Ethan Cole - The Unlimited System

The next day arrived, cloaked in silence.

No footsteps echoed down the corridor. No guards peered through the slit in the door. Nothing but the occasional flicker of the torchlight on the walls reminded them that time was even passing.

Ethan had made progress. A lot of it.

The section of the wall he had been working on now looked even, smooth—almost as if it had never been tampered with. He had scraped it clean in thin, careful layers, making sure the damage blended in with the age of the stone.

To the untrained eye, it was untouched.

Inside, though, his inventory had grown. Not just with fragments, but with enough of the Drakiel Stone to fill a small toolbox. Each shard, each sliver, was a possibility waiting to be tested.

He was proud of the work. So were the others, though none of them said it aloud. But their silence had changed. It wasn't heavy with hopelessness anymore. It was watchful. Curious.

They had seen him chip away at the wall for hours with his Flame Dragon Sword.

They had seen how he never once faltered under the effects of the stone.

They had seen how he never looked afraid.

And that silence had become something else. It was respect.

Ethan sat down against the wall, letting the sword vanish into his Inventory with a thought. His mind buzzed with possibilities.

'Containment cells for Artificial Ascendants. Shackles that suppressed energy fields. Armor layered with Drakiel dust for immunity against Ascendant's elemental attacks.'

But amid all the concepts that danced in his mind, one idea blazed brighter than the rest.

'Bullets.'

He narrowed his eyes.

'If I could mold this into compact projectiles, coated or cored with Drakiel stones, they'd bypass any energy defenses. The moment they made contact...'

He envisioned it.

A shot, fast and precise.

No warning. No energy surge.

Just a puncture, and then, silence.

The power inside the target would flicker, destabilize, vanish from the inside out.

'Even better if I can liquefy it,' he thought. 'Turn it into a serum. A tranquilizer. No explosion. No damage. Just... submission.'

His fingers curled slightly, almost as if gripping the shape of the future he was building.

The idea echoed again in his head, tranquilizer.

A quiet weapon for a quiet war.

The kind of tool that could change everything on Earth. Especially when dealing with enemies who believed they were untouchable.

"The LaRues would never see it coming," Ethan muttered.

But that was later. This was now.

And right now, he could feel the shift in the air.

Something was coming.

The guards had been gone too long.

Too quiet. Too calm.

Ethan stood and looked toward the door. He believed they would come for him and the other captives today.

Maybe it would be Protector Vareth.

Maybe Elder Harran himself.

Either way, the next phase for the ritual was about to begin.

The sound of approaching footsteps echoed down the stone corridor. They were heavy, deliberate, and growing louder with every passing second. The air inside the cell seemed to shift, growing thicker, pressing down on their skin.

Everyone looked toward the door.

"They are coming," the Higher Two-Star woman said.

"Damn it," the strongest man cursed. "Is this how it is going to end?"

Then it opened.

Protector Vareth stepped into view, his silver armor glinting under the torchlight, cloak swaying slightly behind him. Ten soldiers followed close behind, each one clad in full imperial gear, their expressions stern and unyielding. Even without saying a word, their presence alone sent a chill into the room.

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They radiated strength and pressure.

The kind that made even seasoned Vessels sit still.

Ethan remained where he was, seated against the wall. He was calm and silent as he activated his Divine Eyes.

'I see. It is as how the others said.'

Just as what he was told, Vareth stood at Middle Three-Star. A powerful fighter, but not invincible.

The rest of the soldiers, though less threatening, were no pushovers either. All of them were Low Three-Star. They made up a capable and well-trained team.

Ethan took it in. Noted their movements. Their stances. Their weapons.

'I can handle them,' he thought confidently.

With the Flame Dragon Sword, his power would rival a Higher Three-Star Vessel, but that wasn't the priority.

The mission came first.

He needed to see the ritual site. He needed to reach the center of it all. Only there would his part of the plan begin.

"Wait a minute," Protector Vareth said as he raised his right hand. "Something seems wrong."

His sharp eyes scanned the cell, passed over the two pale women, then the two silent men, and then they landed on Ethan.

Unlike the others, Ethan was composed. He didn't look drained. Didn't slouch. There was no fear in his face. No confusion in his eyes.

Just quiet readiness.

That alone was enough to stir suspicion but Vareth didn't really mind him because Ethan was the weakest here.

Vareth narrowed his gaze. Slowly, his attention shifted toward the back wall where Ethan had spent the last day working. His senses tingled. He knew that something was wrong.

But the wall looked smooth. Untouched. No cracks. No marks.

After a few seconds, Vareth turned away.

'Probably just an illusion,' he thought.

"Is everything alright, Protector?" one of the soldiers asked.

He nodded as he dismissed the feeling and raised his voice.

"Bring them all," he ordered. "The others are waiting."

Five soldiers stepped forward.

