Solflare: The Painter's Secret-Chapter 109: National Threat

’That’s just a few hundred miles away from the Thule Federation.’ Leon’s mind reeled back to the details from the books he had read on the universe, the world, and the borders.

"That’s closer to us, right?" he said, his voice echoing slightly in the stairwell.

"Yeah," Mr. Lee responded with a thin smile, then tilted his gaze toward the path in front of them. He didn’t say anything.

Silence ruled between them as they walked for ten minutes, descending the stairwell from the seventh floor.

Every floor they moved past had its own design and elements, subtly changing the atmosphere. The corridors widened, the air smelling of polished wood and a faint scent of sunflowers.

On the second floor, Mr. Lee pushed open a set of double doors that seemed different from all the other ones they had walked through or moved past.

These ones were heavier, made of dark oak with reinforced metal bands, and made no sound when they swung inward.

The moment the last door gave way, they stepped into a vast hall, occupied by a sea of people.

Dozens of officials, from those in distinctive coats labeled with alphabets from E to B, to high-ranking military personnel in crisp, medal-adorned uniforms.

A low murmur buzzed in the air like a live wire. As soon as Leon entered, dozens of heads turned in his direction.

Grim smiles appeared and disappeared from their faces, their eyes tracking him with a mixture of clinical assessment and deep wariness.

The buzz dipped for a moment, then resumed at a slightly higher pitch.

At the center of the hall stood Hu Qing. He wasn’t speaking, but his mere presence commanded the space.

His gaze swept the room, and wherever it landed, conversations hushed or postures straightened.

Leon felt that stare brush over him for a second.

Hu Qing nodded faintly before his attention returned to a trio of B-ranked officials who were speaking in hushed tones.

For two hours, Leon stood slightly behind Mr. Lee as discussions flowed around him. He heard about resource allocation, post-event containment, and all the other topics the crowd seemed not to want to speak about.

At 9:00 a.m., as if released from a spell, the officials began to leave the hall one after another. They thinned like a receding tide, until only a handful remained.

Mr. Lee, Feng, Lieutenant Hayes, Hu Qing, and Leon himself stood in the now vast, almost empty room, their breaths echoing like trumpets.

After some seconds, the door opened. Darian’s boots clicked on the polished floor, disrupting the silence ruling the hall as he entered.

He walked directly to Leon. "Leon, it’s good to see you strong," he said, his brow wrinkling slightly as if forcing the smile to reach his eyes.

"When they said you were dead, I doubted it. I told them you weren’t." He moved forward and hugged Leon. He patted Leon’s back twice before pulling back in just two seconds.

"Come," Darian said, gesturing toward the exit door. "I want you to meet someone."

From across the room, Hayes’s gaze lingered on Leon with an intensity that felt like a physical touch.

As the two exited the room, Hayes tilted his head slightly toward Feng, who stood quietly at the side of the window.

"Feng," Hayes whispered, "I think the boy will be seeking his family. Have you brought them back to their residence?"

Feng turned and offered a placid smile. "Don’t worry, Hayes. Everything is sorted. There is no need for you to worry." He bowed his head slightly, then turned and walked away.

He moved toward Hu Qing just as Hayes’s lips parted as if to form another question.

Outside the hall, noise and light danced like motes. The moment Leon moved out of the towering building and into the open air, a dam of flickering camera flashes assaulted him.

He forced his way through a crowded scrum of photographers, news reporters holding extended microphones, and other curious individuals, throwing tons of questions that wouldn’t stop.

"Leon! Is it true you survived the Leviathan Sector of the Shattered Land?"

"What happened to Lieutenant Prince?"

"Can you comment on the melted infrastructure on the eleventh floor?"

"Are you being recruited by the Agathan Special Forces?"

"Do you consider yourself a threat to national security?"

Darian moved ahead, paddling his arms forcefully and using his shoulders to create a narrow path through the chaos.

"No comments! Make way!" he barked, his voice cutting through the crowd.

They pushed past the final line of security personnel and stumbled into a secured vehicle bay.

Darian hurried to his vehicle and opened the rear door for Leon.

Leon slid into the cool leather, the door thudding shut behind him and muting the outside world to a dull roar.

He exhaled a shaky breath. ’How did they get to know all that?’ He turned his gaze to the reporters still snapping the car he was in.

Leon’s gaze locked onto two men standing stiff, like beings not of this world, wearing deep black hoodies.

As Darian sat in the driver’s seat, the engine purred to life. The crowd turned their attention to the two figures Leon had locked his gaze on the moment the car pulled away.

Leon watched the compound gates recede through the tinted window. "Who am I going to meet?" he asked, doubt like stone rolling in his skull.

Darian glanced at him in the rearview mirror, his earlier forced smile gone and replaced by a focused expression.

"Just keep calm. We will get there."

The car accelerated onto a sweeping highway. Despite the dread and the unanswered questions, the ghost of Lieutenant Prince’s final smile took charge in Leon’s mind.

Leon felt a fragile joy the moment he saw the street and the cars once again. He didn’t know where he was being taken, but he felt happy. 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

The smile remained on his face as the unfamiliar cityscape blurred past him.

After thirty minutes, the car halted at the front of a large wall with a diamond-patterned black metal gate.