Alexandria stumbled out into the night air, collapsing on the ground just outside the warehouse, her eyes fixed on the open doorway.

Inside, Ethan stood alone, facing the eight men, his frame still radiating the power that had just demolished the steel door. The men were frozen in shock. The thug with the scarred face—Agent Alpha—was the only one who seemed to recognize the true danger, clutching his stomach and shaking of rage.

Ethan took a slow, deep inhalation.

[Basic qi breathing]

As the pure energy flowed, a subtle, barely perceptible electrical hum surrounded him. He extended his senses.

[Celestial Qi resonance scan] Activated.

He found the ninth man instantly: the sniper nestled among the rusting girders above.

Ethan ignored the eight men for a heartbeat, his attention fixed skyward.

"Lay a hand on my woman?" Ethan said, his voice deadly calm, sweeping the group with contempt. "Hahaha, I think that's impossible. You aren't worthy enough to even dream of touching my woman, you damn bastards."

He met the terrified, sweating eyes of Agent Alpha.

"Well, look who it is," Ethan murmured, loud enough only for the nearby men to hear. "The lucky survivor. Last time, you were just cannon fodder for your bosses. Now they've sent you for this pathetic errand? How did you survive that, Agent Alpha? Did they scrape you off the asphalt?"

Agent Alpha's fear momentarily broke, replaced by a surge of bitter rage.

"You! You bastard!" Agent Alpha spat, trying to sound tough despite his shaking. "That stupid ambush is why Axhel Rhodes—the zone manager—demoted me! He beat me and tossed me out like a dog for incompetence! He said I let you escape! I swear, when I see him again, I'll carve his fucking name into his chest!"

"Ah," Ethan said, a slow, dark smile spreading across his face. "So your boss is cleaning house. And you still take their scraps. Pathetic."

"He sent me here to get back in his good graces, you son of a bitch! And I'm going to kill you slowly!" Alpha yelled, clumsily pulling a cheap baton from his belt.

"The thought is charming," Ethan said. "But you're still cannon fodder."

Ethan didn't wait for Alpha to charge. He moved first, but not toward Alpha. He suddenly focused his Qi toward the roof.

"Get down," Ethan commanded the sniper.

A crackling, bright blue bolt of pure electrical energy shot from Ethan's fingertips like a focused laser. It traveled upward, hitting the rusted girder next to the sniper with precision.

The heat and kinetic force caused the steel to warp and the platform to violently shake. The sniper screamed, dropping his rifle, and tumbled from the rafters to the concrete floor, instantly incapacitated.

The eight remaining thugs were momentarily stunned by the lightning strike.

The leader, ignoring the chaos, screamed, "He's distracted! Get him!" and fired his pistol.

Ethan simply raised his hand. The bullet impacted his palm with a dull thud, falling harmlessly to the ground.

"You should have stuck to selling your rotten drugs," Ethan said.

Agent Alpha, blinded by rage, charged. Ethan moved with the fluidity of the [Dao martial technique of the fist].

Ethan rotated his body, catching Alpha's charging arm, and rotated his fist. A brilliant, contained arc of blue lightning immediately surrounded his knuckles. He drove the electrifying fist into Alpha's solar plexus. The thug seized up, his nervous system overwhelmed, and he collapsed in a twitching heap, instantly incapacitated.

Ethan dealt with the rest of the thugs with cold, efficient brutality: one with a kick that crumpled his knee, another with an electrified chop to the neck, and two others smashed together.

In less than ten seconds, the vast space was filled with the sounds of screaming, snapping bones, and heavy bodies hitting the concrete floor.

Only the leader and two other thugs remained standing, paralyzed by the sight of their comrades twitching violently on the ground.

"Who are you? What the hell are you?" the leader screamed, falling over the briefcase of money.

Ethan walked slowly toward him, grabbed him by the throat, and lifted him effortlessly into the air.

"I am the man who owns your world, bastard," Ethan whispered, his eyes gleaming with lethal rage. "Where is the daughter? Emily! And the sister? Samantha!"

"I—I don't know!" the leader choked out. "They were moved! We were just supposed to take the money and beat up the Dean! Victoria is tied up in the office! That's all I know!"

"Victoria," Ethan said. "Where is she?"

The leader pointed a shaking finger toward a small, locked office in the rear of the warehouse.

Ethan dropped the man, who immediately began gasping for air. Ethan didn't bother rendering him unconscious. Instead, he pulled the 9mm pistol from his inventory.

He walked calmly to the leader, aimed the pistol at his head, and pulled the trigger. The sound was deafening in the vast warehouse.

[Human assassinated. 100 lux points reward.]

Ethan turned to the remaining two conscious thugs, who were screaming in terror and trying to crawl away. He silenced them with two quick shots.

[Human assassinated. 100 lux points reward.]

[Human assassinated. 100 lux points reward.]

He then moved to the five men he had incapacitated, including the sniper and the men he had knocked out with force pulses. He executed them all methodically. He paused only when he reached Agent Alpha, who lay twitching, electrocuted. Ethan studied his face for a moment, then spared him the bullet.

[Human assassinated. 100 lux points reward.]

The warehouse was now silent, filled with the thick smell of gunpowder and blood. Ethan stood amidst the carnage.

Now, for the cleanup, Ethan thought.

He began absorbing the bodies into his internal space, starting with the first man he had shot. A faint, invisible energy field surrounded the corpse, which vanished instantly.

[10 lux points reward.]

He repeated the process seven times, absorbing every corpse.

Ethan confirmed the final tally: 800 lux for the assassinations + 80 lux for absorption = 880 lux points total.

Ignoring the twitching body of Agent Alpha, Ethan turned to the locked office, his mission clarity restored.

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