Ethan Cole - The Unlimited System

A clear, quiet sound echoed in his mind.

Ethan flinched. The sudden notification wasn't expected, but it came with a strange sense of timing—like the system itself had been watching, waiting for this exact moment.

Without taking his eyes off Duran, he let the mission panel unfold before him.

=====

[New Mission: Taking on Duran]

Objective:

You have entered a sealed confrontation with Duran, a known collaborator of Elder Harran. Determine his fate.

You may choose to defeat him and leave him incapacitated.

Or you may kill him to ensure no message escapes these walls.

The outcome is yours to decide.

Rewards:

1. +100 to all Attributes

2. 100 Ascension Points

3. 20,000 EXP

4. Flame Dragon Sword

5. Shape-shifting Skill

Note: Rewards 1, 2, and 3 will be doubled if you choose to kill.

=====

Ethan's heart pounded. His eyes flicked across the glowing text.

'The system… thinks I can take him and somehow, I feel it wants me to kill.'

That thought alone lit a spark of confidence deep inside him. Not arrogance, just certainty.

He straightened his back, adjusted his stance, and let his breathing slow. He couldn't focus and gave more thoughts on the other rewards.

He had an enemy ready to kill him in front of him right. But, he wouldn't allow that to happen.

Even if he didn't have the flashy powers of an Ascendant yet, he wasn't empty-handed.

His body was trained. Conditioned. Hardened.

He had Krav Maga. He had Close Quarter Combat Mastery.

And most of all, all of the skills were at the Master tier. He believed that could help him to come out victorious in this fight.

Duran moved first.

He lunged across the workshop with a speed that could tear through normal flesh. As he moved, the floor cracked slightly under his feet, and small pieces of stone rose around him.

His palm lit up with a brown glow, thick and solid like hardened earth. It was an Earth Ascendant's attack, packed with weight and force, and it came crashing toward Ethan's chest like a hammer made of stone.

But Ethan didn't freeze.

"Alden, take cover!" he ordered.

Alden moved quickly, trying to be as far as possible to not be caught up in the fight.

Ethan sidestepped sharply, feeling the wind rush past his ribs. He caught Duran's wrist mid-air, twisted, and drove his elbow toward the man's throat, only for Duran to lean back and sweep a leg out in retaliation.

Ethan jumped, barely avoiding the trip, and landed with both feet ready.

The confined space worked to his advantage.

Every table. Every pillar. Every tool rack. These were obstacles to Duran, but opportunities for him with his Close Quarter Combat.

A single step backward placed Ethan between two hanging shelves. When Duran rushed in again, he slammed one of the racks into Duran's shoulder, just enough to redirect his momentum.

He followed it up with a sharp punch to the ribs.

Duran grunted, but barely flinched.

Their fists collided again. Blow for blow, strike for strike.

And that's when Ethan felt it.

Duran was stronger.

Not by much. Just a bit faster. Just a bit heavier in each strike. But enough for Ethan to feel it.

His mind, even while fighting, was already breaking it down.

'He's a Lower Three-Star Ascendant. I can keep up… but his stats... Strength, Speed, and Endurance... They're just a bit higher. Maybe around 320 to 330.'

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Ethan ducked under a wide arc, rolled past a downward palm strike, and slammed a low kick toward Duran's knee—but the older man raised his leg just in time, blocking with solid control.

Ethan stepped back, chest rising and falling as he caught his breath.

'If 300 is the starting point for the Third Star… and there are five stages in each rank, then every 100 points must push you to the next stage. That means just ten or twenty points can already make a real difference in battle.'

He grit his teeth. 'Then, how to insert the Peak stage into this?'

Still, he left the answer for him to find later on. Right now, he had a fight to settle.

He was fighting with raw talent, trained skill, and superior reflex. But to win, that wasn't enough.

Duran came at him again, this time faster. Less measured. A combination of palms and knife-handed strikes flowed like a practiced kata.

Ethan defended, deflected, slipped through gaps, but he knew this tempo couldn't last.

He needed an edge.

Then it hit him.

'I have more than just combat skills.'

A brief flicker crossed his vision. His Tracking skill was active. Unconsciously, he had already started reading Duran's body—his posture, his feints, his rhythm.

And then there was Stealth.

Not to hide forever.

But for one moment. A second where Duran wouldn't be able to sense him. That was when he would land a critical attack.

He let Duran throw another hard palm. Ethan blocked it and let his body fall back—but just as he did, he activated Stealth.

His presence vanished. Only for a blink.

Duran's eyes widened, his strike flying into empty air.

In that single heartbeat, Ethan twisted around his flank and drove his elbow up—right into the side of Duran's jaw.

CRACK!

The older man staggered back, more from surprise than pain, blood trickling down from the corner of his mouth.

Ethan exhaled through his nose, eyes burning.

"This fight," he whispered, "isn't going to be fair. Not anymore."

Alden watched from behind a broken tool rack, his chest heaving. He had taken cover again, but like before, it didn't last long. Duran's wild energy shattered anything that wasn't nailed down, and even then, the walls groaned under the pressure.

