After leaving Victoria's rooms, Ethan walked out of town and crossed the bridge that connected the south bank of the Nilia River to the north bank before heading towards Stormerga.

He tried to keep his profile as low as possible, and as soon as he realized that no one else was around, he entered the dense forest that surrounded both sides of the road, following the many trails that snaked through the sea of green.

Ethan stopped abruptly and turned around, his eyes gleaming with murderous intent as he drew his sword.

"I know you're there. Come out. I'd rather kill you like men than rats."

Long seconds passed without an answer, and Ethan even thought his hearing was playing tricks on him, but soon he heard whispers as two bald men burst through the bushes.

One of them was at the peak of awakening, over two meters tall, with a powerful warrior's body that easily weighed more than 120 kilos and a large sword in his hands.

The other appeared to be physically weaker, with an extremely thin body, but was in the early stages of the foundation stage, a difference that caused a glint of concern to appear in Ethan's eyes.

The awakening stage didn't guarantee great leaps in power, as it only increased the mana reserves in the body; it didn't improve them. But the Foundation Realm went beyond that; it also improved how much mana one could move through the body at a time, something that made all the difference.

"Take it easy, take it easy." The foundation stage warrior smiled as he made a soothing motion with his hands.

"If you want me to take it easy and not cut your heads off right here, state your intentions. I no longer have any responsibility with Stuart." Ethan threatened, taking an aggressive stance.

"Cut off heads? No heads have to roll and no one has to die, buddy." The warrior laughed, clearly disdaining Ethan's threats. "You know... Stuart's a piece of shit; you know that as well as I do, but his money is money like anybody else's. Why don't we make a deal?"

"Spit it out." Ethan demanded, not fooled by the two men's seemingly friendly faces.

"Why don't you give us the gold Stuart gave you as payment? You don't die, and we don't get our hands dirty. We can even think of something else if you don't like those terms." The warrior smiled greedily as he spoke the last part of his demands.

"If you don't have huge breasts and a plump ass, I have little interest in your'something else'." Ethan cut off the man's laughter with a cold voice, his senses working nonstop and the muscles in his arms and hands tightening as he waited for his enemies to attack.

"No, that's not what I... ah, fuck you! You will die here and now." The warrior flinched at Ethan's words, and his face turned red with rage as he shouted and drew the short sword he carried at his waist.

With a roar, he advanced on Ethan and raised the sword above his head, his mana circulating through his body and weapon, strengthening the edge of his blade and the muscles in his arms as he let it fall on Ethan.

"'So strong..." Ethan gritted his teeth as he raised his sword in a defensive position, the air around him being swept away and a metallic clang piercing the atmosphere, followed by metallic sparks.

The ground gave way under the pressure, and Ethan's feet sank as the Foundation stage warrior pushed him even harder. His muscles burned as he overloaded them with mana, and his shoulders shook from the man's strength.

Unfortunately, Ethan's troubles had only just begun, and the warrior wielding a large, two-handed sword stepped forward and swung his weapon at Ethan's ribs.

"Shit!" Ethan kicked the ground, throwing his body backwards and taking many steps away, finally stopping and watching the two men coldly as his mind spun at top speed, calculating how he could escape the situation.

"Give it up, kid! I promise I'll think about sparing you if you just hand over the gold!" The foundation-stage bald warrior roared as he advanced with a face full of hatred, his actions contradicting his words as he swung his sword and launched dozens of mana slashes at Ethan.

"Mana slashes?" Ethan's eyes widened as he struggled to dodge the masses of mana in the form of an extremely sharp blade that hit the trees and ground around him, creating a cloud of dust that took over the battlefield.

This was the skill he had purchased from the system, and although it was quite common among middle-class warriors, he really hadn't expected to see it so soon.

Hiding in the clouds of dust, Ethan stopped his steps and extended his senses, scanning the entire region for his opponents while maintaining a defensive stance.

'Right!' Ethan's senses screamed as he heard light footsteps approaching. With a smile, Ethan swung his sword, releasing his mana and completely sweeping away the cloud of dust, confident that the one attacking him was the skinny warrior.

Unfortunately, what his sword struck was the blade of a brute over 2 meters tall and 120 kilos of pure muscle mass.

A metallic clang pierced the air, and Ethan's body was thrown like a cannonball, bouncing off the ground and stopping only after hitting a tree whose trunk shook and almost fell on Ethan's body.

"Argh!" Ethan struggled to get up, and the moment he did, he heard a metallic hiss through the air, followed by a sharp pain in his shoulder and a hand on his neck. Without even trying to resist, Ethan let the sword slip from his hands and found himself completely overwhelmed.

