## Chapter 31: The Taste of Patience
The sterile lights of the East Sector Gate Hub buzzed overhead as Kelvin stepped through the stabilization archway, the damp chill of the Whispering Caverns still clinging to his clothes. The mission chrono on his wrist blinked—**03:42:17 remaining until potential outbreak**—but the numbers meant nothing now. The dungeon was clear. The Crimson Claw would file their report. And he... he had a C-Rank Spirit Core burning a hole in his pocket and a growing list of questions with no answers.
He moved through the post-mission chaos of the Hub, shoulders slightly hunched, the picture of an exhausted porter. Around him, Hunters of various ranks debriefed, medics tended to minor injuries, and logistics teams hauled equipment. The air smelled of ozone, sweat, and the faint metallic tang of mana batteries. Normalcy. Routine.
Then he saw them.
Across the bustling Hub, near Platform 12, a familiar group stood huddled around a mission briefing terminal. Vincent Croft, tall and broad-shouldered, his once-friendly face now forever etched in Kelvin's memory as the architect of his betrayal. Beside him, Evelyn Reed, her sleek dark hair pulled into a tight ponytail, her expression as cold and calculating as the day she'd turned her back on him in that E-Rank hellhole. The others were there too—Mira, Jansen, Holt—his old team. His old *friends*.
They looked... comfortable. Vincent was laughing at something, his new armor—higher grade, better quality than anything they'd ever afforded as E-Ranks—gleaming under the Hub lights. Evelyn checked her tablet, her lips curving into a small, satisfied smile. They'd moved on. They'd *thrived*.
And why wouldn't they? They'd left him for dead, crawled out of that dungeon with some sob story about a tragic accident, and reaped the rewards. No one questioned it. No one cared about one missing F-Rank.
Kelvin's hands clenched at his sides. The **Blood War Chains** stirred beneath his skin, the barbs itching for release. The **Pyroclastic Manipulation** in his core flared, a white-hot ember of rage. He could do it. Right now. Walk over there, let the chains loose, watch the shock on their faces as the "crippled F-Rank" they'd abandoned tore them apart.
He took a step forward.
Then stopped.
Vincent turned slightly, scanning the crowd, his gaze sliding right over Kelvin without recognition. Why would he look twice at some random porter? Kelvin was beneath his notice. Just like he'd been beneath his loyalty.
The realization was a bucket of ice water.
*No.*
This wasn't the time. Not here. Not like this.
He wasn't some reckless novice anymore, driven by raw fury and desperation. He was the Forsaken Architect. He had a **System**. He had levels to gain, abilities to master, a sister to protect. Vincent and Evelyn? They were insects. And when the time came, he wouldn't just kill them. He'd *unmake* them. He'd strip away everything they'd built on his betrayal and leave them broken, begging for the mercy they'd denied him.
But not today.
Today, he turned away.
He walked past them, unseen, a ghost in plain sight. The **Bloodlust** subsided, not gone, but banked, channeled into something colder, sharper.
*Soon,* he promised himself, stepping out into the pale morning light. *But not yet.*
The walk home was quiet. The city waking up around him, oblivious to the storm brewing beneath its streets, behind the eyes of a man who was no longer a victim, no longer weak.
He had a core to consume. A **System** to exploit. And a reckoning to prepare for.
Patience, he'd learned, was the sharpest weapon of all.
And his was honed to a razor's edge.