The smell of sterile bandages, crushed medicinal herbs, and burnt ozone filled the room as Hegemon slowly opened his eyes. The familiar wooden ceiling of the Noble mansion was gone; in its place was the vaulted stone arches of the Royal Knight Command Center, deep within the inner sanctuary of the capital.
His right leg was tightly bound in wooden splints, and a thick bandage was wrapped around his fractured ribs. Every breath felt like inhaling glass, but the physical pain paled in comparison to the icy, suffocating void in his chest.
"Don't try to move," a voice commanded softly from the corner of the room.
Xuka Astri stepped forward, adjusting her polished shoulder guards. Her face was weary, stained with soot and dry blood, but her eyes carried a profound, solemn respect.
"I pulled you out of that rubble myself, Hegemon," Xuka said, sitting on the stool beside his cot. "If it weren't for your advanced warning and the early evacuation routes you laid out, half the capital's population would have been slaughtered in their sleep today. You saved tens of thousands of lives. The High Command is calling it a miracle."
Hegemon's expression didn't change. His eyes remained fixed on the stone wall, entirely devoid of warmth. "Lily... was taken."
Xuka's mouth thinned into a hard line, and she looked down at the floorboards. "We know. But... she wasn't taken as a political hostage or a bargaining chip against the Noble family. According to intercepted cult transmissions, they brought her directly to the abyssal altar in the lower sector."
"To what end?" Hegemon rasped, his voice cold, devoid of any inflection.
"She is being held as a tool for amusement... and an ignition key," Xuka replied gravely. "The white-haired man possesses a unique, ancient mana signature, but it lacks spatial stability. Lily's untainted, highly receptive informational mana is being forcibly extracted to serve as a catalyst—a bridge to help him stabilize his power across this dimension."
The heavy oak door creaked open, and Kenji walked into the room. The Holy Sword was sheathed at his hip, its divine golden aura faint yet steady. His expression was darker than Hegemon had ever seen it.
"His name is Leo," Kenji said abruptly, stepping up to the side of the bed. "He holds the title of the 4th High Officer in the Western Cult, known among the northern kingdoms as the White Knight of Ruin."
Hegemon turned his head slightly, his dark eyes locking onto Kenji. "What is his combat profile?"
"Terrifyingly simple," Kenji answered, crossing his arms over his chest. "I fought him briefly during the Fall of the Northern Border three years ago. I don't fully understand the underlying mechanics of his authority yet, but I know one absolute fact: he has never suffered a single scratch in any battle. Physical strikes, high-tier offensive magic, holy seals—everything simply nullifies or bounces off his skin as if the concept of damage does not apply to him. He is an immovable fortress."
Hegemon lay silently in the dim room, letting the raw data settle into his mind. The lingering despair and the phantom ache of his missing skills vanished, replaced entirely by the cold, razor-sharp machinery of his intellect. He didn't have time to mourn his lost power. He had logic. He had variables. He had a puzzle that needed to be dismantled.
'Think,' Hegemon commanded himself, his eyes narrowing as he mentally dissected every millisecond of his brief encounter with Leo.
1. Physical Immunity When his fist made contact with Leo's jaw, there was no magical barrier, no kinetic displacement, and no defensive spell cast. The force simply ceased to exist upon impact. This implied one of two possibilities either Leo possessed a passive, continuous spatial redirection boundary, or his physical body was anchored in a different temporal layer, making him intangible to conventional force while remaining tangibly capable of striking others.
Spatial Instability Kenji confirmed that Leo's mana signature was unstable, requiring Lily's informational mana as a stabilizer. If Leo relied on an external catalyst to maintain his presence in this dimension, his "invincibility" was not an inherent trait—it was a maintained state of existence.
3. Tactical Blindspots: Leo was arrogant. He viewed mortals as insects and pets. A enemy who believes himself completely immune to harm will never dodge, block, or prepare a counter-strategy against an incoming attack. His arrogance was his primary structural flaw.
"He isn't invincible," Hegemon murmured aloud, his raspy voice cutting through the heavy silence of the room.
Kenji and Xuka both blinked, looking at the broken butler in disbelief.
"I punched him with raw physical force," Hegemon analyzed calmly, his fingers tracing invisible tactical lines on the coarse bedsheet. "The kinetic energy vanished, but the air around his head didn't displace. That means he doesn't absorb or reflect damage—he disconnects his physical body from the spatial vector at the exact moment of impact. But to extract Lily's mana at the abyssal altar, he must anchor himself completely to this dimension."
Hegemon slowly swung his bandaged legs over the side of the bed, ignoring the sharp flare of agony in his shattered knee. He gripped the edge of the wooden frame, forcing himself to stand upright on one leg, his dark eyes burning with an absolute, terrifying resolve.
"Kenji... your Holy Sword possesses spatial-cleaving properties when fully unsealed," Hegemon said, staring directly at the Hero. "Xuka, your knight vanguard can draw away the 10th and 6th Officers. We are going to infiltrate the lower sector. I will find the seam in Leo's invincibility... and I will rip him apart."