SPLASH…
Cold, crystal-clear water hit Alden's face, washing away the grime, sweat, and dried blood of a week spent surviving in the untamed wilderness.
He gripped the edges of the polished marble sink, his knuckles turning white. The guest bathroom he had been given inside the Blackwood mansion was absurdly lavish. The faucets were literally carved from solid gold, and the towels felt like they were woven from clouds. It was the kind of luxury that made a person feel acutely aware of how dirty they were.
Alden grabbed one of those cloud-like towels and patted his face dry. He slowly raised his head, looking at his reflection in the massive, silver-rimmed mirror above the basin.
The face staring back at him was undeniable.
The jagged scars were gone. His skin was pale and unblemished. His messy black hair hung damp over his forehead. He reached up and adjusted the black cloth tied diagonally across his face, ensuring the empty socket of his left eye remained hidden.
But it was the right eye that made his stomach twist into a cold, heavy knot.
Ever since the drop of Fallen Angel blood had shattered his core and rewritten his biology, he started to feel a little weird about his body. His brilliant, piercing crimson eye stared back at him. It glowed faintly, even in the well-lit bathroom, swirling with the barely contained, chaotic energy of a Nephalem.
'I am a walking billboard,' Alden thought, a profound sense of doom settling over his shoulders.
How the hell was he supposed to hide the fact that he was the Human Empire's most wanted criminal? His face—his unscarred, perfectly recognizable face—had likely been printed on millions of bounty posters and circulated to every corner of the continent. One hundred billion gold coins. A bounty that massive didn't just stay within human borders. The Dwarven intelligence networks absolutely knew about him.
And an SS-Rank Demi-God? A Pillar of the Dwarf Empire?
'He probably got a personalized, magically sealed memo from the High Council the second Liam declared me a terrorist,' Alden mentally groaned, resting his forehead against the cool glass of the mirror. 'I walked right into the tiger's den and asked for a room.'
KNOCK… KNOCK… KNOCK…
Alden froze.
His heart skipped a beat. He frantically looked around the bathroom, his eyes landing on a black silk scarf draped over a nearby clothing rack. Without overthinking it, he grabbed the silk, wrapped it tightly around the lower half of his face, covering his nose, mouth, and jawline, and tied it securely behind his head.
With his eyepatch covering half his upper face and the scarf covering the bottom, he looked like a highly suspicious, heavily armed ninja.
He took a deep breath, walked out of the bathroom, and opened the heavy mahogany bedroom door just a crack.
Elian stood in the hallway, dressed in a fresh, finely tailored tunic.
"Hey," Elian said, offering a warm, genuine smile.
"The maids told me you were finished washing up. I came to call you for dinner. The cooks prepared a feast."
"I'm not hungry," Alden replied instantly, his voice muffled by the thick silk scarf.
"I think I'll just sleep. Long journey. Very tired."
GURRRRRRGLE…
The sound that erupted from Alden's stomach was so loud, so violently demanding, that it actually echoed in the quiet hallway. He hadn't eaten anything but roasted bear meat in six days.
Elian blinked, stared at Alden's midsection, and then burst into a fit of bright, uncontained laughter.
Alden closed his single red eye, a wave of profound, soul-crushing embarrassment washing over him. If the earth could just swallow him whole right now, he wouldn't even fight it.
"I don't think your stomach agrees with you," Elian chuckled, wiping a tear from his eye.
"Come on, please? Besides, my father just arrived home from the grand forge. He heard about the bandit attack and absolutely demands to meet the man who saved his children."
Alden's blood ran completely cold.
Demands.
When an SS-Ranker demanded something, it wasn't a polite request. It was an absolute law of gravity. Alden could feel the intense, primal danger screaming in the back of his mind. But where could he run? He was deep inside a heavily fortified, rune-plated mansion, guarded by an S-Rank butler and an SS-Rank Demi-God. If he tried to break through a window now, he would be swatted out of the sky like a mild annoyance.
"I see," Alden said, his voice flattening out into a deadpan monotone.
"I'll wait for you downstairs in the main dining hall," Elian smiled, entirely oblivious to the internal panic attack Alden was currently experiencing.
