The attacker's molten hand hung raised over Zekai's unconscious body.
One strike. That was all this took.
Then—
The dust drifting through the shattered wall stopped mid-air.
Fragments of concrete hung suspended, motionless.
The smoke stopped swirling.
Even the magma flickering in his palm lost its rhythm.
...
Step.
One measured footstep cut cleanly through the ruined room.
Step.
Another.
Step.
Each calm footfall carried an inexplicable weight that suffocated the atmosphere.
The masked man turned, slow.
"..."
His pupils shrank.
A silhouette walked out of the drifting dust, hands tucked into the pockets of a long black coat, moving through the wreckage like none of it belonged to his world.
Magma light played across a face that gave nothing back.
Something cold crawled up the attacker's spine.
"...You."
The suspended dust dropped to the floor all at once, like gravity had just remembered it existed.
"Aldric Marune."
Aldric's gaze moved across the room, unhurried.
Sebastian, slumped against the wall.
Zekai, motionless, blood pooling beneath him.
His eyes lingered there half a second too long. Something shifted, barely, across his face.
"...So it happened."
Helden had called this one for himself. Aldric had simply gotten there first.
His gaze moved again. Iris. Barely breathing. Blood soaking through her clothes. His eyes stopped on the blood beneath her. Just for half a second too long.
Silence dropped over the ruined chamber. Aldric let out a slow breath.
"...Mmm."
He walked over to a scorched, overturned chair, dragged it across the floor with a long screech, and set it in the middle of the room.
Then he sat. One leg crossed over the other. A tired sigh left him.
"Today's been terrible."
He pressed two fingers to the bridge of his nose.
"I really can't afford to lose anyone else on my watch."
His eyes settled on the masked man, cold and unblinking.
"So. Surrender."
The attacker's eyebrow twitched under the mask.
"...Still another arrogant idiot trying to save him?"
His magma flared.
"You people never shut up!"
No warning. He thrust both molten palms straight at Zekai's exposed skull.
"Magma Flame!"
BOOOOM!!
A torrent of white-hot magma shot toward the unconscious young man.
Then it stopped.
Not a barrier. Not a shield he could see. It simply quit moving forward, hanging there, less than a meter from Zekai's face.
The attacker blinked, jaw dropping. "...What?" He forced more energy through his hands, veins standing out along his forearms.
The fire didn't budge another inch.
"What the hell is this?!"
He scanned the room, frantic. No glowing wall. No chains. No Grave Art carved anywhere he could see.
His breathing sped up.
"What... is holding it?"
Aldric hadn't moved from the chair. He wasn't even looking at the flame.
The attacker's teeth ground together as he tried to force it forward through sheer will alone.
Nothing.
Then—
BANG!
Something invisible slammed into his arm.
GHK!
He flew sideways, crashing through a cracked section of wall, chunks of masonry raining down around him. He shoved himself back up, coughing through the dust.
"..."
His eyes stayed locked on Aldric, still sitting exactly where he'd been.
He never moved his hands...
He didn't even draw a weapon... Then what the hell just hit me...?
A cold bead of sweat ran under his mask. For the very first time since the infiltration began... uncertainty entered his mind.
"...You arrogant bastard." His pride cracked wide open. Every last drop of remaining Grave Energy detonated outward in one violent surge.
"MAGMA FLAME!!"
A bigger inferno tore loose, swallowing the entire room in white-orange fire, rushing at Aldric from every direction at once.
Aldric sat still. His face didn't change. He didn't even glance up at the wall of flame closing in.
The fire reached him—
—and shattered.
Like waves breaking against a cliff nobody could see. The flames scattered into harmless sparks and died out before they'd finished falling.
Silence swallowed the room again. The attacker's breathing turned ragged.
"...Impossible."
His fists clenched. The magma condensed, twisting into the shape of a massive molten blade.
"If fire won't kill you—" his eyes had gone wild behind the mask, "—I'll cut you apart piece by piece!"
He swung. A blazing arc of compressed magma tore through the air.
Then another.
Another.
Another.
Each slash was powerful enough to cleave reinforced steel. Each one vanished against that same invisible wall.
