Ethan stopped, eyes sweeping over the dimensional vortices.
The first bug crawled out.
It wasn't huge. It didn't have that heavy, beast-like pressure at a glance either—just an insectoid creature wrapped in a black, hardened shell.
But the moment it dropped onto the deck, the warship's thick metal sank into a shallow crater under it. Even the air around it wobbled, pressed down by the dimensional force leaking off its body.
Then a second crawled out.
A third.
A fourth.
Each time one landed, another ring of cracks spread across the deck. Their jointed limbs latched into the metal plating. Their chests rose and fell faintly, and under the black shell, a red glow pulsed—bright, dim, bright—like a heartbeat.
That power wasn't flashy. It didn't roar outward.
It just sat there, terrifyingly heavy, like slabs of iron laid directly onto space.
The few enemy soldiers still alive started scrambling backward on instinct.
They weren't just scared of Ethan.