But what truly held his attention wasn't the destruction.

It was Ethan.

'He's my age… maybe two or three years older, Alden thought. And he's fighting like this?'

Duran wasn't someone to take lightly. Alden didn't know the exact rank, but the sheer force in his attacks, the way the air cracked with every movement, it told him enough.

And yet, Ethan moved with control.

In a space this tight, every step mattered. Every block, every dodge, every strike. There was no room for flashy movements or wasted motion. And somehow, Ethan adapted.

Not just surviving. Holding his own.

It was rare. Unheard of, even.

In this world, no one cared much for physical combat. Everyone trained to become a Vessel. Once they awakened, they shifted all focus to elemental arts. Fire, ice, wind, earth—those were the real weapons.

Long-range attacks. Wide-area strikes. Elemental shields to cancel out their enemies' power.

No one trained fists anymore.

But Ethan… he fought with his body like it was a weapon crafted for this exact space.

'He's steady. Calculated. No energy wasted.'

Alden ducked as a shard of wood exploded near his head, then peeked again just in time to see Ethan deliver another clean counter.

Elemental strength was supposed to add only a bit of power to physical strikes. Just a layer… a boost.

He narrowed his eyes at Ethan.

Ethan moved like water between stone, flowing, slipping, redirecting. His arms blocked strikes, his shoulders rolled under swings, and his feet shifted without pause. Every time Duran came in with force, Ethan was already turning it aside, stepping past it, striking back with a clean, sharp hit.

But none of those hits did enough.

His elbows, fists, knees—each landed where they should have. Chin. Ribs. Throat. But Duran didn't buckle. His body was like carved granite. Every blow echoed with contact, but never with damage.

Not lasting damage.

If anything, it was like trying to chip away a boulder with fingertips. A dent here. A scrape there. But nothing critical. To truly hurt him, Ethan would have to strike the same spot again and again. Dozens of times. And even then, it would only be the beginning.

Yet Ethan's body didn't slow. His breathing stayed even. His balance held.

Because he wasn't wasting energy.

His combat style was born from efficiency. Each movement grounded, compact, stripped of anything that didn't serve purpose. He fought with rhythm, not power. And because of that, his stamina held.

The same couldn't be said for Duran.

With every step, small cracks spread from his boots. Each strike carried weight not just from muscle, but from something more. His arms coated in a thin, earthen layer, his palms humming faintly with buried energy.

He wasn't just fighting.

He was channeling.

Coating his body with elemental force. Strengthening every hit with the power of earth. Not in wide, flashy blasts, but in constant, quiet reinforcement.

And it cost him.

Ascendant Energy slipped away with every motion, every contact, every second the element stayed active. It leaked through his skin, unseen to the eye, but not unfelt. His movements grew slightly heavier. His breath, more audible.

He was an Earth Ascendant, fully formed.

Ethan wasn't.

Not yet.

His Status Panel, still unmarked by any elemental bond, carried no sign of that connection and hadn't displayed the Ascendant Energy yet.

No earth, no fire, no wind or ice. Just the strength of body, skill, and will.

He was an Ascendant in name, but not yet in essence.

Not complete.

And somehow, that made all the difference.

Alden could see it now, clear as day.

Ethan wasn't using any elemental energy.

Not a flicker of flame. Not a gust of wind. Not a ripple of earth or mist of water. His attacks were purely physical, fast and clean, but missing that one layer everyone relied on once they became a Vessel.

Alden thought. 'Is something wrong with his elemental power?'

Whatever the case, Ethan was still holding his ground. More than that, he was pressing Duran. But Alden knew the gap would show sooner or later. He couldn't sit by and watch.

He inhaled slowly, feeling the air shift around his palm.

As a Wind Ascendant, he wasn't that powerful yet. His control was limited, but not useless. He gathered what little force he could into his fingers, condensing it into a small sphere of swirling air. A wind dart. Not sharp enough to injure. Barely strong enough to push back fabric.

But it was quick.

And it was fast enough to blur vision.

With a flick of his wrist, Alden launched it. The dart spun forward, silent and sudden, and burst right in front of Duran's eyes.

The older man jerked his head back, blinking as the wind cut across his vision. His stance shifted. Focus, just for a second, faltered.

To Alden, that was all the help he could give. The eyes were the softest, most exposed part. It wasn't about damage. It was about timing.

And Ethan saw it.

Without hesitation, he activated Stealth.

His presence vanished again.

Not even a sound.

And then he reappeared—behind Duran.

His body moved in one fluid motion, no pause, no warning.

With all the force he could gather, Ethan struck hard. No random flurry. No wasted effort. He went straight for the softest targets—the back of the knee, the kidney, the base of the spine. The places on a human body where nerves clustered, where pain surged sharpest.

Duran's body jolted.

Not from the strength alone, but from how precise the strikes were.

It wasn't just power.

It was knowledge. And it landed exactly where it needed to.