Sharp air flew across Leon’s room as he stood there, shifting glances at Hayes and the four tactical team members around him.

Bone-crackling sound echoed from him when he clenched his fist, which began to have a faint golden glow as he focused on Hayes.

"Is this the greeting you’ve been preparing for years, Hayes?" Leon asked in a steady voice, despite the roar of heat slowly building in his chest.

Hayes let out a dry laugh, then moved a step closer to Leon.

"Greeting? No, Leon," he said and shook his head, then raised his left, gloved arm and began tilting it sideways. "This is a long-overdue assessment that I’ve spent too much time chasing ghosts and blood-traces. Do you think I would let you walk away now?"

A metal clinging hiss echoed from the gloves as Hayes clenched his arm into a fist. His chin moved when he signaled to two men standing at Leon’s left.

In a blur, the men stepped forward and began slamming their energy-dampening batons in their palms, creating low humming frequencies buzzing with every tap they made against their skin.

"I will spare you for some seconds," Hayes said as he moved a step back then loosened his clenched left arm. "Initiate level one."

The guy with the arrow-shaped beard swung his baton toward Leon’s chest, but Leon moved without even thinking and dipped under the strike.

Electrified air burst out of the baton and whistled over Leon’s head as he watched it move past him, while the guy’s own body whirled around harshly.

"Too slow," Leon said in his head, then smirked.

When Leon straightened and tried to counter the man, a sharp suffocating pressure erupted from him as he touched the tip of the baton. For a second, electric current flew through his entire body and caused his knees to buckle.

The second man with no beard slammed his baton straight at Leon’s shoulder, which intensified the flow of electricity in Leon’s body.

The force of the current hurled Leon backward and he hit the marble ground with a heavy thud.

"Leon!" Gia’s voice echoed from the walls while the screens on the walls flickered with static buzzes.

Hayes pressed his hands against his ears as the static noise seeped into them. He placed a tiny noise cancellation device in his ears then cleared his throat.

When Leon tried to push himself from the ground, Hayes stepped forward and kicked him in the stomach, while his men struggled to hold out against the sound.

"How is Leon not affected by this loud noise?" Hayes said in his head, then shifted glances from his men to Leon.

He snarled then pointed a finger at Leon, before moving back to his tactical team. "Place these in your ears."

He handed a pair of the noise cancellation devices to each of them, then folded his arms on his chest again.

When the arrow-beard guy dashed forward and slammed his baton on Leon, hurling Leon another meter back, the static noise also intensified.

"Silence the AI," Hayes said in a loud voice as his face twisted into a scowl. "I didn’t come all this way to get my ears blasted by a machine’s commentary." 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

Instinctively, the no-beard guy dashed forward and slammed his baton against the wall, shattering Gia’s display and turning the bright wall into darkness.

The arrow-beard guy also went and slammed his baton on the triangular glass table when he saw the blue wave appearing on it, and cracked its screen.

The moment an electric wave erupted from the cracked screen of the table, Leon pushed himself up, then rubbed his shoulders and lips.

"You want to see what’s in my blood, right?" Leon said in a calm voice as he lifted his gaze from his palms to Hayes’s face, while the glow in his eyes slowly began to change to gold.

He closed his eyes for a heartbeat, then cracked them open with a sigh.

Red light turned on at the ceiling of the room when the temperature suddenly exploded with heat as the glow in Leon’s eyes also intensified.

"Where is that heat coming from?" one of the tactical team members who had not attacked asked, while whirling around to find the source.

Hayes’s grin widened, but he took a step back and pushed the other two guys forward.

The no-beard guy loosened his grip on the baton, which fell and kissed the marble floor twice when he saw the golden glow in Leon’s eyes and skin.

"That..." he said while crawling backward. "That heat is coming from him."

When the guy finally managed to stand up, Hayes slammed his boot on his neck and sent him back to the floor dead. He didn’t even glance at the cooling corpse as he stepped over it and fixed his eyes solely on Leon.

His face glowed with joy as he stretched his hand forward. "That... that is the exact frequency I’ve been looking for, for years."

When the other three men exchanged glances and dashed toward Leon, he moved like a streak of light and caught two of the batons before they could even swing them.

The electrified current flew through Leon’s body, but this time it only increased the pressure of Leon’s power and made the guys loosen their grips on the batons as they heated.

As soon as the third guy with no eyebrows swung his baton at Leon’s head, it shattered and flew to the ground.

Leon turned and held the guy’s chest before he could even close his mouth from the shock.

A wordless scream tore out of the guy as the heat from Leon’s grip caused the guy’s body to burn as if he had been placed opposite a mid-afternoon sun.

The moment Leon loosened his grip, a wave of golden fire blasted outward and slammed the guy into the glass wall.

Burned fabric and the tangy taste of electricity and fire filled the room as all three men scrambled to their feet and ran toward the exit.

"Enough!" Hayes screamed while moving his right arm toward the holster at his hip.

Leon shifted his gaze from the three men struggling to open the heated metal door, then focused on Hayes. "You want my blood, right? Take it!"

The heat radiating from Leon was so intense that the curtains and the cloths covering the bed all began to burn, while the floor blackened wherever he placed his foot.

Outside the Bulwark Hall, countless elite soldiers of Agatha pointed their fingers at the burning apartment on the third floor.

"Guys, do you see what I’m seeing?"

"Is that new guy’s room?"

"I think so. Call the officials."

When Hei Yung and Lord Luo Fang appeared on the street, they moved straight into the building without hesitation.

Immediately they reached the front of the room, the heated door hissed open and the three tactical combat heads who had their skin burned rushed out without even glancing at the officials’ faces, screaming.

"That is enough, Hayes. You are a guest in this Citadel, not a warden!" Hei Yung said in a loud voice as he stood at the entrance with a cold mask of fury.

Beside him, Lord Luo Fang watched with delight in his eyes, while his white hair fluttered in the thermal updraft Leon had created.

Leon’s breaths came in ragged, hot puffs and he shifted his gaze to Hei Yung, then at his own hands which were wreathed in thin ribbons of gold flames.

"He was resisting an official inquiry," Hayes said as he straightened his suit, while sweat continuously poured down his face.

"An inquiry you were not authorized to conduct on Agatha soil," Hei Yung countered as he moved a step forward. He looked at the melted tables and burned cloths, then at Leon’s eyes.

"Leon, stand down," he said in a voice that carried acknowledgement rather than command. "Your power is for the enemies of the world, not those who lack manners."

The ribbons of flames vanished back into Leon’s skin as the golden blaze in his eyes receded, leaving him with a drained feeling and a hollow body.

Lord Luo Fang stepped forward and stopped a few feet away from Leon, then tilted his head, as if what he saw was just a joke.

"The Solflare doesn’t just burn the body, boy," he said in a soft voice while his eyes flickered to Hayes with a knowing glint. "It purifies it. You are no longer just a trace on a map or a name in a file. You are a reality Hayes had seen and wasn’t quite prepared to see again."

Leon wiped the beads of sweat from his forehead, then shifted his gaze to Lord Luo Fang. "Then what am I to him?"

Lord Luo Fang moved a step closer to Leon while looking at Hei Yung’s face. "To him? You are the prize he can’t afford to lose, since you destroyed his left arm."

Leon’s eyes widened when he remembered the mechanical sound that echoed when Hayes raised his gloved left arm and clenched it.

"But to us?" Lord Luo Fang said, then focused on Hei Yung. "You are the new sun. And I suspect some people would rather live in the dark than be seen in your light."

Hei Yung’s expression changed when he felt as if the words were meant for him.