Lucius didn’t respond immediately. He studied Isaac, as if trying to determine how much he already understood.
“Yes,” he said finally. “I wanted to talk about that.”
Isaac thought back. All of the guests had seemed oddly respectful and friendly to Alice. It had bugged Isaac a lot more than he let one.
Lucius nodded once. “Correct. Now tell me, what do you find weird about that?”
“While we did show that the fight between me and Selene ended peacefully, the people supporting her faction wouldn’t immediately believe it was all genuine. If they thought Selene was still angry, even secretly, they should’ve shown some level of hostility toward Alice.”
Lucius didn’t interrupt, just kept his eyes locked on Isaac’s.
“But they didn’t,” Isaac continued. “Not even subtle signs. It was like the thought of being cold toward Alice never occurred to them. Everyone was warm, supportive, and overly polite.”
Lucius let out a slow breath through his nose, still listening.
“I get that most of the guests are businessmen or people with political experience. They know how to hide their real feelings. But still people slip up. Not everyone can maintain a mask. Some of them should’ve tried to score points with Selene by pushing Alice away. But none did. That doesn’t make sense.”
Lucius sighed deeply and leaned back into his chair. “You’re right. Absolutely right.”
He rubbed his eyes, fingers pressing against the bridge of his nose, then looked up again. “For a while now, I’ve had a bad feeling. It felt like something had been moving behind the scenes, just out of reach. I don’t know why but I felt like everything was dancing in someone else’s palm.”
He paused, then added, “But, I never had any proof of anything like that. Until tonight, that is.”
Isaac frowned. “You think someone’s pulling strings inside the conglomerate?”
Lucius exhaled. “I think the Calloway Conglomerate has been compromised.”
Isaac’s eyes widened. He sat up straighter, suddenly alert. “What?”
Lucius waved his hand. “I don’t know when it started. It could’ve been years ago, or perhaps even before that. I don’t want to think it’s true, but after what I saw tonight… it’s obvious. The guests weren’t reacting to Alice naturally. Someone told them how to act. Someone with authority.”
Isaac didn’t speak for a moment.
His thoughts were moving fast, connecting threads that hadn’t made sense before. But even then, something still didn’t sit right.
“Let’s assume you’re right,” he said finally. “But that raises another question. Why would they do that? Why go out of their way to act friendly toward Alice in front of everyone? Wouldn’t that just expose their presence?”
Lucius nodded slowly. “Exactly. That’s what’s been bothering me too.”
Isaac crossed his arms. “If they’re trying to stay hidden, they just gave themselves away.”
“I know,” Lucius said. “But I’ve come up with two possible explanations.”
He held up a finger.
“First possibility: they were in hiding until now, and building strength. Tonight was their chosen moment to step into the light. With so many high-profile guests attending the banquet, their display wouldn’t go unnoticed. Word will spread. People will start to whisper about a hidden power manipulating one of the biggest conglomerates in Fortified City 50.”
Isaac frowned. “But why reveal themselves now? What do they gain from that?”
Lucius shook his head. “I don’t know. That’s the part I still don’t understand.”
Isaac let out a breath and asked, “Then what’s the second possibility?”
Lucius dropped his hand and looked at him directly.
“You, Alice, and Emily.”
Isaac blinked. “What about us?”
“SSS rank awakeners are incredibly rare. The last one before this year was Celia Rae, and she awakened four years ago. Before her, it was almost two decades without a single SSS rank in humanity.”
Isaac nodded slowly.
“But this year,” Lucius continued, “three new SSS rank awakeners emerged.”
“You think this hidden organization is making a move because of us?”
“It is possible. Think about it. What better way to recruit the strongest young talents than to flaunt their influence? Show that they control powerful networks, high-level politics, and even the social elite. Make themselves look like the logical choice.”
Isaac didn’t respond immediately.
Part of him wanted to dismiss it as paranoia or coincidence. But another part of him remembered something he hadn’t told anyone.
A secret he learned from the system. Fortified City 50 would fall. In the future, it would be destroyed.
He had thought the disaster would come from the Nagas, the same ones who were behind the assassins. That was what made sense. But what if he had been wrong?
What if the city’s collapse was tied to this hidden force instead?
’What’s happening?’ Isaac frowned. ’If this organization really is that deep, if they’ve already infiltrated the conglomerate, and they’re using it as a tool…’
He didn’t finish the thought. The implications were too big.
Isaac leaned forward. “Why don’t we ’ask’ the people of conglomerate who is backing them? If we push hard enough, we might be able to find the identity of this ’hidden organization’.”
“You mean using skills on them to force the truth out of them?”
Isaac did not agree, but he did not refuse either.
Chairman Lucius shook his head. “I doubt that would work. For one, we don’t know who’s under their control and who isn’t. Some of those guests may have been genuinely concerned about Alice. Others may have been puppets. How do you tell which is which?”
Isaac said nothing. Lucius continued.
