Hide stood at the edge of the volcanic clearing, his blue eyes narrowing into sharp slits.

The scorched earth was crackling with violent, untamed energy. Ryan, the scholarly D-Rank Mage who usually looked like he belonged in a library, was entirely unhinged.

His thick spectacles were still in place, and his face was contorted in absolute, murderous rage, and his hands were wrapped in crackling whips of dense, blue lightning.

"Die! You deserve to die!" Ryan shrieked, whipping his arms forward. The blue lightning condensed into jagged, electrified chains that lashed toward James Maddox with the force of a falling guillotine.

Maddox didn’t counterattack. The S-Rank Commander simply sidestepped, his movements eerily calm and minimal. The lightning chains shattered the black rock where he had just been standing. He was entirely on the defensive, clearly trying to avoid injuring the frenzied youth.

"Commander," Hide said flatly, stepping into the clearing and ran towards them. "What is he doing?"

"He just turned violent the moment we reached here."

Ryan’s head snapped toward Hide. The Mage didn’t recognize him as an ally; his eyes were completely glazed over with a manic, bloodshot haze. Without a single word of hesitation, Ryan redirected his aggression, whipping one of the electrified chains directly at Hide’s chest.

’What the hell... what happened to him so suddenly?’

Hide didn’t draw a weapon. He simply stepped inside the trajectory, raising his left arm.

CRACK!

"What in the hell are You doing?" Maddox gritted his teeth at Hide’s foolish move.

The lightning chain wrapped violently around Hide’s forearm. A surge of high-voltage mana tried to enter his body, but was held back by the jacket and the slime covering his body below.

Hide purposefully let it through his jacket and into his skin, sending a violent, burning spasm through his nervous system. Hide gritted his teeth, his muscles locking up for a fraction of a second.

He fell to one knee, but didn’t remain there and jumped back instantly, creating distance.

’Fuck this... it hurts.’

A translucent blue window instantly flared in his vision.

[Adaptive Override — Analysis Active]

Damage Type: Lightning / High-Voltage Mana

Location : Nervous system

Source: D-Rank Awakened Human

Severity: Medium

System Query: Initiate adaptation sequence?

[Awaiting command.]

’Evolve,’ Hide commanded mentally.

[Adapting - 5%]

[10%]

[20%]

He looked back up and found that the frenzied guy had snapped his attention back to the commander.

The attacks were not much to effect an S-Ranked like him, but still they were showing some effects slowly. If the commander wouldn’t attack, which he was not going to, he would inevitably be put in a hard situation.

Hide didn’t like the old bastard, but still he was here to help them. ’I bet all this too is somehow for his own benefit.’

He would bet a million on that. But now was not the time for it. So he joined the fight and tried to keep his distance just distracting the guy from time to time until his system was done with its thing.

And it happened soon.

[Adapting - 100%]

Counter-Skill Generated:

[Lightning Resistance - Rank C (Passive)]

— Reduces damage from electrical and lightning-based attacks by 60%.

— Prevents nervous system paralysis from voltage shocks.

The agonizing burning in his arm instantly cooled into a dull, manageable tingle. Hide’s blue eyes flashed with a cold, predatory light.

He stepped between one of the attacks of Ryan and grabbed the crackling chain of lightning with his bare hand and yanked it backward with his monstrous, enhanced strength.

Ryan, completely off-balance, was violently pulled forward. Before the Mage could conjure another spell, Hide blurred into his personal space. Hide’s dark-scaled hand clamped ruthlessly around Ryan’s throat, lifting the older boy off the ground and squeezing just hard enough to completely cut off the blood flow to his brain.

Within three seconds, Ryan’s eyes rolled back into his head. The lightning chains fizzled out, and Hide dropped the unconscious Mage unceremoniously onto the volcanic ash.

Hide turned to Maddox. The Commander was looking down at the unconscious youth. For a fleeting second, a look of profound, agonizing pain crossed Maddox’s face.

It was immediately followed by a terrifying, deeply buried flash of absolute rage that made the ambient mana in the air physically tremble.

Then, just as quickly, Maddox blinked a couple of times, and his expression smoothed back into his usual, relaxed half-smile.

"What happened?" Hide asked, keeping his voice carefully neutral. "Why was he attacking you?"

