Titan stood there in the centre of what was previously a giant stadium while stretching lazily as if he’d just woken up from a nap.

"Seriously," he muttered, glancing between the two rising figures in the dust. "Can we not do this tonight?"

Kaela came out first after being swatted like a fly, blood dripping from her mouth again from the impact, and her purple aura flared even brighter.

"Heh..." she laughed, breathless. "Now this is even more fun."

Elara rose next, red energy pulsing violently around her as she burst free from the ground in an explosion of crimson. Her gaze locked onto Titan, no longer annoyed or dismissive, but focused and interested.

"So this is what humans call an S Rank," the demon murmured.

Titan sighed again.

"Yeah," he said. "And you two are being a pain in my ass."

Kaela and Elara didn’t hesitate.

Titan had casually dismissed their power, and that instantly made them enemy number one.

As such, they moved almost in sync.

A blur of crimson and violet tore through the air, their auras clashing and distorting the space around them as they launched a coordinated assault that would have obliterated anything else in existence.

But Titan didn’t even bother evading.

Kaela’s fist came first, wrapped in violent purple energy, her entire body twisting with explosive force as she drove the punch toward his jaw.

At the same time, Elara vanished in a flicker of red.

She reappeared behind him, her hand already forming a blade of condensed crimson energy aimed straight for his spine.

It was the perfect pincer attack with flawless timing and incredible speed. Any A Rank would have been forced to choose: to block one and to take the other, and even that was a stretch.

But Titan wasn’t an A Rank.

He simply leaned back slightly, letting Kaela’s punch brush past his face, close enough to distort the air against his cheek. Then, without even turning, he reached behind him and grabbed Elara’s wrist mid-strike.

Boom!

He slammed her effortlessly; the ground beneath them shattered again as Elara was driven into it, her crimson aura flaring wildly on impact.

At the same time, Titan’s other hand snapped forward and caught Kaela’s follow-up strike. It felt wrong to call it a block, and more that he completely nullified her attack, like she had punched into a wall that didn’t exist.

"You two done?" he asked flatly.

Kaela’s grin widened, and Elara’s eyes burned.

One was elated by their powerful opponent, while the other was driven by their pride that had been stepped on.

And just like that, they attacked again. 𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖

-

From above, Ethan watched, completely absorbed.

’So this is what I’m aiming for?’

His fingers flexed slightly, and his pulse quickened, because for the first time since stepping into this world of Titles, he saw it clearly. This was his first taste of the unfathomable power wielded by S Ranks.

And despite how absurd it was, the only thing he felt was excitement.

Though he couldn’t help but think to himself, ’I’ve definitely got a long way to go.’

Just looking at Titan, it was clear the man wasn’t taking this seriously, or maybe that was just the extent of his abilities.

’Flight, durability, speed, and strength. No mana, no mystical abilities, just pure physical power.’

What he was watching didn’t even feel like a fight, but complete suppression, with Titan overpowering them completely.

’He’s literally a comic book superhero...’

Ethan couldn’t help but stare.

’I wonder what his Title is.’

But before he could dwell on it, the man he was focused on spoke again.

"I just cleared an A Rank gate," he said, almost lazily as he sidestepped a barrage of crimson spikes erupting from the ground beneath him. "And flew across the world to get here."

He caught Kaela’s incoming kick mid-air, spun, and hurled her into a pile of debris like she was weightless. She smashed it before with a groan before bouncing back to her feet, laughing.

Titan exhaled slowly.

"But I’m not saying this because you two can hurt me..."

He cracked his neck slightly.

"I’m saying I might not be able to hold back because I’m tired."

Ethan couldn’t help but be impressed.

"That’s bars," he mumbled under his breath, receiving odd looks from the two women beside him.

Everything about this situation was insane.

He had come here expecting to watch a few underground fights. Instead, he had fought and killed someone from his past, watched a B Rank bout, then an A Rank clash, and now both those A Ranks against an S Rank.

This wasn’t just rare.

It was completely unheard of.

And just seeing Titan was something most people would never experience in their lifetime.

Ethan’s gaze sharpened as he tried to quantify what he was seeing.

The ranking system flashed through his mind.

{E Rank: 50 | D Rank: 100 | C Rank: 150 | B Rank: 200 | A Rank: 250 | S Rank: 250+}

’So the base stats of an S Rank are 250+...’

But even as the thought formed, he dismissed it.

’No... that has to be bullshit.’

His eyes tracked Titan’s movement, or rather, tried to.

’I bet this freak is 1000+, if not more.’

Another impact echoed through the stadium as Titan casually backhanded a crimson beam out of existence.

’And he’s doing all this while supposedly tired...’

Ethan exhaled slowly, collecting his thoughts.

’But those are just averages, and there are always outliers.’

His own existence proved that.

’Base stats also don’t mean shit when abilities come into play. I don’t know how it works for others, since they don’t have fixed game-like skills like I do. But I’m sure that when they wield their respective energies, their stats increase massively.’

Kaela and Elara were displaying abilities that massively surpassed the base stats of an S Rank, and so had the two B Ranks he had fought earlier.

’Well, they are just "base" stats,’ he reminded himself.

But he didn’t dwell on it any longer.

Whether it was the system’s classification or the association’s evaluations, there was still an evident gap. An S Rank was just on another level entirely, and even Kaela and Elara couldn’t bridge that gap...