"Take your time. Come down whenever you're ready!"
Elian turned and walked down the plush carpet of the hallway, disappearing down the grand staircase.
Alden closed the door. He stood in the center of the lavish bedroom for a long, quiet minute.
Slowly, he reached up to the back of his head and untied the knot of the black silk scarf. It fell away, pooling in his hands.
'This is completely pointless,' Alden reasoned, a cold, sharp logic piercing through his anxiety.
Hiding his face behind a piece of fabric was an insult to an SS-Ranker's intelligence. A Demi-God whose perception was sharp enough to bend reality wouldn't be fooled by a scarf. They could see through solid mountains if they focused enough mana into their eyes. Trying to hide would only make him look guilty, desperate, and incredibly suspicious.
If he was going to face the music, he was going to do it with his chin up.
He tossed the scarf onto the bed, checked the knot on his eyepatch one last time, and ran a hand through his damp, messy black hair.
He opened the door and walked out.
As Alden descended the grand, sweeping marble staircase, the air itself began to change. The higher he was, the easier it had been to breathe. But as he neared the ground floor, approaching the massive arched doors of the dining hall, a heavy, suffocating pressure began to press down on his shoulders.
It was entirely different from Liam von Ravel's oppressive, cold gravity. This pressure was hot. It felt like walking into the mouth of an active volcano. It was the aura of a man whose very soul was forged in fire and steel.
Alden took a deep, steadying breath, forced his posture to remain perfectly straight, and stepped into the dining hall.
***
Lyra's POV
The dining hall was usually Lyra's favorite room in the estate, but tonight, she was picking at her roasted pheasant with a profound sense of boredom.
She sat near the center of the ridiculously long, polished obsidian table. Elian was seated across from her, nervously bouncing his leg up and down. At the absolute head of the table sat their father, Herman Blackwood. Even seated, her father was a mountain of a man, with a thick, braided beard the color of molten iron and arms as thick as tree trunks. His mere presence usually dictated the mood of the entire house.
Lyra rested her chin on her hand, her dark eyes staring at the empty plate set out for their guest.
She was incredibly curious about the vagabond. When he had stepped out of the shadows of the redwood trees, wrapped in that filthy green cloak, she had assumed he was just some capable mercenary down on his luck. But then he had moved. He hadn't used a single drop of mana, yet he dismantled three peak D-Rank bandits in less than five seconds using a martial art she had never heard before.
It was fluid, brutal, and breathtakingly efficient.
After returning in mansion She had asked in detailed about him from her brother Elian.
Tap… tap… tap…
The sound of calm, measured footsteps echoed from the foyer.
Lyra sat up a little straighter, brushing a stray lock of brown hair out of her face. The heavy oak doors of the dining hall were gently pushed open by Sebastian, their S-Rank butler, who bowed respectfully to allow the guest to enter.
Lyra looked up.
The moment her eyes landed on the boy walking through the doors, her heart literally stopped beating for a full second.
Her eyes widened to the size of saucers. Her fork slipped from her fingers, clattering loudly against her porcelain plate.
The filthy green cloak was gone. The hood was down. The thick layer of forest dirt had been completely washed away.
Standing there was a tall, leanly muscled boy wearing her father's old white shirt, which stretched slightly across his broad shoulders. His messy, damp black hair framed a pale, incredibly handsome face with a sharp, aristocratic jawline. A black cloth was tied diagonally across his face, covering his left eye, with a faint, silver scar peeking out from beneath the fabric.
But it wasn't the eyepatch that made Lyra's breath catch in her throat.
It was the eye that remained.
A single, piercing, luminescent crimson eye. It glowed with a quiet, chaotic intensity, scanning the room with the detached, absolute calm of a predator assessing a new environment.
Lyra's brain short-circuited.
It was a complete nonsense to think she wouldn't recognize him. She didn't just know who he was; she knew exactly how he moved, how he fought, and how he stood.
She had been there.
Months ago, during the Inter-Academy Tournament in the Human Empire, Lyra had proudly represented the Dwarven academies. She was a prodigy of rune-crafting, fully expecting to make it to the finals. Instead, her team had been brutally eliminated in the very first round.
