A short sound escaped him — not quite a laugh, not quite disbelief, somewhere between the two.
"You really do have a sense of humor," he said quietly. "You know that."
The sword was still coming.
He did not have time to move — not meaningfully, not with the speed Vestin was swinging — and for one flat, clear second he simply watched it close the distance with the detached calm of someone who had already accepted that this was going to hurt.
It did not hurt.
Steel rang against steel.
Serina's blade had come from nowhere — or rather, from the scabbard at her hip that he had not noticed until this exact moment, because she had been sitting at a café table drinking tea and it had not seemed relevant. It was relevant now. She had cleared it and moved in the same motion, blocking Vestin's swing with the unhurried precision of someone for whom this was not a difficult thing to do.
The café went completely silent.
"What exactly do you think you are doing, Lord Vestin." Her voice carried no heat. It was flat and certain and considerably more dangerous for it. "Attacking a worker because I refused to meet you."
Vestin pulled his blade back, his face cycling through several expressions before settling on indignation. "So what — he is just a waiter. I am the son of a Duke. He should know his—"
Serina moved.
She did not give him time to finish the sentence. One step forward, blade redirecting his before he had registered the motion, and then a second strike — short, controlled, surgical — that sent his sword skittering across the floor three meters away. He stumbled back against a table. A cup fell. Nobody moved to catch it.
She had not broken a sweat.
The two guards exchanged a look and stepped forward together.
Serina turned to face them with the same expression — calm, unhurried, completely prepared — and for a moment it was genuinely unclear how that was going to resolve.
Then Vestin's hand moved to something at his belt.
A small device. Engraved metal, faintly glowing at the edges. The moment Ansys saw it his mind placed it immediately — a mid-range spatial displacement tool, the kind that required significant money and significant connections to obtain. Not a weapon. Something worse in its own way.
Serina saw it half a second too late.
Her expression shifted — not fear, something sharper than fear, the look of someone who has just recognized a situation they cannot cut their way out of — and then the light expanded and swallowed her whole. No sound. No warning. Just the space where she had been standing, suddenly and completely empty.
The café held its breath.
Someone near the back made a small involuntary sound. A woman two tables over had both hands pressed over her mouth. Even the guards looked momentarily unsettled, like men who had signed up for one kind of afternoon and found themselves in a considerably different one.
Ansys looked at the empty space where Serina had been standing.
'Mid-range device,' he thought. 'Which means she is not far. Somewhere within the district, most likely — a warehouse, an alley, a room Vestin already had prepared. Somewhere contained.'
He turned the thought over once, filed it. 'She will find her way out. That much is obvious from the last two minutes. The more relevant question is how long it takes — and whether Vestin thinks this actually solved anything.'
He looked at Vestin.
Vestin was already resheathing his sword, smoothing his robes, rebuilding the posture of someone who had just handled a situation rather than created one.
'He genuinely believes that worked,' Ansys thought. 'Interesting.'
Ansys looked back at the spot Serina has vanished a second ago.
'Two substages above her weight class,' he thought, 'and she took him apart in two strikes. Minor heroine.' He filed that away with the particular care he reserved for things that were going to matter later. 'Right.'
His attention drifted to the screen still waiting at the edge of his vision.
'Open,' he ordered.
---
[ ▣ INITIAL HOST COMPENSATION PACKAGE ▣ ]
[ Synchronization Complete — Stability Confirmed ]
[ Due to 27-Day Anchor Interference, Additional Authority Granted ]
---
[ Gift One — Sovereign Invocation Authority ]
[ Authority Type: Existential Contract | Rank: Origin-Locked — Scales with Host ]
[ Core Function: Establish a single Invocation Seal. Summon one Contracted Entity into physical reality. Entity scales proportionally with Host growth. Entity retains independent will and evolution potential. ]
[ Passive Effect: Host gains partial resistance to dimensional suppression. Contracted Entities cannot be forcefully erased while Host remains anchored. ]
Note: Future Invocation Slots unlock at higher Existence Stages.
---
[ Gift Two — Primordial Continuum Physique ]
[ Classification: Anomalous Origin Variant | Rank: Dormant — Awakening in Progress ]
[ Core Effects: Perfect Energy Assimilation. Accelerated Adaptation — damage permanently refines structure. Anchor Stability. Fate Interference Resistance — Minor. ]
[ Resonance Mechanic: Emotional Fixation directed toward Host increases Growth Acceleration. Obsessive Bonds amplify Assimilation Rate. Stable Mutual Bonds reinforce Existential Anchor. ]
[ Dormant Potential: Origin Devour — Locked. Step Outside Causality — Locked. Conceptual Immunity — Locked. Absolute Continuity State — Locked. ]
[ Warning: Physique remains partially sealed. ]
---
[ Gift Three — Absolute Covenant: Death Contract Authority ]
[ Classification: High-Risk Binding Law | Current Capacity: 10 Contracts ]
---
Ansys stared at the last one for a moment longer than the others.
