"The architecture is amazing, Rudy," Rebecca stated firmly, keeping her eyes locked on his face to avoid looking at her naked sister. "But I am still not on board with this whole group dynamic. I think I am going to go find one of those individual suites you mentioned down the hall. I need some space to process today."

"Take whichever room you like, mom," Rudy nodded, easily respecting her boundaries. He had all the time in the world to win her over. "Get some rest."

Rebecca offered a quick, appreciative nod and slipped out the frosted glass doors, leaving the three of them alone in the steamy room.

Alice nervously bit her lip. She wasn’t quite ready to strip down completely, but she walked over to the edge of the pool, rolled up her jeans, and sat on the marble rim to dip her bare legs into the hot water.

Rudy undressed and stepped down into the sunken bath. The intense heat of the water immediately soothed his muscles. Jessica waded over, a playful smirk on her lips, and wrapped her arms around his neck. She pressed her wet, bare chest against him, offering a deep kiss right there in the steaming pool.

Just as Rudy wrapped his hands around her soft waist, a sharp, digital chime echoed off the vaulted stone ceiling.

A small, holographic projection of Lu Bela’s galaxy-swirling eyes materialized in the air, hovering just a few inches above the surface of the water. The artificial goddess’s voice was crisp and devoid of emotion.

"Forgive the intrusion," Lu Bela reported seamlessly. "The digital parasite has officially responded to your territorial claim. A massive, heavily armed HWSD siege battalion has just arrived at the southern border of Hel. They are currently deploying heavy artillery and preparing to test the strength of the blue dome."

Rudy’s dark eyes narrowed. A lethal crimson spark flared in the damp shadows of the bathhouse.

He gave Jessica a gentle squeeze before stepping away from her. Rudy waded through the water and climbed out of the pool, his wet skin gleaming in the warm light.

"Let them set up their toys," Rudy stated, picking up a plush white towel from the marble bench. "I will be right down."

He accessed his Spatio-Temporal abilities, seamlessly conjuring a fresh, perfectly tailored black suit over his skin.

He left Jessica and Alice in the steaming thermal baths and walked out into the obsidian corridor.

Rudy instantly teleported across the town, materializing in the cool night air at the edge of the southern border.

He stepped right through Lu Bela’s towering blue energy dome, placing himself entirely outside the protection of his own barrier.

Over a hundred heavily armored HWSD siege tanks idled on the dirt road leading into Hel. Towering pulse-artillery cannons whirred loudly, charging their glowing plasma cores to bombard the town. Hundreds of elite, heavily equipped enforcers stood in perfect military formation behind the heavy armor, ready to reclaim the territory by any means necessary.

"What’s this? Are you guys here with fireworks to celebrate and inaugurate my territory?" He scoffed.

Rudy stood completely alone exactly ten feet in front of the lead artillery tank. He kept his hands casually in his pockets.

"If you are not here for that, then you are trespassing on my land," Rudy declared. He engaged his vocal projection, bypassing the roaring engines to broadcast his voice directly into the mind of every single soldier present. "I will give you exactly ten seconds to abandon your vehicles and run. Anyone still standing here at zero will be permanently erased."

The frontline commander panicked at the sudden, impossible materialization of the target. He stood up in the hatch of the lead tank, screaming into his comms.

"Open fire! Annihilate him!"

The entire battalion unleashed their payloads simultaneously. Dozens of high-yield plasma shells, armor-piercing kinetic rounds, and focused laser beams converged on Rudy’s exact coordinates.

The loud noise of the concentrated bombardment shook the earth, lighting up the night sky with a blinding flash of destruction. A massive, swirling cloud of superheated dust and fire erupted at the point of impact, completely obscuring the area.

The HWSD cannons hissed, venting steam as they prepared to reload.

The smoke slowly drifted away on the night breeze. Rudy stood in the exact same spot, entirely unfazed. The devastating military bombardment had completely failed to bypass his absolute invulnerability.

Not a single thread of his tailored jacket was singed. The earth around him had been reduced to a deep, scorched crater, leaving him standing perfectly balanced on a small, pristine pedestal of surviving dirt.

The entire siege battalion fell into a horrified, suffocating silence.

"Ten seconds," Rudy whispered.

He pulled his right hand from his pocket and held it out, his palm facing the starry sky. A sphere of pure, absolute blackness manifested instantly above his fingers. The raw void absorbed all surrounding light, casting a terrifying, unnatural shadow over the government forces.

Even the temperature plummeted.

Then, Rudy slowly closed his fist.

The miniature black hole expanded exponentially, tearing a massive, silent rift through the very fabric of space. The concentrated void hungered for matter. It swept forward like a tidal wave of pure nothingness.

Heavy, fifty-ton siege tanks folded inward, instantly reduced to sub-atomic dust. Armed enforcers were lifted off their feet, their panicked screams silenced the exact millisecond they touched the dark tear in reality. The void devoured the metal, the earth, and the men, simply deleting their existence from the physical plane.

In the span of three heartbeats, the roaring army was gone.

Rudy lowered his hand, allowing the spatial rift to close and seal itself seamlessly. A vast, perfectly smooth trench of empty dirt stretched out into the horizon where the elite siege battalion had stood moments ago.

There was no blood, no wreckage, and no survivors.

Rudy adjusted his cuffs, entirely bored by the encounter. He turned his back on the empty horizon and stepped back through the blue energy dome, leaving the flawless display of supremacy to serve as his final warning to the digital parasite.