（story to your library! The hunt isn't over.）
Ezekiel Grimm didn't move.
Stillness was his greatest weapon. As long as he stayed still, no one could find him.
That was the rule of his Fear Domain.
What a shame.
He had come all this way, hoping to clash blades with the Wolfe family's golden boy—Soren Wolfe. But apparently, the prodigy had died in a plane crash en route to Westlake Province.
Instead, the Wolfe family had sent two mid-tier Elemental Espers to ambush him?
Pathetic.
Had the Wolfes gotten so used to winning that they'd forgotten what real power looked like?
Did they really think no one noticed how many of Callan Wolfe's accolades were quietly assisted by Soren these past two years?
Ezekiel was on the verge of breakthrough—one foot already across the threshold into High Tier. And to push him over the edge, he needed fear. Pure, concentrated, equal-tier fear.
That's why he deliberately leaked his location during the Undertide Auction.
He knew Callan needed a win.
He was counting on that need to bring Soren running.
He'd been waiting in this forest since dawn.
The moment Gideon and Griffin entered his domain, they were already corpses.
But Soren never showed.
Maybe the crash really had taken him out.
Ezekiel waited for an hour longer, unmoving. When the ghostlike mist of his Domain finally began to fade, he stepped forward.
Two bodies lay close by—Gideon and Griffin Wolfe.
Fools. Gideon had thought he was escaping, but all he'd done was sprint in circles.
Still, the fear they'd emitted at the moment of death—it was potent.
He knelt and removed the Obsidian Fiend shards from their necks. Took their backpacks. Only high-born Espers carried gear this valuable.
Then—
A crack split the air.
His instincts screamed.
He twisted, dodging sideways before his brain even caught up.
Not as fast as an Augment-type, but far faster than any normal Psionic Esper.
Still—
Too late.
An ice spike burst from the ground, piercing his side like he'd jumped onto a javelin.
Before the pain could register, a flaming longsword came down like divine judgment.
Ezekiel looked up.
A black-clad figure fell from the sky, the blade trailing fire and ice.
The strike split the night in half.
Up above seaforth, half the city saw silver-white fire bloom above the northern forest.
The Luminite crystal in Ezekiel's hand shattered—dust exploded in a blinding flash.
The flaming blade carved through the dust like it wasn't even there.
"Holy crap—did you see that?! That's the Ice-Flame Judicator!"
"Those were crystalized Luminite fragments! Do you know how much mental force it takes to pulverize that?!"
"That wasn't the one from this afternoon's auction, right?"
"No way. That piece was the size of a fingernail. This? This was an avalanche."
"Wait—didn't Ezekiel Grimm steal one just like it?"
"Hey—don't say his name out loud! Are you trying to die?!"
The light swallowed the forest.
And when it faded, only darkness remained—like none of it had ever happened.
In the deepest part of the woods, the black-clad figure touched down beside the bodies.
He pulled off his helmet.
Peeled out contact lenses and flicked them into the fire.
Silver hair spilled down. Gold eyes gleamed.
Soren Wolfe.
Alive.
The "dead" prodigy stood beneath a sky now blanketed in Luminite dust, falling like silver snow.
The forest looked like a frozen fairy tale, dipped in moonlight and memory.
A sudden gust rose from the ground, twisting the dust into a gleaming vortex.
Soren walked toward the shattered ice spike. A severed arm lay atop it, blood painting the ice crimson.
"He ran," he said softly, lips twitching. "Smart."
Then he laughed.
"Ezekiel's going to hate the Wolfe family for this."
He pulled a reinforced canister from the fallen gear, held it under the dust funnel.
The silver powder streamed in—filling almost 80% of the container.
A harvest like this… could be refined, recharged, and reforged into a brand-new Esper artifact.
He'd made a killing tonight.
As the last motes of Luminite danced through the air, light and shadow flickered across Soren's face.
Then his expression changed.
He froze.
That energy signature…
It was faint.
But he knew it.
He'd fought it before.