Chains clanked as the prisoners were pulled up one by one. None of them resisted. The women moved slowly, their cuffs scraping across the floor. The men followed without protest.

Ethan stood without being told.

He moved exactly as they wanted him to.

Expression neutral. Breathing even.

A perfect prisoner.

But inside, his thoughts raced.

'It's time.'

As the cell doors creaked open and the soldiers began pulling them out one by one, Ethan walked calmly. The others didn't.

The man with stone-like arms flinched as the chain on his wrist was yanked. His eyes darted to the guards, then to the fire-lit hallway ahead, but he said nothing.

The silver-haired man next to him was pale, visibly trembling. He muttered something under his breath. It was too soft to hear.

One of the women stumbled as she was dragged forward, and the other looked like her breath was caught in her throat.

Ethan, meanwhile, was quiet.

Not because he wasn't nervous. He was. But for a different reason.

'I believe they are going to bring us to the ritual location,' he thought. 'I need to really confirm it before I stop it.'

He didn't resist the soldiers. He let them lead him. His hands were still cuffed, and the Drakiel Stone around his wrists, but his mind was sharp. Alert.

'No mistakes. I need to act at the right time and at the right moment.'

The hallway they walked through was long and narrow, the stone beneath their feet polished from years of use. Torches lined the walls, casting flickering shadows that danced like silent spirits.

Ethan caught a glimpse of a strange symbol carved into the stone near the ceiling. He memorized it, just in case, even though he couldn't stop himself from memorizing anything even if he wanted to.

'Luckily I have stored quite a few books and scrolls regarding magic from Hera.'

He did that the night before he was captured. He asked Hera for some reference and Hera took out a ton of it from her storage ring. She didn't ask anything because she didn't really care on what Ethan wanted to do with it.

Ethan couldn't help but smiling when he thought about how helpful Hera had been.

After a few more minutes, they passed a thick, arched doorway, and the air shifted.

A different kind of stillness settled around them. It was heavy, and unnatural. It was like stepping through an invisible curtain into a place that didn't quite belong in the same world.

The doors at the end of the corridor opened slowly with a groaning sound. What lay beyond them made Ethan's heart slow.

'What in the world am I seeing?' he wondered to himself. His eyes were absorbing everything that he saw here.

It was a massive ritual hall, carved into the earth.

At its center stood a wide, circular stone platform, slightly raised above the floor. Flames surrounded it in a perfect ring, flickering in controlled, even rhythm. The fire didn't reach upward like normal, but it clung low, swirling as if bound by command.

Symbols covered the floor of the platform. They pulsed faintly, red and blue and pale gold, each one alive with meaning Ethan couldn't understand at all. But he didn't need to.

He could feel it. This was where the ritual was going to take place.

The captives were pulled forward and brought to the side of the platform. The soldiers forced each of them to their knees in a precise formation, locking their cuffs to short hooks carved directly into the floor.

The air inside the hall was different. Not cold, not warm. Just wrong.

Ethan glanced sideways. The others were struggling to breathe.

The Lower Three-Star man gritted his teeth. The silver-haired one had sweat dripping down his face. The weakest ranked of the two women was silently crying. The other closed her eyes, murmuring something that sounded like a prayer.

All of them looked toward the altar at the far end of the platform.

That was when Ethan saw the true heart of the hall.

At the far end of the hall, beyond the ring of fire and glowing symbols, a set of dark stone steps rose toward an altar.

The altar itself was a thick slab of black marble, smooth and polished, almost like glass. On either side of it stood two tall braziers, their flames burning with an eerie violet light that cast long shadows across the floor.

Above the altar, heavy chains dangled from the ceiling, swaying slightly in the air. Their ends were locked into large metal rings built into the floor, as if waiting to hold something—or someone—in place.

And above the altar sat a raised terrace.

A place for watchers. For those in power.

There, in the center of it, were two massive seats carved from obsidian stone. Gold trimmings lined their edges. Behind them hung the banners of two nations, Kannan Empire and Velharis Empire.

In the left seat, Elder Harran watched with cold detachment. His expression was unreadable. His hands were folded neatly on his lap, as though he were about to oversee a sermon.

Beside him, lounging with one leg over the other, was Lord Qiren of the Velharis Empire.

His robe shimmered with deep blue and sunlit gold, and a goblet rested lazily in his hand. He surveyed the platform and the captives with the same gaze one might give livestock at an auction. His eyes briefly met Ethan's.

And then passed over him.

Like he didn't matter.

Behind the two leaders stood a line of elite guards from both empires. Each one stood tall, weapons drawn, their armor immaculate. But their presence was less about protection and more about message.

This was a show of power. A ritual dressed as ceremony.

And they were the centerpiece.

As the last of the chains were locked into place, Ethan lowered his head slightly, his eyes half-closed. Not to submit. But to think.