"Gotcha!" The skinny warrior laughed arrogantly, his sword firmly planted in Ethan as mana-rich crimson blood flowed down his blade.

Ethan grabbed the man's wrists as he felt the oxygen begin to run out of his brain and his consciousness begin to fade.

Do something—fucking move! Ethan shouted at his own body in his mind, using what little consciousness he had left to think of anything that might help him get out of the situation.

Suddenly, when he was only a few seconds away from blacking out, an old memory popped into his mind—a lesson from his father—from before he discovered he was a cripple and from a time when the man he hated so much still spoke to him in a warm, loving voice.

{Listen well, son. A warrior's sword is nothing more than a tool upon which he can focus his mana without risking the physical integrity of his own body.

A great warrior is not only able to transform a sharp blade into an even sharper blade; a great warrior must also be able to transform his body into a sharp blade}.

With a grunt, Ethan sent all the mana in his body into his fingertips before pointing them at the skinny warrior's neck and using the mana slash.

"What did you do?" The skinny warrior choked as he felt the blood rise in his throat. He let go of Ethan, placed his hands on his neck, and took several steps backwards as he struggled to stop the bleeding before he suffocated.

Ethan regained consciousness the moment he hit the ground, kneeling down and grabbing the hilt of his sword before swinging it at the skinny man.

"Die!!!" Ethan roared as he felt the blade of his sword slicing through the man's neck, crushing his muscles, skin, flesh, and bones as it sliced its way through, decapitating him in one fell swoop.

Then, for a brief second, there was silence in the air as the brute halted his advance on Ethan, his eyes wide with terror and his trembling hands released from his grasp.

The skinny man's body shook before he convulsed and fell to the ground, the heavy thud of his fall waking the brute from his shock.

"You..." The thug stammered, his eyes filling with rage as he screamed, his confused and disorganized words emanating a deep hatred. "YOU KILLED BROTHER MINE!!!"

"I KILL YOU!" The brute roared once more, not even bothering to pick up his sword, before running towards Ethan, the ground beneath his feet cracking with each step.

"Powerful, but not very smart!" Ethan swung his sword to wipe away the thin man's blood before lunging forward, aiming for the unprotected chest of the brute who was coming at him like a madman.

Then they made contact, and Ethan's body sank once more as his sword sliced through the brute's chest and exited in his back.

"YOUR TOOTHPICK CAN'T HURT ME!!!" The brute screamed, grabbing Ethan's face before lifting him up and easily throwing him against the line of trees.

"Argh!" Ethan groaned in pain, his sword slipping from his hands as he hit another tree, his spine nearly splitting in half, and his body shaking as intense pain shot through his back.

"Son of a b-Argh," Ethan cursed as he struggled to get to his feet, only to be interrupted by a powerful blow to his face that smashed his head against the trunk of the tree, which finally gave way under the bald brute's unrelenting strength and fell on Ethan's head.

"ME AVENGE BROTHER! ME KILL YOU, HAHAHA!" The brute laughed scornfully after quickly stepping back and watching the tree fall on Ethan's head, not even noticing that despite the impact, Ethan seemed to be intact and not a single drop of blood could be seen around his body.

System... do you have any idea how to get out of here? Ethan asked the system, still pinned to the tree as he held his breath and prayed that this ignorant pile of muscles wouldn't notice him.

[System: This man has a lineage focused entirely on endurance and brute strength; the basic enhancements of his lineage are inferior to yours, but he seems to have some sort of ability that sacrifices his intellect in exchange for even more strength].

All right, how do I use that against him?' Ethan asked again, his mind too overloaded to come up with a strategy.

[Resist until he takes his focus away from you; with his intellect and cognitive abilities affected, his ability to perceive his surroundings is extremely limited.].

With this strategy in mind, Ethan held his breath for long seconds that seemed to last for hours until he finally heard the brute's heavy footsteps as he approached the skinny man's body.

"Brother, me avenge you. Morgan, have your soul." The brute knelt over his brother's body, his face taking on a deep melancholy and his eyes watering as he held up a severed head.

"I..." The brute tried to say something but was interrupted by a bang, followed by an intense pain in his temple. His mind became foggy, and his colossal body fell on top of his brother's corpse.

"Let's see if this incredible strength will help you." Ethan gritted his teeth as he tightened his grip on the stone in his hands and knelt over the man's body before lifting the stone over his head and dropping it on the man's skull.

His clothes were stained red, his hands were torn, and the stone he was holding was shattered, but he didn't stop hitting until he had reduced the bald man's head to a mass of broken flesh and bone.