Hide stared at the stump where the assassin’s head had been.

The rotting stench of cursed flesh and freshly vaporized marrow was thick enough to make his throat itch.

Every single thread of information he desperately needed about Sihue clan had just been permanently erased from existence.

He had spent an entire hour tying this bastard up, only for the man to turn himself into a glorified execution wall display.

He couldn’t leave the bathroom looking like a slaughterhouse. It would only take a moment for any of the sensors to report something is wrong.

Hide looked down at his wrist, where the translucent, elastic strand of the tool slime ball was still attached.

"Expand," Hide commanded mentally. "Create a cube around me and the chair."

The slime reacted instantly. The dark, jelly-like substance slid off his wrist, hitting the wet floor tiles and expanding with unnatural biological speed, forming a dense, rubbery layer that completely isolated them from the environment.

Hide did this for the reason, because he was going to use abyssal flames to burn the body and he could not allow the sensors to shout out that there was fire.

Once the dome was secured, Hide held his hands out over the headless corpse and used his skill.

Dense orange fire violently erupted from his palms. The flame clung to the assassin’s body like starving parasites, silently devouring the flesh, and the bone.

Turning the A-Rank fighter into a small pile of coarse, grey ash within minutes.

Hide dismissed the flames and sighed.

He spent the next hour to wash the blood and gore down the drain, ensuring that not a single trace remained on the porcelain or tiles. He ordered the slime to contract back into a compact sphere and tossed it into his inventory.

By the time the bathroom was pristine again, Hide looked up at the flashing digital clock on the wall. It was exactly 4:12 in the morning.

"Fuck that assassin," Hide grunted, turning off the lights and stumbling back into his bedroom. "Hope he gets boiled alive in the deepest pit of hell."

Sneering at the absolute absurdity of his life, Hide collapsed face-first into his pillow and instantly drifted into a heavy, dreamless slumber.

Bzzzz. Bzzzz. Bzzzz.

A sharp, persistent electronic chime cut through the quiet of the bedroom. Hide groaned heavily, his eyelids feeling as heavy as lead plates as he forcefully dragged himself out of his slumber.

His groggy eyes blinked against the harsh sunlight cutting through the seams of the blast shutters. He reached blindly and grabbed his communicator, and slapped it onto the pillow beside his head, tapping the speaker icon.

"Speak," Hide rasped, his voice rough and thick with sleep.

"Hide? Are you... are you awake?"

The voice coming through the speaker belonged to Kai.

Kai’s tone was completely lacking its usual easygoing, confident luster. He sounded... strange, filled with nervousness that made him sound entirely unlike his usual self.

Hide, still buried beneath the comfortable weight of his blanket, didn’t fully catch that. "Yeah, I’m awake now. What’s going on, Kai?"

"I... I was wondering if you were free today," Kai said, a brief pause filtering through the line before he continued. "Would you like to go to a training zone with me?"

It was a highly unusual request. Kai was officially affiliated with an Exterminator agency now, backed by his father’s majority shares, and usually had his schedule fully packed with squad maneuvers.

Yet, as the words settled, a spark of genuine excitement flared in Hide’s chest. Before his awakening, back when he was just the talentless loser, he had lost count of how many times he had dreamed of standing alongside Kai as an equal in a gate. Now, he had the strength to do it. 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

"Sure," Hide said, sitting up and rubbing his face. "I’m down. Where are we meeting?"

"The Upper District. I’ll send you the coordinates. Be there in exactly one hour," Kai said quickly. Before Hide could even respond, the line went dead with a sharp click.

Hide stared at the blank screen, his brow furrowing slightly. Kai had never hung up on him that quickly before.

"Good afternoon, Hide," CASS’s robotic voice suddenly started him slightly. "Your lunch has been compiled and is currently awaiting your arrival in the dining sector."

"Where did you pick up that tone?" Hide asked as he snapped his head toward the digital wall clock and blinked in sheer disbelief.

[1:34 PM]

He had slept straight through the morning.

"I just got this eloquent servant voice pack. Do you want me to switch back?" CASS inquired.

"Yes." Bypassing any further delay, Hide bolted out of bed, took a brutally quick cold shower to snap his senses into alignment, and threw on his usual blue jacket and pants over the slime cover.

He devoured the lunch CASS had prepared, picked up his communicator and left.

He had less than forty-five minutes before he was supposed to meet Kai, but Hide had a very specific detour to make first.

He navigated the grimy, familiar avenues of Area 17 until the grey, bunker-like dome of the Public Gate Training Facility 7 came into view.

Hide reached into his pocket and pulled out a worn, slightly crumpled plastic card. It was the entry permit card Kai had gifted him a week ago.