Humiliated but refusing to leave, she had stayed in the spectator stands to watch the remaining matches.
And that was when she saw him.
Alden von Astra. The anomaly of the Human Academy. The boy who walked onto the grand stages looking half-asleep, only to completely dismantle the greatest prodigies of their generation with terrifying, spatial one-tap kills.
She had been absolutely mesmerized. From that very first match, Lyra had developed a fierce, obsessive admiration for him. He didn't boast. He didn't scream his attack names. He just moved, space warped around him, and his enemies fell.
She had literally purchased a high-grade magical recording crystal of his personal tournament fights. She had watched the VODs more than a hundred times in the privacy of her room, studying his footwork, marveling at the sheer, cold efficiency of his strikes.
She had desperately wanted to approach him after the final match. To talk to him, to ask him about his spatial theories. But before she could even weave through the crowds, the demonic incursion had shattered the sky. The tournament dissolved into chaos, and her father's elite guard had immediately forcibly evacuated her and Elian back to the Dwarf Empire for their safety.
For weeks, she had wondered what happened to the quiet, brilliant boy who had stolen her absolute attention.
And then, a few days ago, the imperial gazettes had arrived.
She had seen the poster. The S-Rank Existential Threat. The Traitor of Humanity. The hundred-billion-gold bounty.
Lyra had been so furious she had nearly shattered her favorite runic anvil. She knew the politics of the human High Council. They were corrupt, arrogant hypocrites. She knew, deep in her bones, that the boy who had fought with such clean, disciplined precision couldn't be a demonic terrorist. She had wanted to march right into the Human Empire and punch the face of whatever SS-Rank coward had branded her idol a criminal.
But she was just a student. She was powerless to change international decrees.
And now?
Now, the boy she had dreamed about, the 'Star' she had idolized from afar, was standing in her own dining room. The vagabond who had effortlessly saved her life on a muddy forest road was none other than 'Alden' himself.
A massive, overwhelming wave of pure, unadulterated happiness bubbled up inside Lyra's chest. She felt like jumping out of her chair, running across the room, and screaming. She wanted to ask him a thousand questions. She wanted to ask what happened to his eye.
But she couldn't.
Because sitting at the head of the table, radiating the heat of a dormant volcano, was her father.
Lyra bit the inside of her cheek so hard she tasted iron, physically forcing herself to remain glued to her chair, her hands trembling with suppressed excitement in her lap.
Across the table, Elian was having a very different reaction.
Elian had also seen the wanted posters. As Alden stepped fully into the light, recognizing the face beneath the eyepatch, all the color instantly drained from Elian's face. He began to sweat profusely, his eyes darting frantically between the boy who had saved him and the father who could vaporize a mountain.
Thump...
Herman Blackwood slowly placed his massive silver goblet onto the table.
The sound felt incredibly loud.
The SS-Rank Demi-God turned his massive, bearded head, his deep, earth-brown eyes locking directly onto Alden.
The air in the room grew unspeakably heavy. The atmospheric pressure skyrocketed, pressing down on everyone present. Lyra felt it. Elian whimpered softly.
Alden stopped walking. He stood near the end of the table, his spine perfectly straight, meeting the SS-Ranker's gaze with his single, glowing crimson eye. He didn't bow. He didn't reach for a weapon. He just stood there, bracing for the inevitable.
Herman's thick, bushy eyebrows slowly drew together. He narrowed his eyes, leaning forward slightly in his massive chair, inspecting the boy from head to toe.
The silence stretched on for five, agonizing seconds.
And then, Herman's expression shifted.
There was no sudden explosion of killing intent. There was no hostility. The terrifying, volcanic pressure in the air didn't turn aggressive; it simply remained heavy, curious, and deeply analytical.
Herman let out a low, rumbling hum that vibrated the silverware on the table.
"So," the Demi-God's voice boomed, deep and resonant. "You're the little human anomaly that's currently making the High Council soil their pristine white robes."
Herman leaned back in his chair, a slow, incredibly dangerous grin spreading beneath his iron-grey beard.
"Take a seat, boy. We have a lot to talk about."