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Chapter Twelve: The Heavenly Explosion Warrior
In the heart of a massive vessel, its wheels screeching across the sand as if carrying a hell within, sat Ethan alone. He didn't speak, he didn't look, simply lying on the cold floor of the vessel, chewing on simple food as if the world meant nothing to him. His gaze was absent; his body was present, but his soul was trapped in a burning past, a present like an unseen shadow, like a lightning bolt poised to destroy all who stood in its path.
And then...
He entered the scene arrogantly, boastfully, puffing out his chest like a rooster on a hill. His name was James Lee... the dual-powered one, boasting of possessing two different abilities. His eyes looked down on everyone as if they were insects, and his words dripped with venom:
"I am James Lee... the strongest in this shelter, and after this mission, I will be the ruler here! Like it or not...!"
He approached Ethan with heavy steps, and without hesitation, threw his food to the ground, stomped on it, and laughed mockingly, saying,
"Even your food is as worthless as you!"
But what he didn't know was that a sleeping beast isn't awakened without a price.
In a split second... in a moment immeasurable by time... Ethan's spear was at James's throat!
The silence was deadly... and the air froze, as if the universe itself paused to hear that moment!
James cried out in astonishment,
"How dare you, you nobody? I have dual powers!"
Before he could finish his words, Calvus intervened, the silent one who never smiled, who didn't speak much, but when he moved... he silenced everyone.
He approached with cold steps, his eye unblinking, then—he tightened his grip, and his invisible sword severed James's head like dry paper! The head fell to the ground... and blood gushed forth as if truth itself had been torn apart.
A deathly silence filled the ship... hearts trembled, and souls knew the game was over.
"Anyone who thinks of betrayal... this is their fate," Calvus said, his voice hoarse as if he'd risen from the grave. "It makes no difference whether you have dual abilities or none at all. Any retreat equals death."
Then... the ship's door opened, and they were greeted by a sinister landscape, a blood-soaked battlefield where zombies swarmed like frenzied ants, their screams tearing at the sky, their skin peeling under a merciless sun.
The battle begins...!
Soldiers fall, screams, blood, and bodies fly through the air. But amidst this inferno... Ethan transforms into another inferno.
Explosions mercilessly tear the zombies apart, an energy unlike anything else. He kills not like a soldier, but like a celestial tornado driven mad by rage.
Casos and his companions fight like mad, but they are not like Ethan; no one ever was. And suddenly... he heard a scream.
A man was running, pursued by hundreds of zombies... but it wasn't just any man... it was his dearest friend from a past life, the man who saved him when Ethan was on the verge of suicide, after losing his sister... the one who saved him when the world was dark.
He didn't hesitate.
Ethan ran, no, he flew, as if the earth itself was urging him to save, as if the past itself was screaming at him: "Save him as he saved you!"
He used all his speed, all his moves, everything he had learned in a hundred lives... but it wasn't enough.
The zombies were too numerous to count.
And then...
In a silent frenzy, Ethan stood, unseen, unknowing, only the sky and the spear.
He summoned it, his blazing spear, his fiery soul, then charged it with an explosive energy unlike anything else... He hurled it into the heart of the army of the dead, and a light erupted as if a scorching angel had descended, killing them all in an instant!
When the smoke cleared...
He stood atop a mountain of corpses, his eyes unblinking, his hand unshaken, while his friend sobbed uncontrollably behind him.
And then...
He was given the title, the title that would forever define him...
The Heavenly Explosion Warrior