Eren Eben lived on a prayer of invisibility. He had to. If his hands so much as trembled, the consequences could extend far beyond the immediate damage the structural integrity of the entire block, perhaps even the district, might pay the price.
In the dusty, low-lit confines of Eben Restorations, Eren focused on repairing an ancient glass ampulla. The task demanded absolute, zero-vibration stability. This was not mere skill, it was a constant, exhausting internal negotiation.
To achieve this stillness, he commanded a silent, microscopic bubble of absolute quietude around his work. It was a localized, concentrated absence of momentum, a perfect vacuum of kinetic energy carved out of the chaotic, moving universe. This bubble, this NullField, was a constant drain, a psychological anchor point that kept the maelstrom of his inner power from boiling over. The ampulla, a delicate vessel of seventeenth-century Venetian glass, required the precise, millimetric reattachment of its handle. A single misplaced vibration, a truck passing outside, a floorboard creaking would cause the stress points to shatter.
Eren, at twenty-five, had spent half his life perfecting this quietude. His existence was a testament to restraint. His innate ability was immense, a genetic gift centered on the raw manipulation of movement and friction the Capriccio bloodline's terrifying heritage. He could stop a speeding car with a focused thought or liquefy concrete with a controlled touch. But raw, untamed, his power was a devastation. It was the opposite of restoration: it was the absolute, instantaneous cancellation of structure.
His life was a constant, exhausting exercise in restraint. It wasn't just physical, it was a profound, ceaseless meditation against the urge to let go. He wore his ordinariness like a second skin, simple clothes, a perpetually exhausted demeanor, and the constant scent of wood lacquer. The shop itself was a shield; a place where slow, deliberate repair was expected, demanded. Only his grey eyes betrayed him. They were forever scanning the world's flow, the subtle shift in the wind's current, the specific pressure exerted by the ceiling beams, the precise velocity of every passing vehicle. Every particle in Genoa was logged by his secondary focus, a constantly running equation of mass and momentum.
Lately, the hidden flow had been screaming at him. For weeks, the presence of others like him, individuals with strong, controlled energy had been encroaching on his safe zone. They were distant, shielded, but Eren sensed the subtle energetic wake they left behind, like cold spots in a warm room. It felt like grit in the gears of his own silence. The network of criminal bloodlines, the hidden families who ruled the underworld, was tightening its grip on Genoa. The low-frequency hum of their ambition was distorting the natural kinetic resonance of the city, turning the quiet hum of Genoa into a dissonant, approaching shriek.
A resonant hum, low and comforting, accompanied the opening of the shop door. Eren knew the source instantly: Nonna Emilia. Her presence was a steady, warm gold, the kind of quiet understanding that allowed her to instinctively gauge the depth of a person's heart. The change in ambient energy was immediate: the air around her felt denser, warmer, a temporary reprieve from Null Field's perpetual chill.
"Eren, my rose," she said, her voice a gravelly whisper. "You have stopped the air again. My joints ache when you do that." She never used the term Null Field she simply referred to the local impossibility, the area where dust motes hung suspended and candle flames refused to flicker.
Eren instantly eased the pocket of stillness around his bench, allowing the room's subtle kinetic energy to rush back in. The air felt louder, heavier, the gentle current of a thousand tiny vibrations returning to his sensory perception. "Apologies, Nonna Emilia. The glass demanded absolute patience."
She shuffled toward him, placing a basket on the counter, the steam carrying the sharp, comforting scent of basil. "You are running too cold, child. You chase the edge of the thermodynamic spectrum," she said, touching his cheek with a hand that felt ancient and warm. "The stillness you seek is the stillness of the grave. You must warm yourself."
Her dark, ancient eyes fixed on his. "The city is filled with cold steel, Eren," she continued, her voice dropping. "I feel the metallic, sharp edge of hostile intent on the wind. They are not looking for a shopkeeper; they are measuring the silence you make. The emptiness."
She referred to the invisible bubble of nothingness Eren constantly maintained around himself, necessary to mask the immense, humming core of his own energy. The Capriccio bloodline, his father's, was known for its volatile, kinetic power, a maelstrom of unpredictable force. Eren, the true heir, could silence it completely. He was the perfect kinetic shield, but also the Family's ultimate, and most dangerous, secret.
"I am bringing you minestra," Nonna Emilia concluded, giving him a look that conveyed both worry and immense certainty. "Eat. You will need your strength when the music begins." And she was right. The silence was over. The flow had turned into a current.
After she left, the feeling of surveillance became a physical weight. Eren moved to the window. The black sedan was parked a block down, discreetly angled. It was a cheap, obvious tactic, yet effective in its crude persistence. He knew they weren't seeing him with their eyes. They were using resonance-based instruments that measured the energetic bleed of the world, waiting for his own prodigious field to glitch. They were listening for the moment the volume control failed.
He retreated to the back room, the space where he allowed himself to admit the truth. He didn't use a lock; instead, he applied a microscopic pulse of his power to gently shift the localized friction on a steel strongbox disguised within a stack of old frames. The click of the tumbler wasn't mechanical; it was the soft, internal sound of atoms momentarily rearranging themselves.
Inside were his tools for disappearance: emergency documents, small resonance-dampening crystals that absorbed residual psychic energy, and the meticulously marked maps of the sprawling, ancient Capriccio estate in Sicily. He ran a thumb over the maps. Sicily. The cradle of the chaos he had spent a lifetime running from.
He picked up a specialized communication device. Time to call Vulture, his guardian and trainer. Vulture, a man forged in combat, had drilled one truth into him: Always move before the momentum of the enemy carries you away. The axiom felt impossible now. He was already drowning in their current.
Eren was dialing the encrypted number when the air pressure in the room violently inverted. It wasn't a chemical explosion. It was a devastating, targeted wave of physical energy, designed by specialized forces to neutralize fortified locations. This pulse wasn't just meant to destroy matter; it was specifically engineered to shatter any localized bubble of stillness with sheer, brute kinetic overload.
The wall facing the street disintegrated into a torrent of shrapnel traveling near the speed of sound. Before the sound reached his ears, before the shrapnel could cross the distance, Eren pushed. Not with the full force of his heritage, but with absolute, surgical control the signature of the Silent Blade. He threw the entirety of his focus into a three-meter radius around himself. This was the moment of complete, terrible stillness.
The debris instantly warped. It didn't impact his location; it simply froze in mid-air, its velocity instantly neutralized, dropping inertly to the floor in a shower of plaster and metal. Eren stood in a perfect, still sphere, unharmed. He felt the backlash of the neutralization of a massive vacuum where energy should be, threatening to pull his own molecular cohesion apart.
But the protection was a catastrophic error. The specialized equipment outside, sensing the sudden, impossible neutralization of an entire blast wave, went into immediate alarm. The energetic signature was not just a Capriccio signature, it was the signature of the legendary Don himself, refined by a generation of silent, terrifying discipline. The instruments had confirmed, definitively, that the heir was a Don-level threat.
The first wave of attackers, moving with unnatural speed, were already rushing through the hole in the storefront. They didn't need to see him now. They had confirmation of the power level they were hunting. The game was up. The prayer of invisibility had failed.
Eren looked down at his hand, which was now trembling a raw, physical betrayal of his absolute mental focus. He had just confirmed to the world that the Silent Blade was alive, and terrifyingly powerful.