Hide sat in the deepest corner of a dimly lit, high-backed private booth, his cold blue eyes fixed on the condensation sliding down his glass.
He didn’t rember the walk here. After the Joker had vanished through the high factory window, leaving nothing behind but a synthetic patch of dark hair, Hide had walked straight out into the main thoroughfares of Area 17.
He had been in such a state of internal numbness that he completely neglected to pull his hood up or map his movent through the shadows.
That careless lapse in situational awareness had cost him dearly. Within minutes, a group of late-night pedestrians had spotted his distinct silver-white hair jacket. The live-stread network boards had done their job too well; voices had imdiately begun shouting across the concrete avenue, identifying him as the viral vigilante the people were calling "Black Justice."
All hell had broken loose in seconds. Crowds had surged forward with their tracking devices flashing, forcing Hide to use Phantom Step twice in rapid succession to distort his coordinates, breaking their line of sight before ducking into the first random restaurant entrance he could find.
Now, he was isolated inside a premium area that he had summarily booked for two hours. He needed the quarantine. He needed to think.
Silver-white hair.
The detail sat in his mind like a shard of ice. Ever since his late awakening, Hide had been going around like an anomaly. Yet, the Joker—the very entity who had orchestrated his entry into the Spot Dungeon, who knew secrets about his mother’s murder, and who carried himself like a walking natural disaster—shared that exact sa hair color.
A terrifying, suffocating thought crawled up from the depths of his mory, making the blood inside his veins run completely cold.
Could the Joker be related to ?
Hide’s knuckles turned white as his hands balled into tight fists against his knees. His mind frantically replayed every piece of dialogue they had ever exchanged.
Was it possible that the man behind the porcelain mask was... his father?
"No," Hide muttered sharply aloud, violently shaking his head to shatter the internal monologue. "That’s impossible. My father vanished even before I was born. It can’t be that fucker."
Tap, tap.
A crisp knock on the biotric door fra cut through the heavy silence. The reinforced composite panel slid open with a soft chanical hiss, and Kai stepped into the private booth.
The young mage looked completely drained. Instead of his rigid corporate suit or standard training gear, he was wearing a loose, comfortable set of ho clothes. It was well past 10:00 PM at this point—the specific hour where most responsible, baseline citizens were already asleep in their residential quadrants.
And after the sheer psychological and physical whiplash Kai had endured today at the Green Horn Monolith, his body desperately required rest.
"You look like hell," Kai muttered dryly, dropping his weight into the leather seat opposite Hide.
"I’ve had a busy evening," Hide replied flatly, his face smoothly reassembling into its default mask of detached calm.
An automated server terminal rose from the center of the table, its digital interface flashing with a selection of late-night items. They traded a few quick, standard pleasantries as they scanned the nu. In the end, Kai tapped the interface to order a hot milk bottle to soothe his frayed nervous system, while Hide nonchalantly selected a strong black coffee.
It was, objectively speaking, an arguably terrible choice for a human body close to midnight. But the mont Hide swallowed the bitter liquid, it didn’t feel any different than normal. Ever since his awakening, his body had beco entirely resistant to basic chemical stimulants and organic fatigue factors. Caffeine didn’t affect his heart rate any more than a standard drop of water.
Kai set his hot milk down, his expression turning intensely serious as he leaned across the table. "Alright, Hide. Cut the gas. Why did you call out here so late? Back at the plaza, you blurted out that you’re going to open an independent Extermination Agency. Do you have any idea what you’re actually talking about?"
Hide took another slow sip of his coffee. "I’m perfectly clear, Kai."
"The hell you are!" Kai hissed, lowering his voice to prevent the audio dampeners from tracking his frequency. "Registering a new agency with the National Exterminator Agency isn’t just about having credits or a shiny office layout. It’s governed by strict federal criteria. To even clear the primary registry, you need a minimum team of ten registered, active Awakeners."
Kai began counting on his fingers with frantic accuracy. "Out of those ten, you need a core combat vanguard squad of at least five people, led by a Captain who holds a verified B-Rank status. And the overarching Director—the Leader who signs the deed—must explicitly be an active, high-tier A-Rank."
Kai dropped his hands, his eyes drilling into his best friend’s face. "Hide... you just cleared your breakthrough paraters. You are currently only an E-Rank. You don’t et a single tric on the ledger."
Hide watched the panic vibrating in Kai’s posture, and a slow, razor-sharp smile gradually spread across his pale features.
"Don’t sweat the administrative rank requirent," Hide murmured smoothly, his voice dropping into a tone that instantly caught Kai’s interest. "I’m not planning on filling the registry legally. I’ll simply procure a certified, active S-Rank powerhouse to anchor our Director slot for a brief transition period. Once the technical clearance goes through and my own evolution percentage hits the threshold, they’ll simply transfer the leadership deed back to . How does that sound?"
Kai completely short-circuited. His jaw dropped to the table, his eyes widening in complete, unadulterated paralysis.