'Are you serious.'
[ Of course. Additionally — you have unlocked AP: Affection Points and FP: Frame Points, along with basic Framework features including Scan, Information, and others. ]
'I have a lot of questions,' he thought. 'But later.'
He had more immediate things to settle.
He looked at the café around him — the frozen customers, the overturned cups, Vestin standing in the middle of it all with his sword resheathed and his composure held together by pride and very little else.
[ Why not use the Invocation? ]
'No control over what appears. Unknown entity manifesting in public in the middle of a crisis is not a solution — it is a second problem on top of the first one.' He kept his expression neutral and began walking toward Vestin slowly, one hand raised to his temple, performing the subtle theater of someone working through a headache. 'Besides. I still have use for Vestin. Long term. The prince is coming eventually — and when he does, I need Vestin functional and positioned, not disappeared.'
He ran Scan without breaking stride.
---
[ ▣ SCAN COMPLETE ▣ ]
[ Name: Vestin Greymore ]
[ Title: Second Son of the Greymore Duchy ]
[ Existence Stage: Stage I — Initiate | Substage: IV — Stabilization ]
[ Core Assessment: Mana core stabilized. Combat training complete. Capable of suppressing lower-stage awakened individuals. ]
[ Personality Profile: Entitled. Possessive. Emotionally volatile under perceived disrespect. Currently under significant internal pressure due to elder brother's rising military prestige in the ongoing Greymore duchy campaign. ]
[ Threat Evaluation: Low to Host. Moderate to civilians. ]
---
'Perfect.'
He stopped in front of Vestin and let a beat of silence pass between them — not uncomfortable exactly, but deliberate. The kind of pause that makes people pay attention.
"Lord Vestin," he said. "I have heard something about the heir selection currently underway in the Greymore duchy."
Vestin went still.
The shift was immediate and complete — fury replaced by something far more alert, the entitled nobleman suddenly replaced by someone calculating very quickly. "What — how do you know about that ? Who are you ?"
"Someone who knows your brother's secret," Ansys said simply. "The kind of secret that could end his candidacy and put you ahead of him without a single battle."
The remaining customers had been watching from frozen silence. Vestin seemed to register them for the first time. One sharp gesture brought his guards forward, and within two minutes the café had been efficiently emptied — Marta guided out with the particular expression of a woman storing this for a very detailed complaint later.
The door closed.
Vestin crossed the floor and grabbed him by the collar — apparently the only opening move he knew. Up close his eyes were sharp with something that had nothing to do with wine this time.
"Who the hell are you ?"
Ansys met his gaze with an expression that gave nothing away. "Someone useful. But if you would like to kill me instead, that is your choice." He let that sit for exactly one second. "Though I should mention — the moment I die, the information dies with me. And my death would reach certain ears who would ensure you never see the inside of the Academy. Not as a student. Not as a visitor. Not at all."
Vestin's grip loosened slightly.
He shoved Ansys back — same gesture as before, same pride behind it — and crossed his arms. "Speak. And it had better be worth my time."
"It will be." Ansys reached into his coat and produced a small folded document. "But first."
He set it on the nearest table and slid it forward.
Vestin looked at it. Then looked at him. "A death contract."
"Level III. It states that if the information I provide is false, I forfeit my life. Binding and unbreakable." Ansys kept his voice completely even. "It also states that once you receive the information, you may not move against me by any means — direct or arranged."
Vestin stared at the contract for a long moment.
The fact that a café worker had produced a Level III death contract with the casual ease of someone pulling out a receipt was clearly doing something complicated to his understanding of the situation. Ansys could see him recalibrating — the entitlement still there, but something more cautious moving underneath it now.
'Good,' Ansys thought. 'Stay curious. Curious people are useful.'
Vestin picked up the contract. Read it. Set it back down.
Then he pressed his thumb to it, drew a small blade from his sleeve, and let a single drop of blood fall onto the seal.
Ansys did the same.
The contract sealed itself with a faint pulse of light — quiet, final, witnessed by no one but the two of them and the empty café.
Vestin looked at him across the table with an expression that had shed most of its earlier contempt and replaced it with something considerably more wary.
"Speak."
Ansys spoke.