"A weird cutting attack that is invisible to the eye, extremely powerful telekinetic abilities, insane physical strength, the power to open up what I presume are some kind of spatial gates seemingly at will, blood manipution that can cover an entire Isnd, a weird bck sun power that we have no idea what it does, super regeneration, sword hands, vine creation, and now bck fire that can burn things to basically nothing... Isn't this guy a bit too strong for a collector. Even Anima the World strongest and most notorious Collector doesn't have this much Flux items. Do you have any idea how hard it is to come across Flux items that are safe to use."

  Nikuhara said as her gaze fixed on Nier, who hovered high above them, wreathed in the faint, shimmering haze of his crimson telekinetic aura.

  Her eyes then slid toward Lady Blue, it was clear she had something to say as she tilted her head and spoke, as her words cuts through the tension.

  "Tell me, Alexis."

  She started then continued.

  "You seem awfully chummy with this hooded guy. Did you pheraphs had any idea that he was packing that kind of fire power?"

  Lady Blue's face twisted into an immediate scowl.

  From there she reached up and scratched the back of her head roughly, letting out an exasperated huff.

  "Honestly! Can you stop dick riding the newbie's dick will yah? There are tons of Level 3s and 4 Hestas out there who could easily level an entire isnd surface without breaking a sweat."

  Alexis said with a deadpan face it was clear she was getting annoyed by Nikuhara's comment.

  Then she continued to speak.

  "What he just did? Not exactly headline material. I could rip this whole chunk of nd apart myself if I felt like it."

  She waved a dismissive hand.

  "Raw power output doesn't mean shit when we're talking about cheat-level abilities that just break the rules."

  She paused, then met Nikuhara's stare more directly.

  "As for whether I know him or not… it's yes and no. I know him because I still remember the exact texture of his cells from when we met thirty years ago, back when we were both kids. I was six. He was two. I seriously doubt he even remembers me."

  Said Alexis, as she continue to look at Nier from the giant screen present.

  Meanwhile, agonized screams echoed from the background, cutting through the tense air.

  "Awww, it fucking hurts… That bastard—I swear to God, I'll kill him!"

  "Stay still, will ya? And man up. If you're gonna be on the front lines, you're gonna feel way worse than this."

  An old man in a crisp, elegant tuxedo was working on the injured fighter. Despite his age, he looked remarkably fit—broad-shouldered, muscur, and steady-handed as he continued treatment, green light and energy soaking into wounds itself healing them rapidly regardless of the physical injury.

  Melody stared at the doctor, voice tight with worry.

  "Doc, why isn't he healing?"

  The old man gnced up at her, calm but grim.

  "I don't know. But I think it's more his problem than anything else. The blood crushed and shattered every bone in his body, and now he is being sliced open again and again without end, the moment I close anything. I've reset the fractures, but these cuts… they keep appearing out of nowhere. Some are so deep I can't even trace where they're coming from."

  He focused again on Meld, sealing yet another vicious gash that had just carved across his face, slicing his right eye clean out. The visor Meld once wore had been obliterated in the earlier fight with Nier.

  The doctor restored the eye in seconds—but almost immediately....

  SLICE!!

  A brutal horizontal cut ripped across Meld's abdomen, deep enough that his stomach bulged grotesquely outward through the wound.

  "Aaahhh—it hurts! Why is that bastard doing this to me?!"

  Meld's voice cracked with raw pain.

  The old doctor simply kept working, hands glowing faintly as he tried to close the new injury.

  A portal still hung open in the distance—crimson-rimmed and unnaturally stable. Even though the isnd was thousand's of miles away now, the spatial gate refused to colpse. An invisible, impassable barrier sealed everything inside once the red light was active, but it was folding of space as such it was close enough for Nier Dismissal Ssh to register it as “in range.” And because Meld still harbored murderous and negative intent toward him, the passive cutting continued to hunt him down without mercy.

  Nikuhara watched the scene with a horrified expression. She turned to Lady Blue, who looked utterly uninterested.

  "So you're just going to stand there and ignore the fact that your hooded friend is torturing your lieutenant's brother?"

  Lady Blue shrugged.

  "I really don't care. He is weak. Besides pain is a good teacher for weaklings, as it motivates them to get stronger. Also, we don't even know how Nier's cutting attack actually works. Could be passive, could be a curse, could be him just being an asshole. No proof it is intentional."

  Nikuhara sighed heavily.

  "Fine. Let me bring him here... He cause this, so he could definitely fix this."

  A delicate blue butterfly shimmered into existence in front of her. She gnced at Nier's distant figure on a floating screen—then, in the blink of an eye, the butterfly and Nier swapped pces in three-dimensional space. He materialized right beside them; the butterfly hovered where he had been floating moments earlier on the Isnd.

