Atlas could be seen sitting on a massive couch inside the same room where everything had just happened, his back straight and his eyes fixed on the man sitting opposite him on a single person couch that looked more expensive than anything else in the room.

Though Atlas wasn’t paying attention to that, he was on guard and staying that way, after seeing Dravenson disappear and reappear the same way the assassins had during the fight outside Lumivale, Atlas had made a quiet decision to keep his Instincts running at full awareness, if anything happened again he would use every trump card he had to get out of this household and then go into hiding until he became strong.

He didn’t know that what the Assasins used and what Dravenson used were world’s apart, and he didn’t really need to, he would still do anything to get out of here if it came to that.

Seraphiel had shown those marks on her palm and spoken those words about the contract clause, but trusting that enough to lower his guard would be the kind of mistake that would get him killed as if he was an Idiot, so... he didn’t.

Several minutes had passed since the pressure Dravenson released and the escalation that followed it, and now all four of them were sitting in their respective positions, Dravenson across from Atlas, Maristella beside Dravenson on her own couch, Seraphiel at the right end, a meter away from both her parents and Atlas, and no one had spoken anything yet, the silence sitting in the room without anyone moving to break it.

In that silence Atlas was running a thought through his head repeatedly, ’Tch, I shouldn’t have formed any connection with a Noble at all...all Nobles are the same at the end.’

His gaze drifted slightly toward Seraphiel with cold indifference, she caught it but said nothing for a moment, then she exhaled and spoke, "Father...we will have to compensate Mr. Atlas for your behaviour, you attacked a guest who you invited here yourself."

Dravenson sat with an expressionless face and nodded slowly, Although his mind was not on the conversation, it was entirely on Atlas, on the right hand that his ability couldn’t pierce through, on the pitch black Emotion Vessel Maristella had described to him, on the fact that even his pressure hadn’t fully worked the way it should have on someone at A-rank, he still showed reactions to Seraphiel’s words.

Now, one might ask how either of them could even see an Emotion Vessel or Emotions in general in the first place.

Both Maristella and Dravenson were Angels who possessed racial traits connected to Light, and each of them had awakened their own Unique Ability when they reached S-rank, the same way Mark had awakened his, and because of those abilities they had each become Special S-ranks, eventually climbing to Special SS-rank where they now stood.

Dravenson’s ability was called Heart-Vision, with it he could perceive the emotions of anyone who appeared within roughly a kilometer radius of him, not as a general feeling but as a visible colour, which was how he had immediately seen the pitch black sitting inside Atlas the moment he stepped through the door, and it was also the ability he had tried to use to see through Atlas’s right hand glove and identify what was underneath, the attempt that had failed entirely.

Maristella’s ability was called Mystic Light Eyes, and it was different from Dravenson’s in a specific way, where he saw the colour of emotion, she could look directly into what she called the Emotion Vessel and see the full contents of it, the depth, the layering, the history of how it had built up over time, she could also use it in combat but that was a separate matter.

Right now she was sitting with her eyes holding a quiet horror that she hadn’t fully been able to push down since she looked inside Atlas’s Emotion Vessel, because she had looked inside many people over the years and she had never seen one that looked like that, pitch black and full in a way that left no room for anything else, Hatred that had been sitting there since long before the person carrying it had any way of understanding what was being done to them.

Atlas turned toward Seraphiel as she spoke, wondering if she meant any of it, because from the way he had been treated since walking through that door his earlier thought about some Nobles being different had quietly collapsed inside him, and he had already made a decision that the moment his business here was done he would nullify the contract, if they wanted money back he would return every coin he had received and whatever else was needed on top of it, he was that done with the situation.

Dravenson sighed and looked between Seraphiel and Atlas once before speaking, "Fine, we will compensate him for the mistreatment."

Seraphiel nodded and turned to Atlas with her smile remaining exactly where it always was, "Mr. Atlas, I would really appreciate it if you could find it in yourself to forgive my father if not, all of us for the way you were received here, we will compensate you thoroughly with anything you need."

Atlas sat and looked at her and thought, ’First you attack me and now you want forgiveness with compensation? Damned Nobles...but I might as well use this to get the Cores and nullify that contract at the same time, I don’t even know the full consequences if I can’t fulfill it somewhere down the line.’

He cooled his thinking down, because getting visibly angry here and making that known would gain him nothing, it would only create more friction in a room with two SS-ranks, so instead he used the opportunity the same way they used situations, practically and without sentiment.

Atlas spoke, "Then I would like you to give me five Abyss-Rank Ruin Cores, Lady Seraphiel."

Dravenson’s expressionless face shifted the moment those words landed, his eyes going wide as he turned toward Atlas and spoke, "You are going to climb to S-rank?...But How do you know about Cores?"

Atlas turned toward him and narrowed his eyes, he didn’t particularly enjoy the tone of surprise in it but he answered plainly, "Guildmaster Harleks told me."

He saw no reason to hide it, after he reached S-rank none of this information mattered anyway, and as an SS-rank Dravenson wasn’t going to concern himself with something like that for long.

Dravenson looked at Atlas in silence for several seconds, his eyes staying on that hooded face before he exhaled and spoke, "...That damned Harleks, fine, Seraphiel, ask Horliax to bring five Cores."

Seraphiel nodded and tapped the armrest of her couch twice, and Horliax appeared beside her as a blur, bowing slightly as he spoke, "What is it my Lady?"

"Bring five Abyss-Rank Ruin Cores for Mr. Atlas," Seraphiel said.

Horliax’s eyebrow moved slightly beneath the bow but he straightened, nodded, and vanished again with the same blur he had arrived with.

Atlas remained seated and waited.

- - -

In another place entirely, inside an Abyss-Rank Ruin situated along the forest route connecting Solara the central city of Celestara Continent and Lumivale, surrounded by hundreds of kilometers of dense forest on every side, something was happening in the deepest chamber that had no business happening inside a ruin.

The chamber floor was black stone and the walls were jagged the way every ruin’s deepest chamber walls were, but... there seemed to be luminous light inside it, which was already wrong.

And if one looked more closely they would see that it wasn’t just light, there were tools arranged across the floor and...a similar Bloodline Crucible that had carried Project X, was placed on the pedestal where the Relic would normally be found after a ruin was cleared.

And to top it off... the boss of the ruin was inside the Crucible, curled the same way Project X was.

- - -

[A/N: Unique Abilities will be explained more later]