Maddox sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. "I think I found the Higher Calamity Lord, its nearby and It’s a psychic type. It projects an area-of-effect mind attack that manipulates negative emotions and induces aggressive hallucinations. I just felt it... good thing I can control my anger."

Hide frowned. A mind attack? He checked his own status. He felt completely normal. Then he remembered that he had a passive skill called Unshaken will for exactly this kind of attacks.

Suddenly, the sound of heavy boots and rustling leaves echoed from the jungle behind them. Sora and Gideon burst into the clearing, panting heavily.

"Hide! You just ran off—" Sora started, but the moment she crossed the invisible threshold into the clearing, her voice abruptly cut off.

Hide watched in real-time as the mental attack took hold. Sora’s dark eyes widened, the pupils dilating until they were completely black. Gideon froze mid-step, his massive jaw clenching as a dark, throbbing vein appeared on his forehead.

"You..." Gideon growled, his deep voice distorting into a guttural snarl as he glared at Hide. "You think you’re better than us just because of those summons?!"

Sora didn’t even speak. She drew her serrated daggers, an aura of compressed wind exploding around her as she lunged directly toward Maddox with absolute killing intent.

"Keep them busy for a second," Hide told Maddox, his voice deadpan. "I’ll find the beast’s body."

Maddox chuckled dryly, effortlessly dodging Sora’s blindingly fast slashes. "Make it quick, boy. I hate being on defensive forever."

Hide didn’t hesitate. "Petra!"

A thick cloud of pitch-black mana erupted from his core. The massive Pteranodon materialized with a rush of wind, and Hide vaulted onto its back. With a powerful flap of its obsidian wings, Petra shot into the sky above the clearing.

Hovering high above the volcanic slopes, Hide looked around with his True Sight. His vision shifted, cutting through the illusions of the physical world to see the raw flow of mana. He scanned the jagged, smoking rocks of the volcano.

’There’. About two hundred yards up the slope, wedged perfectly between two large boulders, was a dense, pulsing knot of corrupted crimson mana.

Physically, it looked exactly like a normal, porous volcanic rock. It was small, fragile, and completely immobile. But the mana it was radiating was suffocating.

Hide directed Petra into a steep dive, landing heavily right beside the ongoing brawl.

"Two hundred yards up the slope!" Hide shouted over the sound of Gideon’s roaring. "Between the twin boulders on the left ridge! It looks like a rock!"

"Got it," Maddox replied, his eyes flashing with a dangerous glint.

While Maddox turned his attention toward the slope, Hide stepped up to handle his frenzied classmates. Gideon came charging like a runaway freight train, his fists raised to pulverize Hide into the dirt.

Behind him Maddox jumped so ferociously that it left a crater in the ground and sent a dust cloud.

"Aegis," Hide commanded softly.

The space between them warped. The towering, heavily armored phantom knight stepped out of the void, slamming its gauntlets together. Gideon collided with Aegis’s hands, the impact rattling the clearing. But Aegis didn’t just block. Following Hide’s mental command, the phantom dropped its defensive stance, grabbed the giant Warrior by his harness, spun him around, and literally hurled him through the air like a shot put. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

Hide was sure he would be fine.

Gideon flew thirty yards backward, crashing heavily through the tree line and completely out of the clearing’s area of effect.

Simultaneously, Sora abandoned Maddox and blurred toward Hide, her daggers aimed at his throat. Hide effortlessly sidestepped her frantic thrust. He grabbed her by the wrist, twisted his hip, and used her own momentum to ruthlessly throw her backward. Sora tumbled through the volcanic ash, skidding past the invisible boundary line and into the jungle bushes right next to Gideon.

A heavy silence fell over the tree line.

Outside the zone of influence, Gideon groaned, sitting up and rubbing his head. He looked around wildly, his eyes clear but filled with sheer terror. "What... what just happened? My head..."

Sora pushed herself up from the dirt, her hands trembling as she looked at the daggers she was still gripping. "Did I... did I just try to stab Grand Uncle?" Her voice cracked, a horrifying realization dawning on her as she looked at Hide. "Hide, I swear, I didn’t—it felt like a nightmare, I couldn’t control myself!"

"You crossed into a psychic field," Hide said flatly, standing at the edge of the clearing. "Stay outside the tree line."

Sora and Gideon slowly pulled themselves to their feet, their expressions a mix of awe and lingering dread. But their attention quickly shifted away from Hide and toward the center of the clearing.