Chapter 107: Meeting a Rank S
The silence of the apartment amplified each angry beat of Isaac’s heart. Motionless in the middle of his narrow room, he felt a cold rage creeping into his veins like molten metal. His fists were clenched so tightly that the crescent moons of his fingernails dug deep into his palms, nearly drawing blood. His phone lay on the bed, screen cracked after being hurled against the wall a silent witness to the conversation that had just ignited his fury.
- "Fucking bastards..." he muttered in a hoarse breath, every syllable steeped in restrained fury that seemed to make the air around him vibrate.
His gaze drifted to the window, where the gray Parisian dawn barely filtered through the half-closed blinds. The rumors, the accusations, the sidelong glances all had intensified since his release from custody. The hunter community had silently condemned him without trial. To them, he was the anomaly, the suspicious survivor, the liar who invented a story about dragons to cover up his own guilt.
Isaac slowly closed his eyes, trying to smother the wildfire that was devouring his mind. The ticking of his bedroom clock counted the seconds with almost insulting regularity tick-tock, tick-tock each sound magnified by his hypersensitive awareness, hammering against his temples like a relentless reminder of lost time.
- "If I stay here brooding, I’m going to lose my mind," he muttered into the oppressive silence of the cluttered room.
A jolt of willpower surged through his body like an electric shock. With a swift, almost violent movement, he began clearing space in the center of the room. Books were piled in a corner, clothes shoved aside, furniture scraped noisily across the wooden floor in protest. In a matter of minutes, a two-meter circle of empty space appeared in the midst of the chaos.
Isaac stepped into the center, feet shoulder-width apart, his stance grounded and stable. Slowly, the fury distorting his features shifted into relentless focus. The lines on his face, once tense with anger, reformed into a mask of cold, calculated determination.
- "Alright," he thought, mentally replaying the precise sensations of his last use of [Instinctive Awakening]. "Let’s take it slow this time. Half a second at a time..."
His eyelids lowered, shutting out visual distractions. His breathing, initially erratic under the residue of his anger, gradually steadied into a calm, controlled rhythm. Each inhale extinguished a bit of rage; each exhale carried away another distracting thought.
- "[Instinctive Awakening]," he murmured, barely audible.
The effect was instantaneous but meticulously measured. For a fraction of a second exactly half a second a faint ethereal glow swept over his skin, as if every cell in his body lit up from within. The world around him seemed to slip into a state of semi-stillness. Dust motes hanging in the morning light became visible, suspended like microscopic stars. The ticking of the clock stretched into a deep, drawn-out vibration. Even the air molecules seemed to brush against his skin with newfound clarity, every current detectable.