"No need, I'm fine," Ethan said after a pause. "Has that thing been dealt with?"
"Jade Shadow Star has eliminated the target."
Ethan let out a long breath of relief.
Good that he was dead.
Now that he was dead, it would be much easier to explain certain things.
"Understood. I'm returning to combat immediately."
The communication cut off.
Vines exploded from beneath his feet, wrapping around his body as they surged toward the surface.
Soil and debris churned violently before him. The drill-like tip of the vines rotated at maximum power, shredding the earth and pushing it behind him.
Boom!
A large hole two meters in diameter burst open on the surface, and Ethan catapulted out from the depths.
"Attention all combat units: the main Amons force has collapsed. Remaining enemy units are fleeing in all directions. Issuing optional intercept missions..."
Ethan didn't even listen to the rest.
Optional missions.
He wasn't interested.
How much profit could there be in hunting stragglers?
A bunch of defeated soldiers who had lost their formations would have thrown away all their supplies long ago during their flight.
Chasing them down for a few heads to exchange for battle merits and picking up some battered leather armor or broken spears wasn't worth the space they would take up in his storage ring.
Ethan turned around, his gaze passing over the smoking craters and mountains of corpses to land on the distant horizon.
There stood several Amons war fortresses.
Catapults, ballistae, energy ball ammunition, bundles of bolts, and crates of crystal powder.
Fortress Command would pay a high price to recover those materials.
Ethan pushed off, his heels blasting two shallow pits into the dirt as he shot toward the nearest fortress.
Thirteen days later.
The entire battlefield had finally been thoroughly crushed by the Wizard World.
All organized Amons resistance had been broken. The surviving warriors had scattered, hiding in mountains, forests, and marshes, never daring to show their faces again.
The battles between the Third-Tier lifeforms in the sky had also long since ended. The Amons' Third-Tier experts had either been killed or had fled into the depths of the world.
But this was only the victory of the first phase.
Amons World was far too large. One hundred and eight major tribes were scattered across the globe, with countless smaller tribes hidden in forests, swamps, ice fields, and deserts.
Completely conquering this world would still take a significant amount of time.
Ethan stood atop the ruins of a hollowed-out fortress and opened his system panel.
【Current Life Energy: 15,007,142.】
Fifteen million.
Over these past few days, he had breached dozens of fortresses and harvested a large number of First-Tier Sentinels and ordinary warriors.
The materials from the fortresses filled his storage rings, and his battle merits had reached a figure that everyone else could only look up to.
It was enough.
"Unlock passive."
【Do you wish to consume 4,194,304 Life Energy to unlock the 23rd passive?】
"Confirm."
【Energy deducted: 4,194,304. Current energy: 10,812,838.】
【Generating passive...】
【Generation complete. Acquired passive: Spatial Anchor.】
【Spatial Anchor: You can set up to 3 anchors in any space. You may teleport instantly to any anchor at any time, ignoring distance. Cooldown: 1 day. Current anchors: None.】
Ethan stared at the text on the panel, a slow grin spreading across his face.
Spatial movement.
Ignoring distance.
This meant he could set an anchor anywhere on the battlefield and teleport back whenever he wanted. The cooldown was only one day, meaning he could use it again every single day.
A god-tier skill for escaping.
A god-tier skill for attacking.
"Unlock another one."
【Do you wish to consume 8,388,608 Life Energy to unlock the 24th passive?】
"Confirm."
【Energy deducted: 8,388,608. Current energy: 2,424,230.】
【Generating passive...】
【Generation complete. Acquired passive: Superpowered Armor.】
【Superpowered Armor: Increases all forms of your personal defensive capabilities by 100 times.】
Ethan looked down at the Wood Armor covering his body.
The armor looked exactly the same.
He raised a hand and tapped it.
Thud!
Thud!
The sound was still dull, and the touch was still hard.
His grin widened.
A hundredfold protection.
Nothing had changed in its appearance.
If someone on the battlefield thought his Wood Armor only provided Apprentice-level defense and tried to cut him, they were in for a nasty surprise.
"Excellent. Another way to catch people off guard."
A notification from headquarters suddenly came through the Wizardry Tool in his right ear.
"The Battle Merit Ranking has been closed. All participating personnel may return to the fortress at any time to redeem their battle merit rewards."
Ethan let out a breath.
It was over.
This meat-grinder of a battle, which had lasted over ten days since the War Fortress descended, had finally come to an end.
He sent his mental power into the Wizardry Tool and pulled up the final rankings.
The list expanded in his mind.
First place: Ethan Leo, 31,421,587 battle merits.
Second place: Malfoy Broken-Blade, 2,897,621 battle merits.
Third place: Ella Gray-Spear, 2,761,530 battle merits.
Starting from the fourth place, the numbers dropped off a cliff, with everyone else in the low hundred thousands.
Beyond the top hundred, there weren't even fifty thousand.
Of course, they were still quite impressive in their own right.
Ethan glanced at it and closed the list.
The numbers themselves weren't worth looking at repeatedly as long as he was first.
He didn't care.
But others did.
Thirty-one million, four hundred and twenty-one thousand.
THIRTY! ONE! MILLION! BATTLE MERITS!!!
Is this a number a human can actually achieve?
Is this guy even human?
Malfoy Broken-Blade stared at the ranking in his mind, remaining silent for a full ten breaths.
"Thirty-one million. I'm still ten times short."
Malfoy sheathed his broken sword and turned to walk toward the War Fortress.
His steps were steady, and his back was straight, but the fingers gripping his hilt were trembling slightly.
Ella Gray-Spear sat on the ruins of a destroyed fortress, her rapier resting across her knees as she leaned forward with her head down.
It wasn't jealousy, nor anger, nor even frustration.
She just thought it was absurd.
She hopped down from the ruins, sheathed her rapier, and brushed the dust off her leather armor.
"Fair enough."
She said nothing else.
Across the battlefield, almost every apprentice ranked on the leaderboard let out a similar sigh at the same time.
Some cursed as they closed the list, while others double-checked it three times before falling into silence.
No one said anything.
What was there to say?
Saying "Oh, if I had killed a few more, I could have been first"?
Only an idiot would say that.
Saying "There's something wrong with this guy, he must be cheating"?
That would be even stupider.
The battle merits were personally monitored by the White Wizards at headquarters. Cheating?
Did they have a death wish?
Ethan had no idea what these people were thinking.
Even if he did, he wouldn't have cared.
Standing on the fortress ruins, he focused his mind and opened the system panel.
"Set anchor."
【Please select anchor location.】
"Current coordinates."
【Current coordinates anchored. Location: Amons World - Alcross Forest.】
A new entry appeared on the panel.
【Anchor 1: Amons World - Alcross Forest】
Rate on N.U.
