The quiet of the reception room felt as fragile as thin glass. The old man sat across the low wooden table, holding the delicate porcelain teacup in his frail, wrinkled hand.

It was an offer that any sane person would have taken without a second thought. A chance to be protected by one of the most powerful, untouchable assassin clans in the world, and more importantly, a guaranteed, indefinite stay of execution for Risa.

All he had to do was kneel, pledge his absolute loyalty, and become a weapon for the Sihue family.

Hide looked at the old man.

A quiet, almost imperceptible scoff escaped Hide’s lips. He leaned back in his wooden chair.

"I refuse,"

From the corner of the room, Enji let out a sharp, mocking laugh, but it died almost instantly. The old man did not laugh. The serene, highly amused smile that had been plastered across his wrinkled face slowly melted away, replaced by an expression of utter, chilling indifference.

The old man slowly lowered the teacup back onto the wooden table. The porcelain made a soft clink against the wood.

Then, the frail old man stood up.

He simply leaned his weight onto his wooden cane and straightened his hunched back.

But the moment he stood, the world completely folded in on itself.

BOOM!

The air in the room instantly turned unbreathable, or was it that his lungs had no space.

The wooden floorboards beneath their feet shrieked, instantly splintering and cracking as if a massive, invisible hydraulic press had been dropped on top of them.

Hide didn’t even have time to react. The apocalyptic pressure slammed into his shoulders. His chair shattered into hundreds of wooden splinters, and Hide was violently violently driven down, slamming face-first into the ruined floorboards.

In the corner, Enji suffered the exact same fate, he was forcefully slammed into the floor. Enji gasped, his eyes wide with genuine terror as he struggled to even twitch his fingers.

Blood began to drip steadily from Enji’s nose, staining the floor as the sheer density of the aura threatened to crush his internal organs.

Hide lay pinned to the ground, the wood biting into his cheek. Every single bone in his body creaked, threatening to snap under the suffocating weight.

If not for the slime around his body... his organs and bones would have certainly been crushed.

But amidst the blinding pain, the familiar, translucent blue window of the Universal Adaptation System flared brilliantly in his vision.

[Adaptive Override — Analysis Active]

Supreme Presence (A-Rank talent)

Location: Whole body

Source: S-Rank Human

Severity: High

Hide ground his teeth together.

’Evolve.’

[Adapting – 0%...]

Hide let out a slow, ragged breath. He planted his palms flat against the splintered floorboards. His muscles bulged, trembling violently under the sheer weight of the aura, but slowly, miraculously, he began to push himself up.

The old man, standing tall with both hands resting on the hilt of his cane, looked down. His cloudy, milky eyes suddenly widened in astonishment.

The old man watched as the eighteen-year-old boy, pinned under the weight of his Supreme Presence, slowly lifted his head.

Hide’s neck cracked loudly, but he forced his chin up, glaring directly into the old man’s eyes with a pair of glowing, fiercely defiant blue irises.

And he wasn’t bleeding.

The old man’s breath hitched slightly. In all the decades he had lived, in all the battles he had fought across the globe, he had never seen anything like this.

How could that be possible? How was a mere E-Rank able to withstand so much pressure on his body?

He glanced quickly at his grandson in the corner. Enji, a seasoned killer nearing A-Rank, was trembling violently, his face pale and contorted in pain, blood pouring freely from his nose as he struggled just to stay conscious.

Yet, this boy... this E-Rank child... was actively lifting his head and glaring at him without a single drop of blood spilling from his lips.

’Impressive...’ the old man thought, his mind racing as the initial shock morphed into a deep, calculating hunger. ’Truly, terrifyingly impressive.’

He was once again reminded just how monstrous the potential of the boy sitting across from him was.

The government system had registered him with an S-Rank potential, but potential was just a theoretical number. What Hide was demonstrating right now was raw, impossible reality.

And the old man wanted that power in his hands. He wanted to chain this anomaly to the Sihue clan.

But as the old man stared down at Hide, a shadow of profound suspicion clouded his thoughts.

’This child is a well of impossible mysteries,’ the old man pondered, his thumb slowly stroking his long, white beard. ’How could a human possibly tame raw Dark Mana without his mind breaking into feral madness? How could this foolish child, who just hatched from the shell of a relatively safe civilian world and entered the dangerous realm of Exterminators a few weeks ago, survive this?’

And then there was the most glaring impossibility of all: Hide’s claim that he could cure Mana Poisoning.

’A condition that even the strongest S-Rank healers in the world cannot comprehend, let alone reverse. And yet, he spoke with absolute certainty.’

The old man’s eyes narrowed as the pieces of a decades-old puzzle began to shift in his mind. "Way too many secrets..." he murmured internally. "This child has far too many secrets. Apart from his impossible resilience, his background is an utter void. His father does not exist on any federal registry. There is no record of his conception."

