The night air in the loading dock had gone deathly still. The low-rank awakeners stood frozen in a ragged half-circle, their earlier cocky laughter strangled in their throats. Boots scraped backward as James Vanderbilt stepped fully into the sodium-lit space. His footsteps echoed as hammer strikes on concrete, each one measured, unhurried, the sound bouncing off the chain-link fence and overflowing dumpsters. The silver Apex Vanguard pin on his lapel caught the light like a blade.
Kang Min-ho's iron gauntlets clattered as his arms dropped. His whole body began to shiver, knees knocking together so hard the plates rattled. He recognized the man instantly—the Guild Master of Apex Vanguard, the one whose guild cleared S-rank gates before breakfast and whose wife's void rifts could erase entire raid parties without a trace. Kang bent at the waist, head lowered so fast it nearly cracked against his own knee.
"G-Guild Master Vanderbilt, sir! we—"
James didn't even glance at him. His eyes—those same piercing blue ones Lucas would one day inherit—softened the moment they landed on the battered nineteen-year-old still curled on the ground. He crossed the remaining distance in three long strides and crouched, one hand gently gripping Lucas's shoulder.
"Are you alright, kid?"
Lucas blinked blood and sweat from his lashes. His ribs screamed with every shallow breath, his lip split open, one eye already swelling shut. He stared up at the godlike figure in the tailored suit who smelled of expensive cologne and raw power. Why the hell was the leader of the top-three guild asking him that? He managed a weak, bloody smile.
"I live."
James's lips curved into a small, almost paternal smirk. He slid an arm under Lucas's back and helped him to his feet with surprising gentleness. "Can you walk?"
Lucas tested his legs. They shook, but they held. He nodded, confused, dazed, the world tilting slightly.
The attackers remained rooted in place, silent, eyes wide with dawning horror. None of them understood what was happening. This was supposed to be a simple beating of a street leech. How had it become this?
James guided Lucas toward the lead SUV, one steady hand on the boy's back. As they passed the line of his own escort—six elite B-rank enforcers in matte-black tactical suits—James paused. His voice carried across the dock, quiet, almost bored.
"Kill them."
The command landed like a death sentence.
The enforcers moved before the words had even finished echoing.
What followed was not a fight. It was an execution.
The first enforcer—a tall woman with a shimmering ice-manipulation class—stepped forward. Her hands flicked outward. Frost exploded across the ground in jagged spikes. The two female attackers tried to run; the ice caught their ankles mid-stride, shattering bone with wet cracks. One woman screamed as the frost raced up her legs, freezing flesh solid.
The enforcer simply walked past and drove a mana-infused fist through her chest—straight through ribs and heart. Blood sprayed in a wide arc, steaming as it hit the frozen ground. The second woman managed a weak wind-blast spell; the enforcer caught the gust in an icy palm and redirected it back, flaying the woman's face open in long, ragged strips. Skin peeled away like wet paper. She collapsed, gurgling, eyes wide in shock as her own blood choked her.
Two male attackers charged the next enforcer—a broad-shouldered man whose class manifested as living shadow chains. The chains erupted from his palms like black serpents, wrapping around the first man's arms and yanking them outward with brutal force. Shoulders dislocated with loud pops. The chains tightened, digging into muscle, sawing through skin until blood poured in thick sheets. The man howled as his arms were torn free at the elbows—raw stumps spurting arterial spray that painted the concrete in wide, glossy fans.
The second attacker tried to summon a fire shield; the shadow chains pierced straight through the flames, coiled around his throat, and lifted him off the ground. His legs kicked uselessly while the chain constricted, crushing his windpipe with a sickening crunch. His face purpled, eyes bulging, tongue lolling as blood vessels burst in his sclera. The enforcer twisted once—snap—and the body went limp, dropped like garbage.
Kang Min-ho tried to run. His iron gauntlets flared with C-rank strength as he swung wildly at the third enforcer—a slender man whose class was pure velocity. The enforcer blurred. One moment, he stood ten feet away; the next, he was behind Kang, knee driving upward into the base of his spine. Vertebrae shattered with a sound like breaking branches. Kang screamed, legs buckling.
The velocity enforcer didn't stop. He grabbed Kang's hair, slammed his face into the concrete once, twice, three times—each impact splitting skin, cracking bone, spraying teeth and blood across the ground in wet chunks. Kang's nose flattened, one eye popped from its socket, dangling by the optic nerve.
He gurgled something that might have been a plea. The enforcer simply stomped down on the back of his head. The skull gave way with a wet, hollow crunch. Brain matter and bone fragments splattered outward in a starburst pattern.
The last two attackers—a B-rank earth manipulator and his partner—tried to fight back desperately. The earth user slammed his palms down, raising a jagged stone wall between himself and the remaining enforcers. It bought him three seconds. The fourth enforcer, whose class allowed him to phase through solid matter, simply walked straight through the wall like it was smoke. He emerged inside the barrier, grabbed the earth user by the jaw, and twisted. The neck snapped so violently the head spun nearly full circle, vertebrae grinding like gravel.
The partner tried to flee; the fifth enforcer—a woman with lightning class—raised one hand. A bolt of pure white energy lanced out, striking the man in the back. His body convulsed violently, muscles locking, skin blackening and peeling away in smoking sheets. The smell of charred meat filled the air as his organs cooked from the inside. He dropped to his knees, still twitching, mouth open in a silent scream while blue-white arcs danced across his teeth. The lightning enforcer stepped closer and placed her palm against his forehead. Another surge—brighter, louder. His skull exploded outward in a fountain of cooked brain and bone shrapnel.
The entire slaughter lasted less than ninety seconds.
Lucas stood beside the open SUV door, supported by James's steady hand on his shoulder. He watched every second. Blood soaked the concrete in wide, glistening pools. Body parts lay scattered—arms still twitching, a severed head staring sightlessly at the sky, entrails steaming in the cool night air.
The coppery stench of blood mixed with the acrid burn of lightning and the cold bite of ice. Not one of the attackers had lasted longer than ten heartbeats once the order was given.
Power.
This was what real power looked like.
Not the petty bullying of low-rank thugs. Not the failed awakening chamber that had rejected him. This was the ability to erase seven lives in under two minutes and feel nothing. Lucas's pulse thundered in his ears. His bruised body ached, but something deeper—something cold and hungry—stirred in his chest for the first time in years.
James guided him into the back seat of the lead SUV without another word. The door closed with a soft, expensive click. The convoy pulled away smoothly, tires rolling over the carnage without hesitation.
Behind them, Marcus—the secretary—stepped out of the final vehicle. His hands moved in precise patterns, mana flowing from his fingertips in silver threads. The blood sank into the concrete and vanished. Shattered bone and torn flesh dissolved into harmless dust carried away on a sudden, unnatural wind. The bodies simply ceased to exist. Illusions rippled across the loading dock, restoring the scene to its original dirty, empty state. In less than a minute, every trace was gone.
No blood. No screams. No evidence that seven people had ever stood there at all.
The SUVs disappeared into the Seoul night, carrying Lucas Reed toward a life he had never dared imagine.