Chapter 126: Risa’s Father
The air on the high-altitude rooftop where Hide currently stood... didn’t carry the sweet air from below.
Up here, perched on the cold, weathered concrete edge of an abandoned factory the atmosphere was thick with the slow-moving, grease-tinted smog that continuously bled from the factories of the lower quadrants.
Hide sat silently, his long legs dangling casually over the multi-hundred-meter vertical drop. His fingers were loosely hooked into the pockets of his jacket, his face an unreadable mask of chilling indifference.
He tilted his head back, his gaze narrowing as he scanned the overcast sky. The moon was nothing more than a muffled, bruised smudge behind the blanket of grey industrial haze. The stars were entirely invisible, snuffed out by the pollution of Area 17. The only light capable of breaking through the dense twilight was the rhythmic, clinical blinking of the crimson beacons mounted to the tips of neighboring corporate skyscrapers.
Hide observed the mechanical blinking with a profound, growing sense of emotional detachment.
As the cold night wind lashed against his pale face, his pulse remained entirely flat. His hands weren’t shaking. There was no residual rush of frantic adrenaline, no spark of juvenile triumph, and absolutely no trace of human guilt.
The Dark Abyssal Core spinning deep within his chest didn’t just refine corrupted mana; its heavy, sovereign presence was slowly, systematically numbing his human responses. He was becoming an elite hunter, adapting not just in flesh, but in his psychology. The fragile, desperate boy who had screamed in the lower-quadrant classroom felt like a ghost belonging to an entirely different lifetime.
Tap.
A crisp, micro-pressurized vibration rippled through the concrete tiles directly to Hide’s left.
Hide froze instantly.
Every single nerve fiber in his body locked up as an icy spike of pure survival instinct slammed into his brain. His True Sight and passive detection traits had been fully active.
Yet, it felt as if the space beside him had simply skipped a frame.
Fsssshh.
Instinct overriding logic, Hide opened the floodgates of his core, dark violet mist instantly boiling out from his shadow as he prepared to manifest Zenith.
But the dark mana didn’t even have the opportunity to solidify.
A figure casually stepped out from the shifting folds of the atmospheric distortion, entirely ignoring the bubbling dark energy, and calmly sat down on the concrete edge right beside Hide. He dropped his legs over the abyss, resting his palms on his knees with a lazy, terrifying ease.
Hide’s breath caught in his throat. He forcefully halted Zenith’s materialization, the violet smoke dissipating back into his skin as he slowly turned his head to look at the uninvited guest.
The man looked to be in his late thirties. He was built remarkably compact, his physical mass perfectly distributed. He wore a dark, structured utility coat devoid of any agency insignia or identification tags. Reeking off his form wasn’t the chaotic, roaring mana of a fighter,, instead it was an absolute, suffocating vacuum. The air around him didn’t even vibrate. He was a master who had trained the art of stealth and spatial displacement to absolute, flawless perfection.
A ghost clad in human flesh.
"Relax, kid," the man spoke softly, his voice remarkably calm, carrying the low, sturdier resonance of an elite predator. He didn’t look at Hide. He simply stared out at the blinking red lights of the corporate monopolies. "If I wanted to sever your carotid artery, your head would have hit ground below forty minutes ago."
Hide’s jaw visibly clenched, a dull ache rising in his chest as his mind short-circuited. He was confused, and for the first time in weeks, a genuine trace of fear crawled up his spine. He had prided himself on his evolution, on his ability to out-calculate and out-pace high-tier killers. But he had been completely, utterly oblivious to this man’s presence until the stranger explicitly chose to make himself known.
Bzzzz. Bzzzz.
Suddenly, the sleek communicator buried deep in Hide’s pocket began to vibrate violently, its pale screen casting a harsh glare against the concrete. It was Claire’s call again.
Keeping his cold blue eyes locked tightly onto the side of the stranger’s face, he reached into his pocket, found the interface panel, and silently declined the call. He straightened his spine, preparing his muscles to deploy his Abyssal Scale Carapace at a microsecond’s notice of any danger.
The compact man beside him let out a soft, low sigh. Then, with a casual movement, he raised his right hand and made a sharp click of his fingers.
CRACK.
A subtle ripple of runic script flashed across his features as the advanced, active camouflage mask hiding his face fractured and dissolved into glowing particles of dust.
Hide’s pupils instantly contracted as he recognized the high-set cheekbones and the distinct, oceanic sharpness of the man’s irises. It was a face he had seen many times.
This was Risa’s father. The supreme, untouchable master and the next head of the Sihue Clan.
"If I am being honest," the master assassin stated flatly, his expression entirely devoid of bloodthirst or malice, "I was here to kill you."
Hide didn’t doubt the words for a single beat. The surreal, terrifying reality of the situation was that just sitting next to this man felt entirely different from any opponent he had faced before.
The father’s presence was so perfectly suppressed, so disciplined and tranquil, that before he spoke those words, Hide had almost felt a bizarre, false sense of safety—as if he were under the absolute protection of a mountain.
The cold statement shattered that illusion instantly.
This was a true, precision-engineered machine of death. The high-tier curse users and the elite suited assassins Hide had processed beneath the estate were highly skilled, certainly, but they could not compare to Risa’s father in this lifetime. They were children playing with toys compared to the perfection of the figure sitting on the ledger.
Hide swallowed the dryness in his throat, forcing his voice to remain deadpan and level. "So... why didn’t you?"
Risa’s father didn’t turn his head. His distant gaze remained fixed on the horizon, his sharp eyes easily slicing through the thick fog of dust and technological smog as if the pollution didn’t even exist.
"Don’t get me wrong," the master whispered, his jaw tightening by a fraction as a cold edge entered his tone. "What you did to my son, Enji... cutting off his thumb... it really got to my heart. As his father, I genuinely want to rip your spine out through your throat."
He paused, letting out a long, heavy breath that turned into a plume of white vapor in the cold air. "But again... the truth is not hidden from anyone in our bloodline. That child was weak. He was arrogant, heavily protected and entirely unfit for the reality of being an assassin. You exposed his ignorance. In our world, that is a mercy. If you hadn’t broken him, he might have died a more pathetic death."
The man leaned back slightly, a bitter, humorless expression touching his lips. "Maybe I am becoming too soft in my advanced years... just like the old man always says."
Hide remained perfectly still, his mind running calculating metrics through the dialogue before he managed a quiet, sturdy reply. "I... I don’t think that you are soft."
Risa’s father slowly rotated his head, his oceanic eyes locking onto Hide’s for the very first time. He stared into the boy’s glowing blue irises, observing the faint ring of violet authority circling his pupils, and a short, incredulous chuckle escaped his throat.