The old man thought back to the woman who had birthed this anomaly. Erin Volter. A brilliant, dangerously curious researcher who had worked in the deepest, most classified laboratories of the government.

’Just with whom did Erin Volter spend those two years she was missing?’ the old man wondered, a cold chill running down his ancient spine.

Just then, a slight shift in the ambient mana pulled the old man from his deep thoughts. He glanced slightly to the side.

Towering right behind his right shoulder, the massive, dark-plated phantom known as Zenith was still standing there. Its razor-sharp talons were inches from the old man’s neck. Despite the old man completely crushing its master, the phantom hadn’t moved a single inch to attack.

The old man looked back down at Hide. The boy was glaring at him, his jaw clenched, clearly trying to speak through the crushing gravity. He was actively holding his summon back.

’So he does not want to make enemies of us? He is purposefully restraining his weapon even while under extreme duress,’ the old man realized, a faint, dry amusement returning to his eyes. ’Sigh... children these days can be so hard to predict. He refuses my offer, but leaves his sword sheathed.’

The old man tapped his cane against the floor once.

Instantly, the suffocating, skyscraper-heavy pressure of Supreme Presence evaporated. The air rushed back into the room with a sharp whistle.

In the corner, Enji collapsed completely onto his side, wheezing violently as he desperately sucked air into his burning lungs, his hand clutching his chest.

Hide’s arms gave out for a fraction of a second, but he quickly caught himself. He sat back on his heels amidst the splintered ruins of his chair, wheezing as his lungs expanded freely. He took three long, deep breaths, letting the oxygen flood his system.

The slime layer beneath his clothes slowly dissolved, having served its purpose.

Hide slowly raised his head, wiping a bead of sweat from his chin. He looked at the old man, who had calmly reseated himself on his wooden chair, and a slow, sharp smirk spread across Hide’s face.

"I have a better offer for you," Hide rasped, his voice rough but entirely steady.

The old man raised an eyebrow, genuinely piqued. A boy who had just been crushed into the dirt was attempting to counter-negotiate with him.

The sheer audacity was almost refreshing.

The old man leaned forward, resting his chin on his hands. "Is that so? Very well, Hide Volter. Speak. Let us hear what offer could possibly outvalue the protection of my clan."

Hide opened his mouth, his mind rapidly organizing the terms he was about to lay down.

But before a single word could leave his mouth, the heavy wooden doors of the reception room were violently thrown open.

BANG!

A man dressed in the sleek, dark combat gear of a high-ranking Sihue enforcer stumbled into the room. He was panting heavily, his face drained of all color, ignoring the splintered floor and the bleeding Enji in the corner.

He immediately dropped to one knee, bowing his head frantically toward the old man.

"Master!" the enforcer gasped, his voice trembling with unchecked panic. "Forgive the intrusion, but there is a catastrophic emergency!"

The old man’s milky eyes instantly hardened, the faint amusement entirely wiped away. "Speak."

"We just received word through the absolute highest priority channels from the National Exterminator Agency," the enforcer said rapidly, swallowing hard. "The watchtowers of Tarita have fallen."

The old man stiffened, his knuckles turning white as his grip tightened on his cane.

"And... and Master..." the enforcer looked up, his eyes wide with a terror that seemed to transcend the immediate room. "’He’ has escaped."

The temperature in the room seemed to plummet. Hide watched as the old man’s face transformed into a mask of pure, ancient fury.

"Tarita..." the old man hissed, his raspy voice vibrating. "That damned bastard."

The old man stood up instantly, all traces of his frail, elderly demeanor completely gone. He looked at the kneeling enforcer. "Prepare the private airbus. Call back all elite operatives from their field missions. I am leaving right now."

"At once, Master!" The enforcer scrambled to his feet, bowing hastily before sprinting back out the door, his footsteps echoing wildly down the wooden corridor.

The old man turned and looked down at Hide.

"You are free to go for now, Hide Volter," the old man said sharply, turning toward the open doorway. "This conversation is paused. I will call you back when this situation is dealt with. Be ready to be contacted."

Without waiting for a response, the old man swept out of the room, his movements incredibly fast and precise, leaving behind only the echoing tap of his cane.

Hide remained sitting on the splintered floor. The sudden, chaotic shift in the atmosphere left him momentarily stunned. He was completely lost in his thoughts, processing the frantic exchange he had just witnessed.

’Who was "He" that had escaped?’ Hide thought, his brow furrowing deeply. ’And Tarita...’

He dug through the geography lessons Mr. Doren had drilled into them back at the academy. Tarita... that was the Eastern Continent.

-- Hello guys Author here - we are just 7 Golden tickets away from reaching the first mass release Goal. wink wink