The press conference venue was not a hall so much as a declaration.
It sat in the middle of lower Manhattan like someone had taken an old banking building, gutted it, polished the bones, and rebuilt it for a new age where fame, violence, and money wore the same suit. Glass walls climbed three floors high in the front lobby, showing off banners with league logos, sponsor insignias, and giant looping screens that played edited fight footage from all over the country. Spotlights washed the stone columns in blue and gold. Security stood at every entrance, not in cheap uniforms, but in tailored black suits with earpieces, the kind that made it clear they were not there to look impressive. They were there because A-class divers now counted as national assets.
Outside, the street had been fenced off half a block in each direction.
Metal barricades pressed back the crowd, but not by much. Reporters with cameras and mics packed the outer line shoulder to shoulder. Paparazzi stood on crates and van roofs. Fans waved signs with Alex's name, Emma's name, Dominic's name, and even a few hand-painted ones that simply read NEMEAN in shaky gold letters over a lion head. Some had brought branded merchandise from energy drink companies that had not even won sponsorship rights yet. Others wore fake armor, costume team jackets, or horns and capes like they were attending a rock concert instead of the first major national diver league press conference.
There were signs with Josh's names, Olen's names as well, because clearly the media empire of the Ellisons and the Harlans were working overtime.
The noise rolled like surf.
Team Nemean and the Bronx's Musketeers arrived in two long, expensive cars from the Tannenbaum's fleet, and the moment the doors opened the entire block seemed to tilt toward them.
Flash.
Shouts.
A rising wave of names.
Emma stepped out first from Alexei's car and walked like none of it existed. The cameras did not bother her. The yelling did not bother her. Money, influence, and public hunger had chased her long before the dungeon had. She moved with perfect posture, pale hair in place, clothes cut to be elegant without crossing into costume, and every step said she knew exactly how much attention she was worth.
Alex came out of Dominic's car not long after and drew another wave of noise.
Alexandra Vogel, the Arbiter Mindblade, still had that effect. Even with Emma present, even with Josh already inside, the reporters surged for her on instinct. She held her composure easily, face calm, eyes sharp, carrying herself with the kind of cool that made cameras love her more. Phong saw three reporters nearly trip over the barricade trying to angle for a better shot of her.
Dominic handled the attention better than most because he had seen something like it before. Not this scale, not this hunger, but enough from his days in semi-pro boxing that he knew how to walk through noise without feeding it too much. Janet stayed near him, steady as always, while Jake and Jack managed to look both stylish and deeply annoyed at being dressed in coordinated public-facing clothes.
Joanne was trying very hard not to look like she was enjoying the chaos, which of course meant she looked exactly like someone enjoying the chaos.
Séline and Camille stepped out together and got immediate attention too. Two French fighters, both strong, both attractive, both new to American media. The cameras loved that. The questions about Europe started before the women had even fully cleared the curb.
Phong came out last and regretted being born.
He did not carry himself like Emma.
He did not have Alex's stillness or Dominic's practiced ease.
He looked like a hamster caught while stealing food and was about half a second away from bolting for the nearest vent. His shoulders were too tight, his eyes too alert, and he kept reacting to camera flashes like each one was a trap. Bruno trotted beside him proudly, Nyx moved with catlike disdain, and Rico, somehow wearing a tiny team scarf someone had forced on him, looked more public-ready than Phong did.
Alex glanced back once, caught his expression, and had to hide a smile.
Across the wide front steps, other teams had already gathered.
Josh was there early, leading Brooklyn's Knights.
Phong saw him at once.
Joshua Harlan looked the part the media had built for him again. Clean lines. Good hair. Tailored suit that still let him show the shape of his body. He stood with six teammates behind him, all of them combat class divers, all of them wearing the same polished confidence that came from money smoothing over failure. The team color was silver and deep blue, knight-themed without going full costume. Subtle branding. Expensive fabric. The kind of presentation that said a dozen professionals had argued over exactly how heroic he should look.
Josh turned the moment Team Nemean arrived.
His gaze found Phong first.
And in that one glance, Phong saw it again. Not just hatred. Fear too. Fear sharpened by memory of camp Stymphalian and Rico's Fortress Form on that push against the Death Peak. Josh knew what hid behind Camp Stymphalian's walls. He knew what Phong's garden could become when pushed. He hid it well enough for cameras. Not well enough for Phong.
Then Josh smoothed his face into something public and went to greet Emma.
Emma gave him nothing.
No warmth. No softness. Not even polite pretending. If coldness could be shaped into a human greeting, that was what Josh received. He still tried to smile through it, but even the reporters nearby picked up on the stiffness.