  "…Well, that was weird."

  Nier muttered aloud, more to himself than anyone else.

  "So there are people who can force-teleport others too. Interesting."

  Everyone froze for a second, caught off guard by his casual reaction.

  Meld, however, locked eyes with him and roared.

  "YOU BASTARD!"

  "Hmm?"

  Nier turned toward the voice dripping with hatred.

  "Who are you again… Ah, that trench coat. You're the visor girl, right?"

  "I am a man you fucking monster... Aghh...w-what the fuck are you? There is no way you're human, you creepy fuck—what are you?!"

  SLASH!! SLASH!! SLASHHHH!!!

  "AWWWWWWW!!!"

  Meld's entire right arm vanished in a spray of blood. Both legs were severed at the thighs in the same instant.

  Melody lunged forward, seizing Nier's arm in a crushing grip.

  "Nier, please—stop this! You're going to kill him! He is in so much pain—why are you hurting my little brother like this?!"

  "He's your little brother?"

  "YES! SO PLEASE STOP!"

  Her fingers dug in harder; Nier could feel the bones in his arm creaking under the pressure.

  He sighed.

  "But I'm not the one doing this. He is hurting himself."

  "W-What…? No—we saw you use that power all the time during the exam! What the hell do you mean you're not doing this?!"

  Quick Feline snapped, fury rising.

  Nier just exhaled again, as he turned his head to someone else.

  "Oi, old man."

  "Hm? Yes?"

  "Any way you can knock him out, or to put him to sleep."

  "Ah… no, my specialty is only hea...

  SMASH!!

  A heavy thud rang out.

  Everyone turned.

  Lady Blue stood with one foot pnted squarely on Meld's face, grinding his head into the dirt until he went limp.

  "There. That should do it, right?"

  "Ha!?"

  Melody blinked in disbelief.

  "Why the hell did you do that?!"

  "Because Nier is clearly saying this weakling is breaking the rules of his ability just by staying conscious. And look, old Ramon—the constant cutting stopped."

  The doctor blinked, then checked.

  "…Huh. It really did stop. What kind of fucked-up ability is this?"

  Nier stayed silent. Only an idiot would expin their trump card out loud.

  Lady Blue, however, was no fool. She had survived countless battles to know he was intionaly hiding information behind his power, but she smile, with a knowing smirk that curled her lips.

  "…Heh. I like you already, Nier. Still—the fact that you're the Doctor's son already tells me you're some kind of human experiment, just like me. Even before Hestas existed, this world was crawling with hidden supernatural crap. Your father was neck-deep in it. Wouldn't surprise me if he built you like this."

  'Complete bullshit. My father never experimented on me. My mother, though… well, she kind of did. Not the way you're thinking—just a lifetime of brutal training that made me a lot harder to kill than most people. Even when I died in that car crash and bled out, I sted way longer than any normal human should have.'

  Nier kept the thoughts to himself, but Lady Blue just chuckled even louder, her eyes gleaming with amusement.

  "Your silence basically answers my question, you know. Still, that cutting ability of yours is dangerous as hell—it targets anything and anyone with the right trigger. I know different abilities run on their own pne of logic, especially the passive ones. And judging by this weakling's condition earlier… I've more or less got a hunch on how yours might work."

  "W-What do you mean?"

  Nier asked, a faint edge of nervousness creeping into his voice.

  Lady Blue's smile widened—slow, knowing, predatory even.

  Then, without another word, she unleashed it.

  A crushing wave of killing intent exploded outward, thick and suffocating, zeroed in on Nier like a spotlight of pure murder. The pressure smmed into everyone nearby like a raging tidal wave.

  Melody dropped to her knees with a strangled gasp, Nikuhara flinched hard, even old Ramon staggered back a step. The air itself felt heavier, colder—genuine, bone-deep intent to kill.

  In the same heartbeat, Lady Blue lunged. Her hand blurred forward, fingers curled like talons as she was ready to use her abilities to rip Nier apart into eight bloody pieces.

  Nikuhara snapped out of her shock and shouted, rushing forward.

  "Aexis, what the hell are you doing?! Stop this—you can't hurt a civili...

  SLASH!!

  The world went dead silent.

  Blood sprayed in a wide, violent arc.

  Everyone froze.

  Lady Blue's head was gone, severed clean at the neck, tumbling through the air before nding with a wet thud on the dirt. Her body stood rigid for a split second, then colpsed to its knees as crimson gushed from the stump, soaking the ground and spttering everyone close by.

  Nier hadn't moved. Hadn’t even blinked. The cut had simply happened.

  Even he looked momentarily stunned. Inside his hoodie, Kaly's voice hissed in disbelief.