"A... a S-Rank?!" Kai stamred, his voice cracking into a high pitch. "Are you insane? There are only ten of them active nationwide! Where the hell are you going to find an S-Rank powerhouse who is willing to act as a placeholder for a lower-block startup?"
"Oh, don’t worry about that," Hide replied nonchalantly, turning his empty coffee glass around. "I already got one in my pocket long ago. No problem."
Kai stared at him, desperately trying to calculate if Hide had finally lost his sanity during his field missions. "Okay... let’s assu you’re not joking about the muscle. What about the logistics? Who is going to run our data processing, our trade center inventory, our contract managent, and our corporate accounting? Neither of us knows how to process that kind of paperwork."
"Oh, that?" Hide shrugged, standing up from the leather booth. "I have the exact right guy for that too. He has accounting experience with private agencies, and he can even fight."
Kai opened his mouth, a dozen more furious questions pushing up his throat, but Hide cut him off cleanly with a sharp, commanding wave of his hand.
"Listen to carefully, Kai," Hide stated, his blue eyes flashing with absolute authority. "You don’t need to worry about the ledger. Your only parater right now is to pack your things. Be standing on your rooftop tomorrow morning at exactly 0540 sharp. Do not be a single minute late. You are going to Area 5 with tomorrow."
Without waiting for a response, Hide turned on his heel, tossed a stack of credit bills onto the service panel to cover the bill, and walked out of the restaurant. The mont he cleared the periter exit doors, he stepped into a blind spot beneath a broken streetlight and used Phantom Step, his figure instantly blurring into the midnight shadows as he navigated the narrow alleys back to his apartnt undisturbed.
The walk ho was pleasant, silent, and completely unbothered by the crowds. Hide arrived at Unit 4M, packed his travel bag, which was already half packed and fell into a deep, clinical sleep.
The digital tracking display on his ring pulsed, signaling exactly 5:00 AM.
Hide snapped his eyes open, fully recovered. He stood up, walked into the main room, and reached toward the primary housing module mounted on the ceiling structure. With a smooth, practiced twist of his fingers, he forcefully pulled out the main working logic chip belonging to his ho AI, CASS.
The speakers clicked softly as her robotic template safely shut down into standby mode.
He pocketed the chip, grabbed his travel bag, and stepped out into the corridor, manually sliding the heavy iron deadbolts into their maximum security lock positions.
Moving with swift, high-tier agility, Hide navigated the steps up to the building’s open rooftop. The morning air was freezing, carrying the familiar smog of the lower blocks.
Focusing inward, Hide opened the floodgates of his Dark Abyssal Core, pouring thick columns of corrupted violet mana out.
"Materialize, Petra," Hide commanded ntally.
With a muffled sonic boom, the Rank-D flying phantom beast core exploded into reality. The colossal shadow bird unfurled its massive obsidian wings, its hollow eye-sockets glowing brilliantly in the grey morning light. Hide leaped gracefully onto its sleek, smoke-ringed crest, settling his balance firmly against the feathers.
BOOM!
Petra tucked her massive wings and launched off the roof, transforming instantly into a terrifying, sound-speed missile.
The velocity was... too fast. Within the span of exactly three blinks of an eye, they had crossed the entire lower district quadrants. The brutal force of the G-force violently whipped Hide’s silver hair around his ears like a nest of lashing white snakes, but his face remained a complete mask of ice.
The colossal phantom bird decelerated smoothly, landing heavily onto the smooth roof tiles of Kai’s family residence at precisely 0540 sharp.
Kai was standing near the access ledger, his travel bag clutched tightly in his hand. The mont the massive, dark-plated shadow monster touched down, blowing a hurricane of wind across the roof, Kai completely froze in bone-chilling terror. His face went entirely pale as he stared up at the hollow, glowing eye-sockets of the avian beast.
"What... what the fuck is that thing, Hide?!" Kai shrieked, his legs visibly shaking as he took a frantic step backward toward the entrance.
"It’s our ride," Hide sighed dryly, rolling his shoulders. "Get on. We don’t have ti to argue with Maddox’s clock."
It took Hide a full, frustrated couple of minutes of ruthless convincing and flat-out threats to force the terrified mage to climb onto the smoky back of the phantom. The mont Kai finally hooked his hands securely around Hide’s waist, Hide gave the ntal command.
BOOM!
Petra rocketed into the upper stratosphere using Sonic Flight. They sliced through the atmospheric boundaries at a stomach-churning velocity, leaving Area 17 far behind them.
At exactly 5:49 AM sharp, the shadow bird descended gracefully onto the roof periter of a towering governntal skyscraper in the hyper-affluent central ring of Area 5.
Hide stood perfectly upright on the concrete sill, his hands loosely buried back into his pockets as he surveyed the pristine, purified skyline.
Beside him, the flight had taken a catastrophic toll on his companion. Kai was dropped down on both knees, his pristine travel bag discarded as he heaved, retched, and choked violently against the masonry, his entire body trembling as if he were hovering on the absolute brink of imdiate death.
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