The Overseer and the captain stiffened at the same time.
Ruel swallowed.
"That… aura…" he muttered. "It feels wrong."
Wrong was an understatement.
The pressure radiating from the old man was warped, heavy, and crushing, yet still somehow contained, as though the world were struggling to pin it down.
Varun's jaw tightened. His fists clenched hard enough for veins to bulge.
"That is no ordinary Rank 3," he growled. "That is Rank 4-level suppression. I never thought those damned beasts would actually bring a Rank 4 superpower here."
He spat the next words like poison.
"This is a violation. A direct provocation. A war declaration."
Michael did not react with shock.
He breathed out slowly, gaze steady.
"For a plan on this scale," he said quietly, "you did not really think they would hold back, did you?"
Varun looked at him, and for a brief moment felt another kind of fear.
His mind drifted to the conversation he had with the youth earlier.
