Both women quickly shut their mouths, sensing just how deadly serious Neo was.

​Leon remained cool, as he always did, though it took a significant amount of effort to keep himself from staring at Noir’s unearthly beauty.

​"Let us focus on the situation," Neo said, turning his attention to Zestia and Leon. "Did you two receive any help from law enforcement or the government?"

​Leon shook his head.

​"They are being unusually silent about the matter. It is highly likely they were given strict instructions from above."

​With an infuriated expression, Zestia added, "The police are not even registering our complaints. They had the nerve to claim that only the victims themselves can file a report about being missing."

​Neo’s eyes radiated a terrifying calmness. "Then asking for their help is completely useless, just as it always has been. I prefer a quicker and more direct approach. Any suggestions?" He looked at the three of them.

​Leon rubbed his chin, "If the cops are bought and the underworld is blind, then we skip the middlemen. We should go straight to the man who holds Byzon’s leash on this planet: Marcus Hutchins. He is the Regional Executive Director for Byzon’s Earth Branch. If a Rothschild ghost squad operated in this sector and bypassed all planetary security, Hutchin absolutely had to provide the clearance codes."

​Zestia’s eyes lit up with recognition, though her expression quickly darkened.

"Uncle is right. But Vance is a notoriously paranoid man. He rarely leaves the Byzon Central Tower, and when he does, he is surrounded by a platoon of elite Federal Officers and high-tier Superhuman bodyguards."

​She quickly tapped a sequence into her holographic watch, bringing up a glowing, three-dimensional layout of the city’s upper echelon.

​"Actually, intel says Hutchin is currently hosting a private, high-society gala at the Sky Zenith Club. He is entertaining several corrupt Federal politicians tonight. The security there will be absolute. It is a fortress in the sky."

Noir giggled darkly.

​"A fortress? A party? How wonderfully convenient. Why waste time playing detective in the shadows when all the guilty little pigs have gathered in one pen? Let us simply crash this gala, darling. We can skin this Marcus human alive in front of his precious politicians. I guarantee someone will spit out the exact coordinates of your family before his blood even hits the floor."

​Leon swallowed hard, shocked by the audacity of the gorgeous woman.

"Calm yourself, lady. Do you even know what are you saying? Hitting the Sky Zenith Club means harming the Federal Officers. We would be declaring war on the entire Federation."

​"The Federation declared war on me the second they let touch my mother and sister," Neo spat coldly.

​He turned toward the panoramic window, his dark eyes targeted onto the distant Tower of the Sky Zenith Club piercing the Chronopolis skyline.

The terrifying gravity of his aura released

outward, cracking the reinforced glass of the window in a spiderweb pattern.

​"They dared to harm this Emperor’s family, they will pay."

​

The evening sky over Chronopolis was bathed in the neon glow of the upper echelons, but outside the Sky Zenith Tower, the ambiance was purely gilded luxury.

​ In front of the grand entrance, a massive, velvet red carpet stretched out, flanked by heavily armed Federal Officers standing at rigid attention.

From the skyline, luxurious antigravity limousines glided down one after another, their gull-wing doors opening to spill out the City’s elites.

Wealthy business magnates with a small cybernetic augmentations hidden beneath bespoke silk suits escorted glamorous companions draped in rare stellar-diamonds.

Corrupt politicians offered polite smiles in front of them.

​Then, a completely unmarked hover-car descended silently near the end of the carpet.

​The moment its doors opened and Neo stepped out, followed closely by Noir, Zestia, and Leon.

The lively and grand ambiance instantly died dowm.

​It was not a gradual silence, it was a sudden suffocating hush that rippled through the crowd like a physical shockwave.

The hovering camera drones spontaneously sparked and dropped to the ground, their lenses cracking.

The elite Federal Officers instinctively gripped their weapons, their hands trembling violently for reasons their minds could not comprehend.

​Every single pair of eyes on the red carpet was entirely stolen by the newly arrived group, but not because of their attire. While the elite flaunted fabrics handcrafted from endangered alien silk and billions of dollars in jewelry, Neo wore a simple, impeccably tailored dark suit.

But, the clothes were entirely irrelevant.

​It was the young man’s aura.

Step. Step. Step.

​Neo walked with a terrifying calmness that defied the natural laws of the world. He did not exude the loud, desperate arrogance of the politicians around him. Instead, he radiated the invisible aura of a cosmic dominator.

To the fragile mortals and low-tier Superhumans standing on the carpet, looking at his eerily dark eyes felt like staring directly into an inescapable abyss.

​It was the primal instinct of prey suddenly realizing an apex predator had entered their territory.

Without a single word spoken, the business magnates and politicians instinctively stepped back, while their legs kepy shaking as they parted like the Red Sea to clear a wide path for him.

Only when Neo’s group went inside, they exhaled in relief.

"What in the name of the heavens was that?"

"Who is that young man? I have met high-tier Beyonders before, but that young man’s presence felt like a mountain."

"Look at the security logs. His bio-signature didn’t even register on the local feed. It just blanked the scanners out entirely. Is he a secret weapon from the central government, or perhaps a hidden heir from one of the Guardian Houses?"

​"Whoever he is, he did not come here to celebrate. The way he looked at us... it was like he was looking at a pile of discarded trash."

Contrary to the fear, the paparazzis scrambled to reboot their downed camera drones. The reporters were practically vibrating with excitement.

​"Did you get his face? Tell me the main lens caught his profile before the drone crashed!"

​"Yes senior. I managed to recover the last five seconds of local cache storage. The video is clear enough to run a sector-wide facial recognition scan."

​"Do it right now!"