Kayseri, Turkey, Memory Shadow World
“You’re back,” Ares muttered as the man teleported inside the office. “What happened with the Giant Awakener?”
“We couldn’t recruit him.”
“I see,” Ares nodded and closed his documents, shifting his focus to Liam. “Where is Zeus? I don’t see him with you.”
“He went somewhere else.”
Ares frowned.
“Where?”
“Arzew City. Zeus left to meet Neo Hargraves,” Liam answered.
“Neo Hargraves?” Ares repeated.
The news about Neo’s existence had become known already.
It created quite a stir, especially because Neo wasn’t supposed to exist.
Even Gaia, an S-rank awakener, was coming back from China to meet with Neo.
Ares did not ask why Zeus wanted to meet Neo Hargraves.
He knew Zeus’ past and had an idea of what was happening.
“Neo Hargraves has left Arzew a few weeks ago. It would’ve been better if Zeus came straight back to the Association.”
“I know that. I didn’t tell it to Zeus purposefully.”
Liam grinned and sank into the sofa.
He threw his head back.
He let out a chuckle when he thought Zeus was wasting his time by going to Arzew. Serves him right.
Ares shook his head when he saw the twisted grin on Liam’s face.
“Was that necessary? You could’ve at least used your portals to shorten the time of Zeus’ travel.”
“Hell no!”
Liam sat straight back up and shouted with a flushed face.
“Do you know how much headache I got because of him!?
“That crazy lunatic attacked the city lords in Titan’s territory! Fucking shit! We have a ceasefire treaty going on with Titans, and that lunatic still attacked them!”
“I got the complaints from Titans already. Don’t worry about it. I’ll handle the compensation.”
“Argh! This…! This is why Zeus is getting out of hand! Why do you always cover his actions!?”
“Zeus’ report said he attacked only corrupted city lords. I can’t berate him for doing good.”
A vein popped on Liam’s forehead.
He opened his mouth to shout and closed it.
He took deep breaths, forcing himself to calm down.
It took a few moments.
“Sigh, those city lords belonged to Titans. We can’t attack them willy-nilly like this,” Liam said. “It’s like America’s army invading Brazil to help them kill their corrupted politician.”
A bitter smile appeared on Ares’ face.
He knew better than anyone else how Zeus was.
“Anyway,” Ares said, picking another document. “How were the battles? Last month Zeus said he was close to a breakthrough. It might be why he attacked those city lords – to push himself beyond the limits.”
“He fought Perses.”
“The Titan of Destruction?”
“That one.”
“….”
Ares closed the documents and took off his glasses.
He rubbed his face with both hands and covered his face.
“Perses is an S-rank awakener. I’m pretty sure I told Zeus to not fight those guys. Battles between S-rankers cause too much collateral damage.”
“There was no battle,” Liam said. “It ended quickly.”
“I guess Perses retreated. He might be called Titan of Destruction, but he is a pretty amicable guy–”
“Zeus defeated him with a single attack.”
The meaning behind those words dawned upon Ares, making him blink in stupefaction.
“Zeus broke through to SS rank?”
“Yes and no. He can use the [Divine Transformation] technique to become SS-rank temporarily.”
“I thought no one could use [Divine Transformation] yet?”
Ares knew about the Divine Transformation technique.
Much like other techniques of Association, it was created by Gaia.
Divine Transformation could give a huge temporary boost without any long-term consequences.
The only downside was the learning curve of the technique.
Until now, no one had been able to use Divine Transformation.
“Well, Zeus just became the first guy.” Liam shrugged.
“That’s a big news. Why didn’t you tell me about it sooner?”
“Because fuck Zeus.”
Liam stood up to leave. He stopped at the door and turned around.
“By the way, Zeus had a weird look when he took off to meet Neo Hargraves.”
“…’I’m going to fight that guy’ type of weird look?”
“That one.”
Liam smirked when he saw Ares’ crumpling expression.
“Good luck!”
He left before Ares could tell him to go and bring Neo Hargraves to the association.
Ares shook his head.
While the situation did look bad – very bad – it was fine.
Arzew city’s people would send Zeus to Spain, since the Necromancer was there.
Zeus would end up going to Spain, not knowing the Necromancer was already taken care of and Neo Hargraves was on his way to the Association.
“Neo will reach Association without meeting Zeus. Neo must have one hell of a luck to have missed Zeus by coincidence.”
Since the issue was not an issue, Ares focused on work.
Only a few moments had passed when someone knocked on the door urgently.
“Come in.”
His secretary entered along with a young boy.
The boy had a lifeless look in his eyes and his secretary, while she was smiling, had a sweaty forehead.
Ares frowned when he noticed her nervous.
“Sit,” he told the child. “You are?”
“Daniel Caelum.”
“That’s a nice name, Daniel. Please have water before you speak.”
Ares had no idea why the child was brought to him.
But knowing his secretary, it must be an important matter.
“T-thank you.”
The child drank water.
“Daniel, is there something you have to say to me?” Ares questioned, trying to sound as nice as possible.
Daniel nodded.
Tears dripped down from his eyes as he opened his mouth.
“Please, s-save my sister.”
“Your sister?”
Ares turned to his secretary.
“Daniel was rescued by an independent community. That community was destroyed a few weeks ago and we rescued the survivors. Daniel was among them.”
“…?”
Ares didn’t understand what she was trying to say. While it was a heartbreaking news, similar stories were a dime a dozen in the apocalypse.
“His sister was kidnapped before he met the independent community.”
“Who kidnapped her?”
The child answered instead of the secretary.
“T-the tree. The huge tree took her away.”
“…!?”
Ares stiffened.
“His sister was kidnapped by Typhaon?” Ares asked the secretary.
“We don’t have concentrated evidence, but the location where Daniel was kidnapped was near the forests of ’Savage Expanse,’ which is…”
“The base of Typhaon.”
Ares massaged his brows. frёewebηovel.cѳm
Typhaon was called [Father of Anomalies].
Most of the Anomalies were created by it.
If Typhaon itself moved to kidnap a little girl, then that girl wouldn’t be normal.
“It might be a normal monster who kidnapped his sister,” Ares mumbled.
The child didn’t hear it, but the secretary did.
“It is Typhaon,” she asserted.
“How are you so sure?”
“Because his sister is the Child of Mana Apollo saw in his visions. It should be obvious why Typhaon wants someone as precious as her.”
“….Can you prove that?”
The secretary nodded.
She crouched next to the child and patted his back before giving him a paper and pen.
“Can you write about the abilities of the uncle sitting in front of you?”
“I’m not an uncle,” Ares complained grumpily.
Daniel passed the paper to Ares after he was done.
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[Name: William Grant]
[Rank: Grade ??? Mythic]
[Divine Energy Purity: Grade ??? Mythic]
[Stats: ???, ???, ???, ???, 129]
[Affinity: Destruction, Fire, Force, Cosmos, Aetherfire, Rage, Weapons, Stormlight, Plasma, Holy, Light, Life, Dawn, Willpower, Blood, Despair, Metal, Aura, Hope]
[Trait: Berserk War Saint]
Ares read the information Daniel wrote.
“It has my name. As for the contents… They are similar to what Athena told me I asked her for my abilities,” he said.
“Athena calls it Status,” the secretary said. “According to her, the world has Records about all of us and she can access them as the Child of Mana.”
Before Ares could ask if Daniel was the Child of Mana, Daniel spoke.
“N-no, I didn’t write this myself. My sister is the one who told me about your information.”