Olen arrived not long after with his own team.
The Golden Bridge Warriors looked out of place the moment they stepped into the venue light. Not weak, or poor, not packed to the brim with ridiculously strong divers like team Nemean either, but stood out regardless. The members were all production class divers. All level twenty-five and above, which would have sounded absurd a year ago and now only drew a brief stir. Their uniforms leaned too hard into gold and white, trying to turn support roles into a noble image. Behind the polish, Phong could still see the problem.
They were underleveled for where Olen wanted to be.
Floor 2 had changed too much. Camp Orthrus and the lake factions had become harder, smarter, less easy to exploit. Olen's chance at safe growth around Lake Baratok had clearly been cut short by everything Phong did there. Phong did not need to hear Olen complain to know it.
Olen still came over to Alex anyway.
He greeted her like he had a right to be noticed, that same polished bastard smile still sitting on his face. Alex spared him one flat nod, then turned back to Joanne and kept talking like he had been a waiter asking if she wanted sparkling or still water.
That hurt him more than anger would have.
Meanwhile, the questions started falling on Séline and Camille.
Why not the Europe league?
Why so quickly in America?
Why choose Team Nemean?
The French pair delivered Emma's prepared script perfectly. Their old team had been shattered when Team Nemean saved them. The Tannenbaums offered a private jet. The dungeon route between France and America had been too dangerous to repeat, especially below level fifty. It was a good script because it sounded exactly like something rich people and traumatized divers would say.
Then the media turned on Phong. Not all at once. Waves. A few first. Then more. Then before he could actually hide like a terrified hamster: a ring had formed surrounding him.
"How does a level one farmer become coach of Team Nemean?"
"Mr. Tran, are you a strategist?"
"Did Alexandra Vogel specifically request you?"
"Is Team Nemean hiding another class evolution?"
"Are you the real reason they survived Floor 3?"
Phong wanted to die. Instead, he swallowed hard, remembered he needed to be visible, and said the first honest thing he could shape into something public.
"Surviving three years at level one means I had to rely on observation."
The microphones leaned closer. He hated them.
"So," he added, "that's something Team Nemean values."
That was enough. The reporters would build meaning from scraps anyway.
The moment a camera shifted away, Phong slid behind Alex like a man hiding behind a tank and let the others soak up the rest of the attention. She did not comment on it. She just adjusted half a step so he was better covered and kept answering questions like this was normal.
Inside, the venue only got louder.
The main hall had been turned into a showcase chamber. Teams clustered near their assigned rows, sponsors floated like sharks in the open spaces, and massive screens displayed league brackets, regional banners, and a rotating list of notable teams. Security guards stood at each access point leading toward the private draw rooms and the press stage. Above it all hung the logo of the diver league, polished gold over black, trying very hard to look like history had always meant to end up here.
Phong took the chance to do what he was best at.
Observation. Planning.
He watched the teams.
He heard them answered to the interviewers, revealing their levels, class tells, sponsorship marks, expensive gear. He absorbed the way divers waved cheap confidence, fake confidence, old injuries, bodyguard habits like signs, and he noticed the way people clustered around who really mattered.
The news were not good.
Humanity had climbed too fast for his liking.
The average level among serious league divers now hovered around thirty-five. A year ago, that would have made them monsters. A year ago, 35 was a privilege only Yue Ting had earned. Now it made them the new middle of power. Enough had crossed level thirty that the meaning of danger on Floor 1 had changed. The trolls were no longer the wall they used to be. Not for organized human groups with enough buffs, enough weapons, enough media support, and enough bodies to cycle losses.
That made the stopped advance on Death Peak even more telling.
It had not stopped because humans feared the trolls anymore.
It had stopped because Alex's report about the level sixty-one Ant Queen had changed the board, and because the Greencap Cavalry still haunted everyone with basic tactical sense. Even level thirty-five divers were not eager to meet a level forty-seven captain leading level thirty-five knights in a proper charge. Small groups would get destroyed. Everyone there knew it, even if no one liked saying it aloud.
Phong watched team after team and felt that weight settle deeper.
Humanity had not stood still while he grew stronger in the dark. It had adapted, leveled, expanded.
The speed still baffled him sometimes.
Now more than ever, he understood why the factions around Lake Baratok found System Blessed humans terrifying. A race that could rise this fast, organize this quickly, and turn every new level bracket into a new political era was not something any native people would watch without fear.
And this was only the public side of it.
Behind the stage lights and polished smiles stood real state interests, military interests, brands, wealthy families, and monsters wearing human skin better than the Painted Skins ever could.
Phong looked around the venue and thought, not for the first time, that the dungeon had made a terrible species stronger.