Elite security guards formed tight circles around their respective leaders, but there was no time to demand diplomatic explanations.
The moment the delegations cleared the airstairs, Indian military officers directed them straight toward a row of waiting transport helicopters.
Foreign heads of state were rarely herded so bluntly on foreign soil, yet not one leader lodged an official protest.
Turbines whined in sequence, rotors beat against the humid air, and the fleet lifted off, carrying the delegations away from the capital.
An hour later, the flight formation began its descent.
Peering through the cabin glass, the passengers looked down in open disbelief.
There was no hardened command bunker, no sprawling government complex, and no secluded mountain retreat.
Below them sat a dusty, unremarkable residential block in Sonipat.
One by one, the heavy helicopters touched down in the vacant lots and cleared dirt roads flanking the neighborhood.
The downwash rattled corrugated metal roofs and sent clouds of brown dust against the windowpanes of nearby homes.
Inside the house, Clara and Alice hurried to the threshold, freezing in the doorway.
Neither of them had ever stood near a military aircraft, and now an entire squadron was settling into their street.
Clara stared at the swirling dust, her hand flying to her mouth, before looking at Alice.
Her daughter was wide-eyed, completely speechless.
Having the Prime Minister sleeping in their spare room had pushed their sanity to the edge.
This shattered it completely.
They recognized the figures stepping down from the aircraft.
These were not local bureaucrats; they were the architects of global politics.
Roan of Russia, George of the United States, Victoria of the United Kingdom, faces that led the evening news every single day.
Why were the rulers of the world standing in their dirt alley?
Embarrassment and caution vanished instantly.
Clara and Alice spun around, rushing through the hallway to find Silas.
Before they could reach him, Silas had already walked into the backyard.
In the center of the patch of grass stood a massive wooden table ringed by heavy chairs.
Clara slowed her steps, staring at the furniture in confusion.
She had no memory of anyone carrying those heavy benches through the front gate.
Silas looked over his shoulder.
His mother and sister stood frozen near the back door, raw panic written across their features.
He knew the frantic questions racing through their minds, but the coming summit left no room for domestic discussions.
Silas lifted a small hand, pointing firmly toward the kitchen, then toward the lock on the door.
Go inside.
Lock it.
Stay put.
Under ordinary circumstances, silent orders from a ten-year-old boy would have looked comical.
But the cold authority in Silas’s eyes brooked no argument.
Clara met his gaze for a second, swallowed hard, and pulled Alice back behind the threshold.
The time for questions had closed.
They retreated into the kitchen, pressing their faces against the glass of the back window to watch the lawn.
One by one, the world leaders filed through the gate onto the grass.
Roan led the pack.
His granite face gave away nothing as his eyes settled on Silas, who was sitting casually at the head of the long table like a monarch hosting a regional council.
Roan’s gaze flicked to Vijay, who sat quietly at the boy’s right hand.
The setup raised a hundred alarms, but the Russian leader kept his thoughts locked behind a mask of indifference.
Whatever game was being played, he would hear the opening move before acting.
The other leaders took their seats around the perimeter.
George, the President of the United States, scowled the moment he saw a child occupying the primary chair.
A flash of disgust crossed his face, aimed straight at Vijay for allowing an infant to sit at an emergency summit of nuclear powers.
Qi Feng of China, Paul of South Korea, and the various European leaders sat down with cautious discipline, maintaining absolute silence.
Silas studied them without emotion.
These were the true masters of the mortal era.
Each of them had sharpened their will and ambition through decades of brutal political maneuvering, clawing their way to the peak of human authority.
Vijay had his strengths, but stacked against these hardened autocrats and calculating strategists, the difference was obvious.
Democracy had softened Vijay.
To an ancient mind like Silas’s, an electoral system where rulers spent half their lives begging for public approval and worrying about five-year terms was fundamentally flawed.
It created administrators, not sovereigns.
There was no progress in system like this.
Silas leaned back in his wooden chair.
Then he released a pulse of Will Fog.
This crude motor suppression was merely the baseline application of the Mentalist Path.
Every spiritual path exerted natural pressure over unawakened mortals, but the Mentalist Path possessed an intrinsic supremacy in direct confrontation because its force struck straight at the target’s conscious will.
Before a guard could raise a rifle or a president could draw breath, a sharp crack split the air.
BANG!
Every world leader raised their right hand in unison and slammed their open palm down onto the timber table.
The collective impact rattled the wood and echoed off the brick walls of the neighborhood.
A heavy silence dropped over the lawn, followed immediately by creeping terror.
Their hands had moved without their consent.
For men and women who had spent their entire lives commanding armies and living in absolute security, losing basic bodily control was a horror they could not process.
Eyes widened; chests heaved as breathing grew ragged.
Several ministers looked around wildly, trying to spot the hidden device that had taken over their nerves.
Then they looked at Roan.
The Russian sat entirely still.
George, Victoria, and Qi Feng remained rigid, forcing their expressions to stay calm.
Seeing the iron discipline of the major powers, the panicked regional leaders clamped down on their shaking hands and lowered their heads in burning shame.
Their illusion of supreme authority had been dismantled in a heartbeat.
Nobody dared to utter a word.
The quiet in the yard was brittle, held together by sheer shock.
Behind the window, Clara and Alice watched the strange scene unfold.
From inside the kitchen, they could not hear a thing.
All they had seen was a gathering of global leaders suddenly slapping a wooden table in unison, followed by several presidents hanging their heads in defeat.
Alice tugged Clara’s apron, her voice small.
“Mom… are they trying to bully Silas?”
“How could that be?” Clara whispered, her fingers gripping the windowsill.
“Why would the rulers of the world fly across oceans just to threaten a child?”
“Mom, we should go out there.”
“No,” Clara said, pulling Alice back.
“Silas is capable of things we do not understand. If he needed us, he would have called. We should not stand here, let’s move inside and wait for Silas. Going outside will only make things worse.”
Neither could make sense of what they were seeing.
Why had the leaders struck the table?
Why did the most powerful people on Earth look so frightened?
Silas paid their confusion no mind, keeping his gaze locked on the shaken politicians before him.
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