Nothing reached Aldric. Not once.
"...Fight me like a man!" His voice cracked with the strain.
Aldric finally spoke. "...Done?"
"..."
That one calm word landed harder than any of the blows he'd thrown. Veins pulsed under the mask.
"You—"
"You mentioned your grandfather earlier." Aldric's tone stayed level, posture relaxed. "Who is he?"
A twisted smile spread beneath the cloth.
"Finally. Someone in the Bureau asks the right question." Laughter, high and unstable, rang through the ruin.
"He saw the False Dawn."
"And he saw..." his eyes burned with fanatic conviction, "—the exact day your precious monster ends everything."
He leveled the molten sword at Zekai's still body.
"He should've been slaughtered before he ever awakened his Grave Energy!"
"I'll kill you first!"
He lunged with everything left in him, the massive blade driving straight for Aldric's chest.
Aldric rose from the chair. Unhurried.
He lifted both hands. He didn't grab the metal. He wasn't touching it at all.
CLANG!!
The blade never reached him. It stopped, hanging in the thirty centimeters of empty air between his palms.
Something invisible held it dead in place.
The attacker's eyes went wide enough to hurt.
"...How—" His voice shook, real fear bleeding through now. "How are you doing this?!"
Aldric answered with silence.
Then—
THUD.
His boot caught the man square in the gut, no wind-up, no flash of energy, no visible technique at all.
The man simply launched backward like something fired from a cannon.
CRAAASH!!
He tore through another concrete wall and hit the floor of the outer corridor hard, blood pooling beneath the mask. Despite everything, he started laughing.
"You think blocking me changes anything today? You think your precious Headquarters is safe? We're already inside every section of this place!"
Aldric stepped through the new hole in the wall, unbothered.
"That's your play? That's it?"
The man's grin widened, blood staining the cloth over his mouth.
"You still don't get it."
Aldric stopped walking.
"From the second I stepped into this building—"
"—it was already over."
He laughed harder, coughing up more blood with it.
"What a joke."
At that exact moment—
Bzzzt.
Static tore through the earpiece secured behind his mask.
"...Little Boss..."
The signal cracked, degrading fast. Gunfire crackled in the background under panicked, ragged breathing.
"...we're being pushed back..."
The attacker's smile held.
"Idiots. Hold your positions."
Another explosion ripped through the feed.
Then—
"Negative!" A voice, terrified, cutting through the noise. "Everlight's broken through the eastern sector!"
Metal crashed somewhere behind the transmission. Someone screamed, and the feed cut off mid-sound.
"The Barrier Division sealed the building! Every exit's closed!"
His smile finally cracked and fell.
"...What did you say?"
Another voice seized the channel, breathless.
"Squad Nine! The Order came out of nowhere—"
"We can't hold them off!"
A heavy impact cut the line, bodies hitting the ground one after another over the static.
"—Containment's reached the underground corridors! They're sealing every level!"
"Our Grave Arts don't work in their suppression field! We can't break the perimeter!"
His jaw locked so hard his teeth threatened to crack.
"...Impossible."
Another report, more frantic than the last.
"Medical's already evacuated the wounded!"
"Intelligence identified every one of us!"
"Our covers are blown!" Someone screamed, pure terror in the voice. "They knew exactly where every one of us was standing!"
Gunfire tore through the feed, then cut to silence. A calm, level voice replaced it.
"BSA Special Investigation Team One speaking."
"Hostile squad twenty-one secured."
A second voice followed, just as clean.
"Special Investigation Team Three. Hostile squad thirty-four captured."
A third.
"Containment Division."
"Underground sectors cleared."
Another.
"Barrier Division."
"Dimensional Lock restored."
"No unauthorized spatial movement detected."
Silence.
Just static.
Then one last broken voice made it through.
"...Little Boss..."
Gunfire. Ragged breathing.
"...there are too many of them..."
A wet cough.
"We thought this place was just a government office."
An explosion, distant.
"...it's a fortress."
Another blast.
Then the line went dead.
Connection Lost.
✦ End of Chapter 36 — The Man Who Never Drew His Weapon ✦