sheer violence.

Behind him, Henry and Skinny Pete supported however they could—shields, positioning, staying on the poleaxe while everything tried to knock them off.

More and more Flamebirds threw themselves in front of them, suicidal, trying to slow them down. Meanwhile, the ones carrying the leader bolted, fleeing as fast as they could.

"Damn, you’re smart," Ethan spat, then gritted his teeth and pushed even more speed into the poleaxe.

Their shields couldn’t keep up anymore. They were popping faster than Henry could reapply them.

In seconds, all three of them were taking hits—blood in the wind, strips of flesh torn loose.

Those claws were no joke. Even at their level, one clean rake took chunks out of you.

Still, Ethan forced them forward.

The leader was getting closer and closer.

And then—

They hit the distance Ethan had been waiting for.

"Absolute Stasis!"

Ethan triggered it again.

The world locked up.

In the next instant, he teleported to the Flamebird leader’s side, clamped a hand around its throat, and yanked it free—ripping it right out from under the claws of the two Tier 17 Flamebirds carrying it.

Then he planted a foot on one of the Flamebirds and kicked off hard.

His body shot back like a cannonball—straight onto the poleaxe.

Right as his boots landed, the time-freeze ended.

"SKREEE!"

The two Flamebirds that had been holding their leader shrieked miserably when they realized their claws were empty.

Every eye in the flock snapped onto Ethan’s group.

When they saw him gripping their leader by the neck again, the entire swarm detonated with rage—diving even more viciously than before.

"Skinny Pete—now!" Ethan hauled the leader closer, shoving its head right into Pete’s reach.

Pete didn’t waste a second. He slapped the unconscious leader awake and fired Beast Control immediately.

Ethan and Henry braced themselves, blocking and batting away the Flamebirds crashing in from every angle, buying Pete the seconds he needed.

Pete held on.

Then his shoulders loosened.

He’d done it.

"Make them stop!" Skinny Pete ordered.

The Flamebird leader looked half-delirious, like it hadn’t even processed what was happening—but the moment it received the command, it let out a sharp cry.

"SKREE!"

The effect was instant.

The flock froze mid-dive, wings beating in confused bursts as they hovered and stared at their leader, clearly not understanding why it had called them off.

"Henry," Ethan said quickly. "Heal it."

"On it."

Henry threw out a heal right away, patching the leader up.

All around them, the Flamebirds kept crying out at their boss—angry, questioning, frantic.

The leader, now that it could breathe and think again, started calling back, a string of commanding, insistent screeches that sounded like an argument you could feel in your bones.

The flock’s reaction was messy.

Some looked furious. Some looked unwilling. Some looked like they wanted to charge anyway.

Ethan could read it without translating: the leader was trying to get them to submit under Skinny Pete’s order—and a lot of them hated it.

These weren’t low-tier animals. Most of them were Tier 16 or Tier 17. They weren’t stupid.

And unlike the white-furred apes—who’d already been on decent terms with Ethan’s group—these Flamebirds had just gotten butchered. Asking them to fall in line right after that was never going to be smooth.

Ethan let go of the leader and motioned Henry and Pete back. "We’re giving it space."

This part wasn’t on them anymore. This was leadership and pack hierarchy—something only the Flamebird leader could force through, if it had the authority.

And if it didn’t?

Fine.

Worst case, Skinny Pete controlled a handful for mounts, and Ethan slaughtered the rest for tens of thousands of high-tier crystal cores. Either way, they weren’t losing.

They dropped onto a nearby mountaintop. Henry immediately started healing the cuts and gouges the three of them had taken.

They’d gotten chewed up in that swarm—nothing fatal, but plenty of nasty claw marks.

Ethan watched the sky, then glanced at Skinny Pete. "You think it’ll work?"

Pete nodded, listening to the mental feedback. "It says it can handle it. It says it’s got absolute authority in the flock—just needs a little time."

Ethan let out a breath. "Good."

And Pete was right.

They waited less than ten minutes before the Flamebird leader returned—this time with a massive formation of Flamebirds behind it.

When they reached a point about three hundred feet overhead, the leader dipped its head toward Skinny Pete.

One by one, the others followed, lowering their heads too.

Ethan could tell some of them weren’t happy about it.

But they still bowed.

Maybe that was the biggest difference between mutant beasts and humans—when the pack decided, it decided.

Ethan, Henry, and Skinny Pete all smiled.

The process had been ugly, but the result was perfect.

Even after everything they’d killed, there were still more than thirty thousand Flamebirds left.

And they’d already tasted what these things could do—strong at range, strong up close, with wide-area skills. Most importantly, the weakest one was still Tier 15.

If you took this flock out of the Void Realm and dropped it onto Earth... it would steamroll basically anything.

With these Flamebirds, wiping out the Yamato Empire would be a matter of minutes.

Ethan looked toward the direction they’d left the others. "Let’s go find Chris and the rest."

He grinned, still half disbelieving the haul. "Forget everything else—we struck gold with this flock. We’re leaving this place loaded."