Executioner’s body froze instantly.
He hadn’t even caught Ethan’s movement.
All he felt was a surge of force from his shoulder before his balance completely vanished.
His hand slipped off Ethan’s shoulder, and his entire body was thrown through the air by a subtle, leveraged effort.
His back slammed into a training machine, the metal letting out a muffled groan.
“Boss!” Broken Finger bellowed.
The remaining three ODSTs pounced simultaneously.
Their movements were fast.
For a normal human, their speed had already exceeded the limits of reaction time.
But to Ethan—they were far too slow, even by ordinary standards.
Time seemed to decelerate.
Ethan saw Broken Finger lunging from the right, throwing a straight right punch targeted directly at his temple.
He saw Butcher bulldozing forward from the front, his shoulders set like a wall, trying to use his body weight to tackle him down.
He saw Spike raising the iron rod from behind, the metal slicing a cold arc through the air.
He saw every single detail.
Every movement.
Every intention.
And then, he began to calculate.
Sixty percent.
If he used sixty percent of his power, Broken Finger’s wrist would dislocate.
It wouldn’t shatter the bone, but the ligaments would tear.
That hand would never hold a rifle steady again.
Sixty-five percent.
Three of Butcher’s ribs would break.
It wouldn’t puncture a lung, but it would likely pierce the pleura.
He would never be able to engage in strenuous exercise again.
Seventy percent.
Spike’s leg would be broken.
A tibia fracture—likely not compound—but enough to bid a permanent farewell to the battlefield.
No more than this.
He moved.
The first strike.
Ethan sidestepped, dodging Broken Finger’s straight punch, and seized his wrist in the same fluid motion.
His fingers locked onto the wrist bones, feeling how fragile they were in his palm—like a dry branch.
He would only need a tenth of his strength to crush them completely.
But he didn’t.
He merely gave a gentle twist.
A dull pop echoed.
Broken Finger’s face turned deathly pale in an instant.
He didn’t scream—a veteran soldier did not scream before an enemy—but his body instinctively curled inward, his knees hitting the floor.
His right wrist hung at an unnatural angle, the excruciating pain of torn ligaments causing him to bite his lip until it bled.
“Broken Finger!” Butcher roared.
Butcher’s fist slammed forward.
Ethan didn’t dodge.
He raised his left arm, blocking with his forearm.
The sound of colliding bone and flesh reverberated through the gym, but Ethan didn’t budge an inch.
His augmented bones and enhanced musculature made his forearm as hard as a steel pipe.
Butcher froze for a split second.
That single second was all it took. New chapters come out on g.com first.
Ethan’s right fist slammed into Butcher’s chest.
He didn’t use full force.
Yet it was more than enough.
Butcher’s body went rigid.
His mouth opened, a choked whimper squeezing out of his throat.
Then, his knees buckled, and his body fell backward.
His chest caved inward, the sound of snapping ribs clearly audible.
Ethan heard a faint tearing sound.
Not a rib.
Something inside himself.
He didn’t know what it was.
Perhaps it was the last shred of kindness he harbored for these men.
Perhaps it was the illusion that he could remain in control of the situation.
Or perhaps it was something else entirely.
It didn’t matter anymore.
Spike’s iron rod came crashing down.
Ethan leaned sideways, the metal bar whistling past his ear.
He reached out and grabbed the iron rod by its shaft.
Spike yanked back with all his might, but the bar didn’t budge—Ethan’s fingers were locked onto it as if welded in place.
Their eyes met in midair.
Spike’s expression was unnervingly calm—a composure found only in those who had lived through far too many battles.
He had witnessed too much death and experienced too much loss.
To him, this fight was merely another battle: win and live, lose and die.
Ethan applied force.
The iron rod tore free from Spike’s grip, seized by Ethan in an instant.
Ethan spun around, sweeping the metal bar straight toward Spike’s lower leg.
He didn’t aim for the head.
In canon, John had struck Spike in the neck with the iron rod, snapping his cervical vertebrae instantly.
But Ethan refrained.
He swept the bar toward Spike’s leg instead.
Spike tried to jump clear, but he was too slow.
The iron rod cracked against his tibia.
A crisp snap of fracturing bone.
Spike lost his balance and crashed heavily onto the floor.
His right leg bent at an unnatural angle, the fractured tibia piercing straight through the fabric of his trousers.
Now only Executioner remained.
Executioner pushed himself up off the ground.
Pain throbbed across his back, but he did not retreat.
He was the leader of the four, an elite warrior who had survived real battlefields.
He knew there was no turning back now.
He charged at Ethan.
Ethan didn’t dodge.
He stood right where he was, waiting for Executioner’s arrival.
He was ready.
Executioner would tackle him, throw punches, or use every tool at his disposal to defeat him.
And then Ethan would strike back, bringing the man down as well.
Everything was proceeding according to plan.
Yet Executioner did not throw a punch.
He halted his momentum at the very last moment.
Then, he did something Ethan had never anticipated—he dropped to his knees.
His shoulders trembled, but it wasn’t the trembling of fear.
It was something else.
“Enough,” he rasped, his voice hoarse.
“We yield.”
Ethan froze.
This was not the scene from his memory.
In canon, Executioner had not surrendered.
He had fought on, only to be beaten down by John, his ribs shattered and internal organs crushed.
Yet here—Ethan’s initial throw had saved him.
That single throw had made Executioner realize they were not facing ordinary children.
He had seen Ethan’s speed, felt his strength, and recognized a reaction time that belonged to no ordinary human.
He was the only one among the four who understood.
Ethan stood in place, staring at the kneeling Executioner.
The gymnasium fell into dead silence, broken only by the groans of the three men sprawled across the floor.
Broken Finger’s breathing was shallow and rapid—a sign of a punctured pleura.
Butcher had already passed out, the indentation in his chest indicating at least four broken ribs.
Spike was attempting to crawl toward his leg, but his fractured tibia prevented him from standing.
They were not dead.
Yet they could never serve as ODSTs again.
Executioner raised his head, looking at Ethan.
There was no anger in his eyes, no hatred.
Only a strange tranquility, as though he had finally laid down a crushing weight.
“You were right,” he said.
“We didn’t know our place.”
Ethan did not speak.
He merely lowered his gaze, looking at his blood-stained fists.
He knew what he was supposed to feel.
Victory?
Pride?
Or perhaps the cold detachment expected of a Spartan?
Yet he felt none of it.
Only an emptiness.
An emptiness that seeped deep into his bones.
He had accomplished it.
He had avoided deaths.
John had killed two men in canon, whereas he had killed none.
Broken Finger’s wrist was merely dislocated, not shattered.
Butcher’s ribs were broken, but not crushed to pieces.
Spike’s leg was fractured, but it wasn’t an open compound fracture of the spine or neck.
He had done as well as he possibly could.
So what?
Those men were still lying on the floor.
Their military careers were over.
They would be shipped back to Earth, classified as permanently disabled, and kicked out of the service to live out the rest of their lives in broken bodies.
And all of this was simply because of a test staged by Mendez.
Footsteps sounded.
Ethan looked up.
Mendez was standing at the entrance of the gymnasium.