Chapter 111: The New Captain

"So, these are the traits I recently gained... and the others have increased quite a bit as well," Ethan whispered to himself, quickly scanning his progress before closing the status panel.

He sank back onto the mattress, feeling its plush softness against his back. After taking a few deep, rhythmic breaths, he quietly drifted into sleep.

The next morning, after completing his morning routine in the Inner Fortress’s training grounds, Ethan headed toward one of the private training chambers, the location Sir Van had designated for his newly assigned mercenary squad.

After he had waited in the quiet stone hall for a few minutes, the heavy doors swung open and a group of ten people arrived.

"Are you sure this is the right place?" Corvus said.

"Did you suddenly go deaf?" Vera snapped, her voice dripping with irritation. "How many times do I have to repeat myself?"

"Now, now, stop bickering, both of you," Finch pleaded, his pale face tight with tension. "We need to make a good impression on the Captain!"

"Yeah... shut up already. Our group’s a mess as it is," a burly mercenary muttered, rolling his shoulders.

Corvus whipped his head around, eyes blazing. "You bastard... What did you say?!"

"You heard me, baldy! You want to go right now?!"

"Why you—I’ll kill you!"

Step. Step.

Ethan walked over to the group as they continued to make a scene. He immediately recognized the first three: Vera, the female hunter; Corvus, the bald brawler; and Finch, the frail-looking one. They were the same trio he had overheard at the Adventurer Guild’s mission board back when they were gossiping about the bounties tied to the Four Great Evils. The remaining seven were faces he had either never seen before or had simply never paid attention to.

At the sound of footsteps, the argument ground to a sudden halt. Ten pairs of eyes locked onto Ethan.

Recognizing his face instantly, Corvus blinked in confusion. "Hey, kid. Are you joining our squad too?"

Vera and Finch, however, remained dead silent. They noticed something fundamentally off about the way the boy moved, they couldn’t even sense him until he approached near them. The officer had informed them that their squad captain was already waiting inside the training chamber. Aside from Ethan, the room was completely empty.

A few of the other mercenaries traded low murmurs, recognizing Ethan as the kid who had single-handedly cleared a bandit camp, while a couple of others knew him from the recent rescue at Maple River.

Ethan remained silent for a few seconds, studying the group, before finally speaking. "I am the captain of this squad."

"If you’re our Captain, then I’m the Commander of Northwatch!" Stone the burly man said as he burst out laughing, and the whole group broke into laughter, clutching their stomachs.

"You lot really are a mess." Ethan said, a glint of killing intent surfacing in his eyes as he looked down on them with open disdain. "Did Sir Van hand me a bunch of brainless fools?"

Rough as mercenaries were, there were lines one simply did not cross.

"Hey, brat!" the burly man barked, his smile instantly vanishing, replaced by a dark, dangerous scowl. "It seems no one ever taught you how to respect your seniors. Guess I’ll have to teach you a lesson first!"

He slammed his heavy boot into the stone floor, kicking up a shower of sparks, and lunged forward with explosive speed. Drawing a massive battle-axe from his back, he swung it toward Ethan’s neck with brutal force. The rest of the squad were startled, Stone was an Intermediate Knight Commander, easily one of the strongest fighters among them. Before anyone could step in to stop him, the steel blade was already splitting the air.

To Ethan eyes, the man’s movement was painfully slow as though time itself had slowed to a snail’s pace. The attack possessed raw physical power, sure, but it lacked technique, precision, and balance. As the axe came sweeping down, Ethan didn’t even draw his weapon. He simply tilted his head, letting the blade whistle past his cheek by a hair’s breath.

Before the man could recover from the momentum of his missed strike, Ethan shifted his weight, driving his heel subtly into the man’s lead foot to destroy his balance. The instant the man’s posture broke, exposing his ribcage, Ethan drove his fist straight into his side with pure force.

CRUNCH!

The sickening sound of shattering ribs echoed through the chamber like a thunderclap.

The burly mercenary’s eyes surged with blood. He shot into the air like a cannonball, blood spraying from his mouth, before crashing onto the hard stone floor. He tumbled violently across the chamber, skidding dozens of feet before slamming hard against the reinforced wall and slumping into unconsciousness.

