It was his father.
His father was Sir Lancelot Grimm, the ruler of the entire continent. Not just one city or one region—the entire continent answered to this man. His ancestors had been the ones who unified the fractured continent centuries ago, bringing the warring territories together and overseeing the construction of all the gacities that now stood in every corner of the land.
Even more telling of Lancelot’s power was his relationship with the Citadel. The Citadel was the mysterious organization above all governnts and ruling families. Even Lancelot Grimm, the ruler of an entire continent, was rely an elder within the Citadel and didn’t dare move against it. The fact that soone of his magnitude was still subordinate to the Citadel showed just how terrifying that organization truly was.
Having Sir Lancelot Grimm as your father was essentially having a shield that no sane person would attack.
Xander cleared his throat softly, and the sound cut through the tense silence in the room like a knife. Everyone’s attention snapped to him imdiately.
"Everyone who dares to attack anyone else in here will be hunted down in the real world and killed without rcy," he said pleasantly, his voice soft and conversational, wearing a gentle smile as he spoke.
The words were delivered calmly, almost casually. But the mont they left his mouth, every single person in the room felt a chill settle deep in their stomachs. The people who had been quietly planning to make a sudden move on soone nearby imdiately abandoned those thoughts. The ones who had been slowly shifting their weight, preparing to attack, beca completely still.
This was the Divine Son speaking. Nobody could afford to gamble on whether he was serious or not.
Xander let the silence hold for a mont, letting his words sink in properly. Then he continued.
"This is insider’s information, but there’s only one slot available for Ultimate Evolution within a single trial dinsion," he said, his tone shifting to sothing more conversational, like he was sharing a secret with friends.
He paused to let that information land.
"I’d like that slot to be mine."
His voice was soft, filled with quiet confidence and absolute certainty. There was no aggression in his tone, no threats, no posturing. He simply stated it as fact, as though the outco had already been decided and he was rely informing everyone of what would happen.
Nobody argued.
"I’m sure you’d all rather give the slot of Ultimate Evolution to rather than letting so random nobody who has no idea what they’re doing achieve it instead," he continued, still smiling pleasantly. "Soone like that winning would be bad for everyone."
He let that thought hang in the air. Everyone understood the implication. A random unknown person achieving Ultimate Evolution with no political connections or established power structure behind them was genuinely unpredictable and dangerous. At least with Xander Grimm, everyone knew what they were dealing with.
"Now then. The other four people attempting Ultimate Evolution have had their information distributed. Whoever can provide with confird information about their current location will receive one Earth Grade technique manual from the Grimm family’s personal collection."
Gasps and murmurs spread through the room.
Earth Grade manuals were extraordinarily rare. Most people trained their entire lives using Human Grade techniques and considered themselves fortunate. An Earth Grade manual from the Grimm family’s collection would be a life-changing reward.
Xander’s smile remained steady. "And if you can bring their heads, the Grimm family will personally grant you one Sky Grade technique manual of your choice. Including flight technique manuals."
The room erupted.
They were in disbelief at this point and So people’s hands were literally shaking from excitent.
Sky Grade technique manuals were almost mythical in rarity. Entire university inheritance systems were built around possessing just a small collection of Sky Grade techniques. Most elite students spent their entire academic careers studying a single Sky Grade manual and never fully mastered it.
The Grimm family was offering one as a bounty reward, with free choice of which one.
"I awakened a B-Rank tracking ability during my trial," a young man near the front said imdiately, raising his hand with obvious eagerness. "Just knowing a person’s na is enough for to track their specific location anywhere within a certain radius!"
Another hand shot up before he’d even finished speaking. "I have an aura locking technique passed down through my family for five generations! Once I lock onto soone’s aura signature, they can’t disguise themselves or hide their position from !"
Then every hand in the room went up.
Everyone started talking at once, each person desperately trying to explain why their particular ability or skill would be the most useful for tracking down Vogue and the other three people on the list. The tense atmosphere of mutual suspicion dissolved completely, replaced by eager competition to be the most useful person in the room.
Xander watched the chaos with that sa gentle smile, saying nothing further.
---
On the corner of Fifth Avenue and West 34th Street in Midtown Manhattan, directly in front of the massive Empire State Building whose upper floors had beco a nesting spot for mutated Three-Legged Pigeons, Vogue stood at the entrance of Macy’s departnt store.
The famous store’s iconic red star logo was still visible above the shattered entrance doors, though the glass was long gone and the interior was dark except for ergency lighting that still ran on backup power sowhere deep in the building.
Vogue was testing his ice control ability thodically, treating this location as a training ground rather than a battlefield.
A massive wave of radiants was surging toward him from down the street, coming from the direction of Penn Station. They moved like a colony of ants—individually small, but collectively overwhelming in sheer numbers. Their golden eyes glowed in the shadows between buildings, dozens becoming hundreds becoming thousands as they poured toward him.
At the store entrance, explosions of cold energy rang out as Vogue ford ice in mid-air and shot the frozen projectiles forward like bullets.
His control was still clumsy and imprecise. The ice bullets flew at irregular speeds, and his targeting was inconsistent. He pierced through the neck of one radiant, missed the heart of the next and hit its stomach instead, then got lucky and hit a third one cleanly through the chest.
The ones he didn’t kill properly would heal rapidly thanks to the forced evolution boost the Omnibus System had applied, and they ca back at him almost imdiately after recovering.
The forced evolution had also made their protective bone structure noticeably tougher. The thick bones shielding their hearts had beco harder and denser, making it significantly more difficult for his ice blades to pierce through even when his aim was accurate.
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