The vanguard did not make a scene as they passed through the gates.
Walking with a cold, robotic precision, Zaiden completely bypassed the central courtyard, pushing past the heavy wooden doors of the main hall to head straight for Xan’s central briefing office.
Ambo and Jahek lagged behind, adjusting their heavy tactical leather gear.
But before they could take ten steps toward the main building, a shadow fell over the cobblestone pathway.
“Well, look who finally crawled back from the dirt,” a mocking, sneering voice drawled.
Leeroy Jenkins stepped out from the corridor, his long blue-and-crimson gradient hair swaying against his shoulders.
He didn’t lock his physical raw Astral armor just yet, but his posture radiated immense arrogance.
His cruel eyes drifted past Jahek, locking directly onto the amnesiac boy.
“You’ve been getting a lot of attention lately, rookie.
What’s a zero-Astral parasite like you doing to make the Acting Leader so fond of you?
Spill the bin, kid—or should I make you cough that information up myself?” “Hey, back off, Leeroy!” Jahek barked, stepping in front of Ambo with his silver daggers drawn.
“He’s a rookie, you bastard—” BAM.
Before Jahek could even finish his sentence, Leeroy’s fist blurred.
A heavy, aura-coated strike caught Jahek square in the jaw, knocking him completely off his feet.
Jahek collapsed hard into the dirt, rolling over and instantly falling completely motionless.
To a regular observer, he was knocked out cold; in reality, the cowardly genius was just pretending to sleep, tightly holding a handful of sand as he waited for the absolute perfect moment to launch a dirty surprise attack.
Leeroy stepped over Jahek’s unmoving form, cornering Ambo against the stone wall.
“Now, where were we?
Spill the tea, kid.” Ambo’s breath caught in his throat.
Suddenly, his entire physical frame began to violently shake.
A suffocating wave of panic seized his muscles, his voice muffling into a stuttering, terrified mess.
He wasn’t just nervous about Leeroy; it felt as if his very bone marrow was remembering something from his past.
His physical biology already knew exactly how to react when a brutal, unyielding force cornered him.
Why am I shaking?
Ambo thought frantically, his vision blurring.
What really happened to me before the cave?
Am I just a coward?
As he stood completely frozen, Leeroy’s heavy, armored punch landed flush against Ambo’s cheek.
The sheer force sent the boy flying across the concrete, crashing hard into a stack of supply crates.
But the moment the blunt trauma shattered the wood, a jagged, lightning-fast blip of memory fractured the dark void of his amnesia.
Inside a dark, suffocating room, a faceless man was shouting.
The man’s hands were heavy, raining down a relentless, merciless beating upon Ambo’s smaller, younger frame.
He was screaming, crying, entirely helpless under the abuse— The memory dissolved back into the dark just as quickly as it had arrived.
Ambo sat up from the shattered wood of the crates, shaking his head violently as he wiped blood from his lip.
“What…
what was that?” he whispered.
Leeroy marched forward, cracking his knuckles as his physical Astral Materialization flared, hardening into a dense suit of armor encircling his torso.
“Like I said, kid.
Start talking.” Ambo looked up, his eyes suddenly shifting from terrified confusion into a cold, hollow void.
“No…
I wasn’t talking to you.
I was talking to myself.
There’s something…
something I remembered for a brief moment when you hit me.” Leeroy’s face twisted in pure annoyance.
“Playing crazy won’t save you!” He lunged, throwing a brutal, bone-snapping punch aimed straight at Ambo’s chest.
But before the fist could connect, a sudden, explosive surge of thick, oily Black Goo erupted from Ambo’s skin.
It didn’t form a simple shield this time; instead, the pitch-black biological fluid expanded violently, coating his entire physical body in the terrifying, shifting silhouette of a cackling devil.
The fluid bubbled and warped, forming a jagged maw that looked exactly like a laughing demon.
Ambo didn’t know what was happening to his body, but his internal emotions instantly flipped.
The paralyzing fear was entirely gone, replaced by a surging rush of dark excitement flowing through his veins.
The thing inside him was dragging something raw and monstrous out of his soul.
Unconsciously, driven by pure instinct, Ambo swung his fist.
CRACK.
His goo-coated fist smashed directly into Leeroy’s chest plate.
Because of Leeroy’s heavy-built physique and hardened armor, the blow didn’t shatter him—it merely pushed the bully back a few feet, his boots skidding across the cobblestones.
Angered by the resistance, Leeroy roared, chambering his other armored hand for a devastating counter-swing.
But mid-motion, his fist froze.
A single, bare hand had snatched Leeroy’s wrist from the side.
Inside the main building, Zaiden had reached the door of Xan’s office before realizing that the two rookies hadn’t followed him.
Annoyed, the captain turned back, retracing his footsteps out into the courtyard just in time to see Leeroy launching a second punch at the boy.
As Zaiden stepped into the fray, his heavy gaze locked directly onto Ambo’s shifting, pitch-black silhouette.
The laughing demonic aura rippling across the rookie’s skin struck a profound chord deep within the captain’s mind.
A complete physical shroud that fundamentally alters the body’s appearance…
it looks exactly like a Kwarta level, an overdrive form, Zaiden thought, his analytical brain instantly processing the visual.
But an overdrive form requires an immense, blinding surge of Astral Energy that will supply your ability to merge with the body and change its anatomy.
This boy is a complete void.
There is no element here.
What is this thing?
Intrigued and deeply unsettled by the biological anomaly, Zaiden kept his mouth shut, locking the questions away inside his own mind for the time being.
He would confront the kid about this tomorrow during their private practice lesson.
For now, his immediate focus shifted back to the bully.
Zaiden’s grip on Leeroy’s wrist was so staggeringly immense that the plates of the Astral armor began to bend and buckle under the raw physical force.
Leeroy looked to his side, his face draining of color.
Zaiden stood there, his half-white, half-black hair shadowing his eyes.
Without saying a single word, the captain raised his boot and delivered a thunderous, lightning-fast kick straight into Leeroy’s belly.
The sheer physical impact bypassed the armor completely, knocking the breath out of the bully and sending him crashing to the ground, entirely unconscious.
Zaiden turned on his heel, gesturing toward the main hall.
“Jahek.
Ambo.
Get up.
We’re going to the office.”