The entire squad froze. Expressions of sheer shock plastered across their faces, their eyes wide as they desperately tried to rationalize what they had just seen as a freak fluke. Only quick-witted Vera and Finch seemed to understand that it was anything but.

"You little—!" Corvus roared, his face contorting with rage as his hand flew to the hilt of his weapon.

Before a brawl could erupt, the heavy entrance doors creaked open once more. Sir Van stepped smoothly into the training grounds, his eyes sweeping over the unconscious man on the floor with a calm, knowing smile. He had sensed exactly what happened before he’d even stepped through the door.

Every eye in the room instantly recognized the famous Black Raven Knight and snapped to attention, their anger temporarily choking in their throats.

"It seems every single one of you forgot my instructions," Van said, his voice quiet yet carrying absolute weight as he glanced toward Ethan. "Did I not clearly state that your captain was already waiting inside?"

The cold truth hit the squad like a physical blow. Realization dawned on their faces—Ethan hadn’t been lying. Yet, a few of them still couldn’t bring themselves to accept it.

"No, sir! We can’t accept this!" Corvus stepped forward, his jaw set tight. "We can’t accept him as our captain!"

"I agree! We can’t follow him!" another mercenary yelled, stepping up alongside Corvus.

"Count me out too!" another added. Within seconds, almost the entire squad had stepped forward in protest, leaving only Vera and Finch standing in place.

Sir Van turned to Ethan, "It appears the vast majority of your squad refuses your command. What should we do, Captain?"

Ethan caught the subtle glint in Van’s eyes and realized the veteran knight was intentionally giving him an opening to establish his authority. Even without it, he’d already decided he would simply beat every last one of them to a pulp. If words couldn’t help, fists certainly would.

"Why don’t we settle this simply?" Ethan said, his voice cutting through the noise like a honed blade. "If a single one of you manages to land even one strike on me, I will step down as captain on the spot."

A sneer tugged at the corner of his lips as he added, "In fact, it’d save time if all of you came at me at once. With your current level, I doubt you could touch a single strand of my hair."

Ethan reached into his Inventory and casually pulled out a velvet pouch, tossing a dozen shimmering, glass-encased vials onto a nearby wooden rack. The radiant glow of Epic-Grade Elixirs filled the dimly lit chamber.

"And if you somehow manage to defeat me," Ethan declared coolly, "these are yours."

Sir Van raised an eyebrow, genuinely impressed by the young master’s approach. Ethan had provoked their pride, then placed a fortune in front of them. Even those who had doubted their chances moments ago were now eager to test him.

The mercenaries’ faces flushed deep red with humiliation and fury. If Sir Van weren’t standing right there, they would have torn the boy apart where he stood.

They all turned their eyes to Sir Van, waiting for the official green light. Van simply offered a subtle, permissive nod and stepped back against the perimeter wall.

Instantly, the atmosphere shifted. The squad stared at Ethan not as a boy, but as prey carrying an unimaginable fortune. Even from a distance, the pure, dense medicinal aura wafting from those vials made their blood boil.

Vera took one look at Corvus, who was practically drooling at the sight of the elixirs, and reached out to grab his shoulder. She could tell this was a trap. But before her hand could touch his armor, the muscle-brained brawler had already surged forward.

"Let me teach this arrogant brat a lesson!" Corvus bellowed.

"Get him!" the others roared in unison.

In a fraction of a second, seven mercenaries converged on Ethan from every direction.

Corvus leaped high into the air, his massive broadsword glowing with the condensed aura of an Advanced Knight Commander. The sheer weight of his momentum threatened to split the stone beneath them as he brought the blade down like a crushing boulder.

Iron Shield Art — First Form: Charging Strike

Simultaneously, Taz; a thick-necked warrior built like an iron ox—charged from the front, his heavy saber sweeping low in a dirty, lethal arc aimed at Ethan’s knees. From the blind spot directly behind, Brier, a nimble female rogue, blurred forward with twin daggers, her steps soundless as she aimed precisely for the tendons in Ethan’s ankles. The remaining five fighters flared their aura, locking off every possible angle of retreat with a dense wall of steel.

Ethan didn’t move an inch until the very last second.

As Corvus’s broadsword plummeted, Taz’s saber swept low, and Brier’s daggers lunged from behind, Ethan’s eyes ignited with a cold light.

