Hide walked through the streets of Area 17, leaving the narrow, shadowed alleyway far behind him. The dull overcast sky felt heavier now, pressing down on the city like a suffocating grey blanket.

As he crossed the boundary separating the grimy commercial sectors from the affluent Upper District, the environment shifted drastically. The cracked walkways turned into pristine, seamlessly paved roads. The smog cleared, replaced by the scent of manicured lawns and expensive, atmospheric purifiers. The sheer contrast only fueled the cold anger burning in Hide’s chest.

He processed everything he knew about the Sihue Clan.

To his surprise, despite growing up in the same area as them, he actually didn’t know much. Nobody did.

They were an assassin clan, deeply rooted in the darkest shadows of the Exterminator world.

They didn’t operate flashy agencies, they didn’t do public relations, and rarely participated in lower-tier gates to farm public goodwill.

Instead they killed targets quietly, efficiently, and without leaving a single trace behind.

Being born into a clan like that was already a heavy burden. But being born a girl, in a deeply traditional, patriarchal syndicate? That was a severe disadvantage from day one.

And then, at the age of sixteen, Risa had completely failed to awaken.

In a clan where a person’s worth was strictly measured by their talent rank, and their ability to kill, failing the awakening test wasn’t just a disappointment—it was an unforgivable sin.

It gave the clan elders, who had always viewed her as a liability, the perfect excuse to completely ostracize her.

She lived separately from the main family, forced into an apartment. The clan provided nothing. Her father visited her exactly once a month, dropping off a meager allowance for rent and groceries before vanishing back without a word.

’Heh,’ Hide scoffed internally, his boots clicking softly. ’I suspect he was the only reason she was even kept alive all these years. Well, he is her father, at the end of the day.’

Not that Hide understood the sentiment. He had never had a father to begin with. Well, theoretically he had one, but the man had somehow managed to vanish without leaving a single trace, entirely abandoning Hide and his mother to fend for themselves in a world overrun by monsters.

’Fucking idiot,’ Hide thought, a sharp, bitter sigh escaping his lips.

As the winding, tree-lined roads of the Upper District grew quieter, Hide’s thoughts shifted to the looming, massive obstacle ahead.

It was clearly not a good idea to challenge an S-Ranker.

The title wasn’t just a label. It represented the absolute pinnacle of human power. Even though Risa’s grandfather was old, he was a legendary fighter, a man who had supposedly stalled a Higher Calamity Lord single-handedly decades ago.

Hide clearly remembered how it had felt sitting in front of Maddox. Maddox hadn’t even exerted any pressure; he had just been casually sitting in a chair, but the sheer, latent density of his aura had made it difficult for Hide to even draw breath.

An S-Ranker was a walking natural disaster.

But Hide couldn’t just leave it be.

He had made his choice back in that alleyway.

If the Sihue Clan had touched a single hair on Risa’s head, he would obliterate them. S-Ranker or not.

He turned the final corner, and the estate finally came into view.

It didn’t look anything like a modern Exterminator headquarters. It looked like an ancient, feudal castle ripped straight from the old times and dropped into the middle of the city.

The massive outer walls were constructed from dark, weathered stone, entirely covered in thick, creeping vines and dark moss. The architecture was sharp, aggressive, and clearly designed to repel intruders.

At the end of a long, pristine gravel path stood the main doors—two massive, reinforced wooden doors bound in heavy black iron.

Flanking the doors were two massive stone statues. They depicted terrifying, jagged dragons curled tightly into themselves, hiding within their own stone wings.

Those weren’t just statues, Hide knew that much, but nothing more than that.

Hide stopped exactly ten feet from the heavy wooden doors.

The estate was dead silent.

SWISH.

The sound was barely audible, like the rustling of a single dry leaf.

Without making a single sound, two figures materialized directly behind Hide. They were dressed in form-fitting, pitch-black combat gear, their faces entirely obscured by dark, mirrored visors.

Embroidered on their chests in dark grey thread was the emblem of the Sihue Clan—a dragon curled into itself, hiding within its wings.

They were guards, but their killing intent felt completely identical to the Calamity Beasts Hide had slaughtered.

They didn’t view him as a person.

Hide didn’t flinch. He slowly raised his hands, keeping them open and empty, and turned around to face the two assassins.

"I am Hide Volter," Hide said, his voice ringing clearly in the quiet air. "Risa’s friend. I need to see her."

The two assassins said absolutely nothing. Their visors remained fixed on him, completely unreadable.

Then, the guard on the left tilted his head slightly, mumbling a single, low syllable into an integrated comms unit hidden within his high collar.

A heavy, grinding sound echoed behind Hide.

He didn’t turn around, but he felt the massive shift in ambient mana. One of the stone dragon statues flanking the main doors had slowly uncurled its heavy, moss-covered stone wings, its jagged stone head swiveling to look directly at Hide’s back.

The statue’s jaws parted, and a deep, grinding, mechanical voice resonated across the gravel courtyard.

"Kill him."

The moment the mechanical voice grated to a halt, the two assassins didn’t hesitate.

They drew out curved, matte-black daggers from their waistbands. The assassin on the left lunged low, aiming his blade directly for Hide’s kidney, while the assassin on the right blurred forward, slashing a lethal arc aimed perfectly at Hide’s throat.

It was a flawless, unavoidable execution tactic.

Hide didn’t blink. He didn’t even lower his raised hands.

He simply narrowed his glowing blue eyes.

Dark colored corrupted mana swiftly left his body and before the blades could even come within an inch of Hide’s skin, Zenith stepped out from the darkness.

The towering, dark-plated phantom materialized between the three of them with terrifying, impossible speed.

Zenith simply extended both of its arms.

CRUNCH.

The sound of shattering ribs and tearing reinforced Kevlar echoed loudly in the pristine courtyard.

The two assassins froze mid-lunge, their eyes wide behind their dark visors. They looked down.

Zenith’s dark-plated hands, tipped with jagged, razor-sharp talons of condensed dark mana, had plunged straight through the center of both their chests.