  'Darling, this bitch… is fucking crazy.'

  Old Ramon let out a strangled cry.

  "Oh my God. Oh my God...LADY BLUE!!"

  He rushed toward her, hands already fring with healing light. Nikuhara stood rooted, eyes wide.

  "He… He actually hurt Alexis. A Level 5 Hesta…How?!"

  Nier, meanwhile, was quietly furious. He muttered under his breath, barely audible.

  "70,089 units… She just drained me of seventy fucking thousand units. That is almost half my current reserve. Even absorbing 5,399 from the isnd's negativity and another 2,132 floating around here won't cover that insane loss. Still… to think she figured out how my Dismissal Ssh actually works with just watching me using it a couple of times, I was right, this woman is extremely dangerous."

  He whispered the st part to himself, staring in grim horror.

  "She is not dead, right?"

  Kaly's voice came back, calm but edged with grim certainty.

  "Sadly no! Perfect Hestas like her can't be killed by something as trivial as decapitation. At that level, their immortality is closer to a w of the world than biology. For example you can't permanently kill lightning, flooding, or a hurricane. The only way to erase them for good is to wipe the entire pnet those phenomenon take pce on. They're like living phenomena now—more like natural disasters given flesh than actual people. Think of them as trees: as long as the roots remain, they'll grow back. Unless you destroy their heart—which has pnetary baseline durability, and even then you need to completely vaporize it, or they'll just reincarnate into a new body if you pnt the heart in the ground. Given those hearts are living seeds, and their souls anchored to it's, it is a perk that is exclusive to those who've reached the perfect stage of Hesta evolution or Level 5, like her, and that blue hair chick."

  "What the fuck?...

  Nier exhaled the words, stunned.

  "Sigh. The more I learn about Hestas, the more shocked I get. These freaks are that powerful?"

  "You don't even know half of it, darling. They're the modern equivalent of ancient witches and wizards. As you are right now, there is nothing you can do about them—they're even harder to kill than those old monsters."

  "Mhm."

  Nier gave a casual, almost detached reply while watching Ramon panic.

  Then, from the ground, ughter bubbled up—bright, unhinged, delighted even.

  It was Lady Blue's severed head.

  "Hahahahahaha… You sly bastard of a doctor. To think you created a freak like this."

  Her headless body rose smoothly to its feet, as if the decapitation had been a minor inconvenience. It bent down, retrieved the head with steady hands, and pressed it back onto the stump. Flesh fused instantly—muscle weaving, bone snapping into pce, skin sealing smooth. In seconds she was whole again, rolling her neck with a satisfied crack.

  Ramon tried to rush in with more healing anyway, but she shoved him back gently yet firmly, annoyed.

  "Stop making such a racket, old man. It is just a beheading. It'll take way more than that to put me down for good."

  She dusted off her hands like she had just finished a light spar, then turned that same sharp, amused grin back on Nier.

  "So that's how your cutting ability works. Scary stuff. I had my suspicions, but now it all lines up—why this weakling kept getting diced. It's passive, isn't it? Meaning that your power only triggers on genuine killing intent directed at you."

  Nier stayed quiet.

  "Silence again, eh? That means I'm right."

  "Heh. Who knows—maybe I just cut your head off because your killing intent was scary, causing me to attack you in self defense."

  Lady Blue ughed outright, loud and genuine.

  "No, no—if that were the full story, you would be admitting you were hurting poor little Meld on purpose. But fine. Keep your secrets."

  She cracked her knuckles, still grinning.

  "Still… I like you already, Nier. Dangerous little freak."

  "Ugh. Look, I'm not revealing the full scope of my abilities. Honestly, I just want the license."

  "Haa? The fuck you mean just want the license? Didn't you come here to be a hero?"

  "Yes and no. My real goal is hunting Fluxes. I am a collector—I need legal paperwork to start. Like you said, I am a byproduct of my parents. But me personally I need Flux items to get stronger."

  "That is some grade-A bullshit. Why waste your potential like that? You could be so much more than just some hunter-scavenger."

  "Yeah. Not interested."

  "Tsk… Fine. I'll drop it—for now. But this conversation isn't over."

  Lady Blue's expression soured.

  "So, uh… where do I get my license?"

  Nikuhara stepped forward.

  "It'll take about a month."

  Nier turned to her.

  "Ah. Hello. And you are?"

  "Nikuhara La'Vieta Baros, at your service, young sapling. Like our delightful cunt of a commander here, I am also a Level 5 Hesta. I work as the Head Dispatcher for the Lunaris City sector of the Association. I mostly handle support roles and long-range strikes."

  'Another Level 5!?'

  Nier kept the shock internal, but the sheer number of these walking natural disasters inside the Association alone was starting to sink in.