“This group—whoever they are—they know how to hide. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t have moved so boldly tonight. They must have prepared countermeasures in case we interrogated their people.”
Chairman Lucius would still interrogate those people, just in a hidden manner.
He, however, did not expect the interrogations to bring results.
Isaac frowned. His fingers lightly tapped his knee. The more he thought about it, the more tangled it all seemed.
Lucius watched him for a moment, then said, “You don’t need to worry about all of this. I will handle my company myself. The reason I called you was to warn you. Stay safe, and especially of outsiders who want to associate with you.”
Isaac stood, nodded once. “Thanks.”
He left the room with his mind caught in chaos.
Fortified City 50 would fall. Maybe the Nagas were involved, or maybe they were not.
But this hidden group—this organization moving through the city like smoke—they were a problem, and if they were the real threat, then things were worse than he thought.
’The city will be covered in chaos soon. We need strength if we want to survive it.’
’I need to make full use of my system.’
He kept walking past the estate corridors, through marble halls and wide staircases. But at some point, he noticed something strange.
The floor had changed.
The ceiling was gone.
He stopped walking and looked around.
It was no longer the Calloway estate.
It wasn’t anywhere he recognized.
A dark void surrounded him. There were no walls, and sounds seemed to have vanished.
The sky above was pitch black, like an endless curtain without stars. Below him, the ground looked like solid black glass. Black mist curled at the edges of his vision, hiding the distance.
He tensed.
’Was I kidnapped?’
There had been no signs of it, or shifts in the ambient mana. One moment, he’d been walking the halls. The next, he was here.
More troubling than anything else was the fact this had happened while he was in one of the most secure locations in the city.
That meant he was dealing with extremely dangerous people.
“There’s no need to be alarmed. I just brought you here to talk.”
Isaac’s head turned toward the sound.
The voice was strange. It was neither masculine nor feminine. It was being filtered somehow, deliberately altered to mask its identity.
“Come,” the voice said again. “Don’t just stand there.”
He didn’t respond. But he walked.
As he moved forward, the mist ahead began to part, clearing just enough to reveal what lay ahead.
A long table stretched before him, carved from dark wood.
The chairs lining either side were tall, with silver patterns inlaid on the backrests and arms. They looked like they belonged in some ancient council hall.
At the far end, a figure sat motionless.
Isaac squinted, but it was no use.
The person’s body was obscured by something strange. It was as if reality itself refused to define them.
He couldn’t make out their size, their posture, even their silhouette. All he could see were two golden eyes staring back at him.
The eyes weren’t normal. They had rings inside the pupils. Isaac counted two circles with each pupil.
Then the voice spoke again.
“Hm. As expected, you can stand straight in my presence. That confirms it, you have an Apex bloodline.”
Isaac let a small smile touch his lips. “That’s correct.”
Inside, his thoughts moved quickly.
’If they could abduct me from the estate, they’ve been watching me. It wouldn’t be hard for them to figure out I have an Apex bloodline.’
’So they brought it up to gain leverage by rattling me.’
’It’s a basic rule of staring a negotiation, where you either go with a friendly style, or dominate the conversation since the beginning.’
That was why he admitted his bloodline.
Instead of being shocked, he wanted to shock the unknown figure by accepting the trust easily.
The figure chuckled lightly.
“You’re sharp.”
Isaac didn’t answer. He walked calmly to the far end of the table and pulled out a chair. The legs scraped lightly against the dark floor. He sat.
His mind kept working. Whoever this was, they didn’t want him dead. If they did, they would’ve attacked him already..
’It sems like he wants to talk with me. But why?’
All Isaac knew was that if this was a talk, or a negotiation, he couldn’t show fear.
If he showed fear, it would be used against him.
So instead, he sat upright with relaxed arms, and a calm expression. He didn’t look arrogant, or dismissive, just calm.
“Can you guess who I am?” the voice asked.
Isaac tilted his head slightly. “The leader of the unknown organization? Or an executive?”
A faint laugh escaped the figure’s lips.
“’Unknown organization’—is that what Lucius calls us?”
Isaac didn’t reply. But that was enough confirmation.
This person was involved in whatever group had hijacked the Calloway Conglomerate from the shadows.
The voice leaned in, figuratively, not physically. It gained weight.
“Isaac, do you know why we revealed ourselves today?”
He didn’t answer. He leaned back slightly, fingers drumming lightly on the armrest while he took his time to think of an answer.
The figure smiled, seeing his calmness. It decided to answer him directly instead of testing him.
“It was for you, Isaac.”
The figure looked straight at him.
“You may think it was about Alice, or Emily, but it wasn’t. They’re strong, yes, but strength isn’t rare. We can make people strong.”
The golden eyes glowed faintly.
“That’s not what makes someone valuable, but you Isaac… You’re different,” the figure said. “You’re unique. You are a farmer.”
The air in the void seemed to shift slightly.
“Do you understand what that means?” the voice asked.