"Alright then, let's go, let's see who has the balls to try something!"

"Hell yeah, they bring one, we drop one, they bring two, we make a pair!"

"My name's so red right now that one glance will scare them half to death!"

The men were practically humming with adrenaline, loud with that reckless bravado that came from being overconfident and extremely ready for a fight. Lyla watched Ethan with open admiration, and even Evelyn and Kiara, the two younger women in the group, had that excited sparkle in their eyes.

"Let's move," Ethan laughed, the sound genuine and bright with anticipation.

He stepped onto the glowing pillar of light on the floor, his form flickering for a moment before he vanished from the Inhibitor Chamber.

[System Alert: Divine Ability Scroll: Sundering Shot carrier [NotADruid] current location broadcast: …]

The moment Ethan changed zones, the system immediately blasted out his coordinates. Lyla and the others scrambled after him, terrified he would reappear alone and get swarmed before they reached him.

Their worry was understandable, even if unnecessary. At Ethan's current level, unless he wandered straight into a perfect ambush or was buried under an entire army with no way out, no single player, and not even a small coordinated group, posed any real danger to him anymore.

Case in point, Ethan materialized back in the overworld at the surface entrance of the now-annihilated Uncharted Catacombs, and in the next heartbeat his form stretched and blurred, feathers erupting as wings spread wide. A moment later he shot into the sky as a massive Eagle.

That was where his confidence came from.

At this stage of the game, who else could fly?

From up here, it didn't matter if ten thousand or a hundred thousand players gathered below, they could only stare. He could literally set his character to Idle Mode, hover at this height, log out, make a sandwich, come back, and still be perfectly fine.

"Hey… where's the boss?" Leo asked as they stepped into daylight, staring around the empty clearing.

"Are your brains actually fried?" Williams sighed. "Check the minimap."

"They are fried," Leo shot back, pointing at the little blue dot marked 'Ethan' sitting right on top of their location. "See, he's right… oh."

"Told you," Williams muttered, already turning away.

It took Leo another second before he finally thought to look upward. He lifted a hand to shield his eyes from the sun, squinting at the speck circling far above them.

"Head back to the guild hall in Harmony City and start prepping the relocation," Ethan said over the team channel, calm and clear. "I can't use a teleport stone, so I'll fly. You've got the coordinates, get there and get ready. The second that fortress erupts from the ground, we hit it."

"Ethan, you want me to come with you?" Lyla asked, her voice hoping for a yes she already expected would be a no.

Ethan's heart did a small, ridiculous flip, and he shoved down the distracting mental image that tried to bloom at the question. "Stick with the group," he said, his voice tighter than he planned.

"Oh… okay." The playful edge slipped out of her tone, leaving plain disappointment behind.

The others chimed in with quick good lucks and be carefuls before activating their Guild Hall hearthstones. With their current murderous reputation statuses, normal city teleports were off-limits. Their guild hall was still inside Harmony City's walls, but it belonged to the Renegade Alliance, private territory the guards avoided, so it was the only safe place to regroup and pack up their gear.

Ethan had already briefed them: once the Fortress Wars officially started and until every fortress was claimed, the city guards would switch into a neutral-observation mode. Even red-named players could walk the streets without being hunted down, as long as they behaved.

Lyla was the last to leave. She glanced up at the sky, waved dramatically, then blew a kiss before dissolving into blue light.

Ethan caught it clearly from above and let out a rueful, helpless shake of his head. He had been that close to saying yes.

But no, this wasn't the moment for that, not when there was too much to get done.

Specifically, he had to deal with the one person who had been spamming the team chat nonstop for the past ten minutes: Markham.

The guy had been shouting into the void, ignored by everyone, Ethan included. They had all pretended the chat was broken.

Now that he was alone, Ethan opened the channel. "Markham. Where are you?"

"Huh? Oh, thank God, Ethan, you're alive, I thought being in jail broke the comms, why was everyone ignoring me?" Markham's voice came out in a frantic rush of relief and complaints.

"Cut it. Coordinates. Now."

Ethan had already figured out what had happened. Markham's so-called world-ending skill had almost definitely killed him too. That seismic blast had been one giant, self-inflicted disaster, a one-way trip straight into the penal system. He would have respawned in a prison village the moment he died—no corpse run possible when the entire dungeon collapsed on top of him. Now he was stuck in the respawn-sickness Weakened state that never faded inside settlements, surrounded by guards who would gut any red-name that got too close to the gates.

Markham sent the coordinates. Ethan banked sharply and redirected his flight.

Soon, he was circling high above a dreary, fenced-in hamlet in the middle of nowhere. He spiraled downward and spotted Markham, a small figure in the central yard, waving wildly and jumping up and down as if that would help.

"Get ready," Ethan warned over the channel. "The second I touch down, you jump on. I can't tank the guards long."

"Got it! I see you!" Markham yelled back, already taking a few steps to build momentum.

Thwip!

A crossbow bolt sliced past Ethan's wing. Then another. The wall archers had spotted him.

More bows leveled upward, and Ethan suddenly found himself the biggest, juiciest red-named target on the horizon. Which, ironically, was the only reason this rescue had any chance. Because his name was red, the guards would focus on him rather than Markham. If he tried to simply swoop down and grab him, Markham would be riddled with bolts before they gained ten feet of altitude. Prison archers had ridiculous range, but their rules were strict: they only fired on aerial enemies or red-named players outside the walls.

Thwip! Thwip-thwip!

-159

-269

-158

Ethan zig-zagged desperately, but the bolts came too fast to avoid them all. Several punched straight into his health bar.

"Ethan, you're off course!" Markham shrieked, pointing wildly as Ethan's dodging took him farther from the ideal landing spot.

"Are your legs broken? Run, you moron!" Ethan shot back. He would have loved a clean landing, but not dying took priority. A few more hits and he would respawn right beside Markham in that miserable little village.

His Swift Flight Form had all the defensive strength of his human body, which was to say none. Changing into Bear Form mid-combat was possible, but switching back to a travel form while still in combat would turn him into a Stag, not a bird. Combat rules didn't bend.

"Oh—right!" Markham finally snapped out of it and sprinted across the yard, chasing Ethan's chaotic flight line.

After two more frantic, bolt-filled loops, Ethan's talons finally scraped the ground. Markham didn't even slow down. He launched himself forward, crashing onto Ethan's back in a clumsy sprawl.

"Hang on," Ethan snapped, ducking another volley. Markham scrambled upright, fingers digging deep into feathers for leverage.

With a hard, dirt-kicking downstroke, Ethan hauled them off the ground.

He pushed upward with everything he had, beating his wings in powerful, exhausting drives. Gradually, the hail of thwips thinned, then vanished altogether. They were finally out of range.

Ethan's health bar hovered at a brutally low one-fifth. A few seconds more on the ground and he would have been toast.

"Boss! I'm flying! This is awesome!" Markham whooped, bouncing excitedly on Ethan's back.

"You bounce again and I will roll over and watch you fall," Ethan growled. He'd only ever carried Lyla before, and having a full-grown, penal-colony-scented man plastered to his spine felt wrong on every level.

High above the world, with a complaining idiot clinging to him, Ethan watched the final system countdown for the Fortress Wars flicker into view.

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