To Ethan, the overlapping attacks resolved into clear trajectories. He took half a step backward, shifting his upper torso with razor-thin precision. Brier’s left dagger whistled through empty air, brushing harmlessly past his sleeve. Before she could adjust her stance, Ethan’s hand snapped out like a striking viper, catching her wrist in an iron grip and twisting it violently downward.

CRACK!

Brier shrieked as her wrist dislocated, her body pulled off-balance and thrust directly into the path of Taz’s sweeping saber. Taz gasped, desperately aborting his strike to avoid cleaving his ally in two.

Taking instant advantage of the hesitation, Ethan stepped into Taz’s guard, his elbow driving upward with explosive force straight into the man’s chin.

BANG!

Taz’s head snapped back, his teeth clacking together violently as his vision went instantly black. He crumpled to the floor like a sack of bricks.

Above him, Corvus’s broadsword finally slammed into the ground where Ethan had stood a fraction of second prior, shattering the reinforced floor tiles into a spray of jagged shrapnel.

"Where are you looking?" a voice whispered coldly behind Corvus’s ear.

Corvus’s hair stood on end. Before he could turn his head or swing his massive sword back, Ethan drove a sidekick straight into the side of Corvus’s knee. Joint-shattering friction echoed through the air as the leg bent inward at an unnatural angle.

Corvus let out a guttural howl of pain, dropping to his remaining good knee. But Ethan gave him no time to process the agony. Pivoting on his heel, Ethan delivered a lightning-fast spinning hook kick directly to the side of Corvus’s head.

BOOM!

The impact sounded like a hammer striking an anvil. Corvus spun twice in mid-air before crashing face-first into the stone floor, his broadsword clattering uselessly beside his limp, unconscious hand.

Before the remaining mercenaries could even process the sight of their three strongest vanguard down, Ethan vanished.

SWOOSH!

He blurred through the air, reappearing directly in the center of their staggered formation. To the remaining fighters, it felt as though a hurricane had exploded in their midst.

A twin-sword wielder raised his blades in a frantic cross-guard, but Ethan’s palm struck the flat of his right sword, driving the steel directly into the mercenary’s own face with a deafening THWACK. The man’s nose shattered instantly, and his head slammed back, knocking him out cold before his body even hit the ground.

Without pausing for a breath, Ethan spun low, sweeping his leg through the shins of the spearman standing next to him. The spearman pitched forward blindly—only to meet Ethan’s rising knee directly on the bridge of his nose.

CRUNCH!

Another body collapsed into a motionless heap.

"W-What kind of monster—?!" a shield-bearer stammered, raising his heavy iron tower shield in sheer panic.

He never got to finish the sentence. Ethan didn’t even bother sidestepping. He drove a straight open-palm strike directly into the center of the reinforced metal shield.

RUMBLE!

A shockwave detonated through the metal. The massive iron barrier dented violently inward, smashing back into the shield-bearer’s chest with enough force to knock the breath entirely out of his lungs. He was lifted off his feet, catapulting backward across the hall to crash alongside the others.

The final mercenary stood paralyzed, his weapon trembling violently in his hands. He blinked—and Ethan was already standing directly in front of him, hands resting calmly at his sides.

THWACK!

A single, crisp hand strike slammed into the side of his neck with blinding speed. His eyes rolled into the back of his head, and he fell sideways onto the floor like a cut tree.

Silence descended upon the training chamber.

From start to finish, the entire beatdown had taken less than five seconds.

Seven veteran mercenaries lay sprawled across the shattered stone in various states of unconsciousness, groaning softly or completely out cold.

Over by the wall, Vera and Finch stood rooted to the spot, their faces completely drained of color. Cold sweat soaked through their armor as they stared at Ethan. Neither of them had even seen him draw a weapon. He had dismantled an entire squad of experienced mercenaries using nothing but bare hands and overwhelming physical strength.

Ethan casually dusted off his sleeves, not a single drop of sweat on his forehead or a single breath out of place. He glanced over at the two remaining standing members, Vera and Finch, before looking back toward Sir Van.

"It seems," Ethan said coolly, his calm voice echoing through the silent hall, "the captain position remains mine."