It was battered, chipped at the margins, and in absolutely terrible shape from his fights, but it still had exactly one valid solo visit remaining on its registration.

Well, he was going to use it.

But the moment Hide stepped through the biometric glass archways of the facility, his expectation of a mundane entry was completely shattered.

He stepped into the vast, aggressively clean lobby, walking straight toward the central reception counter. Sitting behind the desk was the same cute receptionist lady from his very first visit, flanked by the same wide guards in grey uniforms with the number 7 insignia stamped on their chests.

"Welcome back to Public Gate Training Facility 7," the lady spoke automatically, looking up with a practiced, professional smile. But as her eyes registered Hide’s silver hair and the distinct, piercing depth of his blue irises, her smile faltered into a look of sudden recognition.

"Oh... Mr. Volter. You’re... you’re back."

"Yeah," Hide said flatly. He sliding the crinkled, battered permit card across the sleek counter surface. "I’m here to use my final solo run pass. Also, can you page Helper Toma? I want him assigned as my helper again."

The receptionist’s fingers froze over her holographic keyboard. She looked at Hide, her expression shifting into a complicated mixture of hesitation and deep anxiety. She looked down at her monitor, clearing her throat uncomfortably.

"I’m... I’m sorry, Operator Volter," she said quietly, her voice dropping into a careful whisper. "Helper Toma is no longer with this facility. He officially resigned three days ago."

Hide paused, his eyes narrowing slightly. "Resigned? Why?"

"He didn’t give a specific reason." She returned him the card and instead of her someone else came.

"O-Operator Volter!"

A frantic, high-pitched voice called out. The Facility Manager—a portly man in his mid-forties—came sprinting out into the lobby, panting heavily as he swept a hand through his unkempt hair.

He slid to a halt right beside the counter, bowing so low his nose nearly scraped the polished floor tiles.

"We... we were notified the exact millisecond your ring linked with our local grid! It is an absolute, unparalleled honor to have an Individual Operator of your status grace our lower-tier facility!"

Hide raised an eyebrow, keeping his face perfectly neutral. He had forgotten that Maddox had officially updated his continental status to an Independent Individual Operator. To a public facility manager an Individual Operator recognized by the NEA was like a commander himself.

"I’m just here to use my last pass," Hide said flatly, holding up the battered card.

"Nonsense! Bypassing the card entirely!" the manager cheered sycophantically, gesturing toward the secure elevator gates. "A warrior of your esteem doesn’t need plastic passes! Please, allow me to act as your personal Helper today. We have recently integrated a new Two-Star Loop Gate. It is completely clear of other trainees."

The manager scurried ahead like a frightened mouse, using his personal administrative keycard to part the heavy security gates.

Hide didn’t argue. He followed the groveling manager down the secure corridors, stepping directly onto the platform of the newly installed stasis field. Ahead of him, the portal swirled in a violent, bruised-purple vortex of corrupted mana.

The moment the stasis barrier dropped, Hide stepped through the threshold, vanishing into the gate.

The environment inside was a all rocks and nothing else. Guttural, ravenous snarls echoed from the caves as several beasts materialized, their red eyes locked onto his flesh.

"I don’t have time to play with you bastards," Hide whispered. His blue eyes flashed with a dangerous violet ring. "Zenith. Aegis."

Thick mists of dense, pitch-black mana exploded from his chest. Zenith materialized in a blur of terrifying motion, drawing his black-steel blade, while Aegis dropped like a dropped anvil, his towering, massive iron gauntlets cratering the ice. Hide didn’t lift a finger.

He stood at the same place, his hands lazily shoved into his pockets, letting his phantoms act as slaughter machine.

Zenith became a mesmerizing, lethal storm of slashes. Aegis bulled forward like an unstoppable tank, using his shield to pulverize the beasts against the walls. Hide watched the transparent blue system notifications explode across his vision in a rapid, cascading sequence.

And within the time one could count on fingers. The gate was cleared!

In exactly four minutes and fifty-two seconds, the Gatekeeper—a massive, rock plated Bear—was completely decapitated by Zenith’s armor-piercing blade.

He recalled his phantoms, stepped through the exit portal, and walked past the stunned, wide-eyed facility staff without saying a single word.

He had achieved what he came for. Zenith had reached level 10, while Aegis had reached level 5.

He himself had leveled up to 27.

Ten minutes later, Hide finally arrived at the exact coordinates Kai had transmitted and found himself standing at the base of a colossal, multi-story skyscraper towering over the Upper District of Area 17.

The glass panels reflected the cold glare of the overcast sky, its architecture reeking of the extreme wealth of corporate monopolies. Hide adjusted the collar of his jacket.

"Why the hell was I called at this place?"