The violent golden aura that had promised the protection of an absolute, S-Ranked artifact collapsed in a ragged spray of dying sparks.
The Vice Leader lay sprawled on the shattered concrete plaza, coughing up thick crimson fluid. His pristine dark designer suit was shredded, soaked through with blood and scorched.
The ancient obsidian necklace clutched in his trembling fingers had gone entirely cold.
All his confidence, his corporate prestige, and the untouchable arrogance of being a superior A-Rank warrior had been broken within a single second.
"Stay... stay back..." the Vice Leader rasped, his voice a whimper as he looked up. Using his bare elbows, he scrambled frantically backward, desperately putting distance between himself and the terrifying teenager standing before him. "Don’t co near ! You monster!"
Hide stood a few paces away, his hands were now empty. His hair drifted lazily in the wind, and his glowing blue eyes remained fixed on the crawling man with a bone-chilling detachnt.
"Security! Suppress him!" the Vice Leader suddenly shrieked, his bloodshot eyes snapping toward the line of internal guards who had been increase to 8 in the anti. "Fire! Put a round through his skull! Make him stop!"
The professional, fully geared guards flinched under the manic authority of their superior officer. Their jaws tightening, they raised their laser rifles in unison, locking the tracking line directly onto Hide’s chest and head.
Hide didn’t do anything.
Instead, a ominous dark mist escaped his body.
The sudden, violent surge of pitch-black, corrupted mana ford a thick wall of dark mist.
From the absolute center of that swirling darkness, a towering silhouette materialized in a smooth blur.
Zenith stepped out onto the stage. The four-foot-tall phantom’s featureless visor pulsed with a dangerous, brilliant blue light, its dark-plated gauntlets instantly drawing the heavy black-steel blade.
SWIIISH.
Before the guards could even register what had happened, Zenith moved using Phantom Step. The massive monster weaved seamlessly across the entire security line within a single fraction of a second.
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
A rapid succession of tallic snaps echoed across the plaza. Within the span of a single heartbeat, the barrels of all rifles were cleanly cut in half, dropping heavily to the concrete stones like useless pipes.
Zenith finalized the motion by spinning his black sword backward, settling to one knee directly between Hide and the disard security force, waiting like an obedient monunt of death.
The soldiers froze in absolute, bone-chilling terror, staring down at their severed weapon fras with wide, pale faces. Not a single one dared to attempt reaching for a secondary sidearm.
By now, the entire multi-story corporate building had completely emptied out. Hundreds of office employees, administrative boards, and exterminators were packed tightly behind the glass panels of the upper tiers, looking out from the wide windows in profound disbelief.
Standing right at the entrance were Kai and Director Raymond. Kai was entirely still, his fists clutched to his sides.
Raymond stood beside his son, his wrinkled, stress-worn face completely frozen as he witnessed the literal devastation of the power that had held his corporate assets hostage for years.
The internal combat squads and reserve Exterminators inside the Green Horn building didn’t even attempt to co out and help their fallen branch leader.
They were seasoned fighters, and looking out at the towering, dark-plated leviathan of Zenith, they knew that stepping onto that plaza ant imdiate execution.
Even the citizens and so dia that had made it on ti, along the periter pronade took several frantic steps backward, their hands trembling as they adjusted their lenses.
"You freak... I’ll kill you myself!"
Suddenly, a loud, desperate roar tore through the quiet. The captain of the exterminator team that had arrived later... refused to accept the absolute surrender.
He summoned a massive, heavy iron mace wrapped in violent ripples of concussive force.
He lunged directly at Hide’s flank, dropping his weight to throw a full-force, skull-crushing swing with the mace.
But the mont his boots crossed into an appropriate distance...
BOOM!
Hide activated Mana Press.
The captain’s knees instantly exploded inward against the pavent, and he was forcefully and brutally slamd flat into the ground face-first. The captain lay there, pinned like an insect under a glass block.
This was a warning enough for anyone else to not try anything stupid.
All of this was being stread live across the internet. Online, the view counts were multiplying by hundreds of thousands every minute.
The comnt threads were going completely insane, exploding into a chaotic frenzy of public shock and unmitigated hype:
"WHAT THE HELL AM I WATCHING?!"
"Is that person seriously an A Rank? Looks like a fraud!!"
"Is that kid really listed as an E-Rank?!"
Hide slowly walked forward, until he stood directly over the Vice Leader. He crouched down casually, his silver hair casting a cold shadow across the bleeding man’s face.
"You can see quite fine with one eye, right?" Hide murmured.
The Vice Leader’s pupils violently shrank, a sudden surge of primal, survivalist terror overriding his shock. Gritting his teeth he jumped back three ters, his right hand flashing with purple energy as he activated his talent again.
With a frantic, tallic hiss, the purple mana condensed and bent, materializing a heavy, jagged mana chain with a wickedly curved knife attached to the tip. He threw his arm forward, launching the serrated knife straight toward Hide’s face.
Hide didn’t even raise an arm to parry. He simply walked into the trajectory.
CRACK!
The mont the mana knife made contact with Hide’s skin, the weapon broke, the links of the chain exploding into millions of harmless, dissipating purple particles.
"Im... Impossible..." the Vice Leader choked out, his talent entirely wiped out. "What have you done? What the fuck did you do to ?!"
Hide lunged forward in a smooth motion, thick, skintight dark tal scales punched out through his hand in overlapping plates, turning his fingers into a set of brutal, razor-sharp black talons.
SPLAAAAT.
He drove his scaled fingers directly into the Vice Leader’s right socket, cleanly and completely gouging out one of his eyes.
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