Talent Awakening: Draconic Overlord Of The Apocalypse - Chapter 527

Capítulo 527: Ripples In Still Water

All across the hall, confused murmurs broke out.

Reporters leaned over their consoles and whispered urgently to each other. Even the broadcast drones, with their auto-tracking AI, seemed to subtly shift, lenses zooming in on the newcomer as if trying to better parse this sudden, unexpected threat.

“Who is he?”

“Did he just say Reapers raid team? Is he referring to the wasteland display event?”

“Is he a union official? A guild member? Someone from one of the main families?”

From the giant billboard airship hovering over Skybridge Plaza, the Union NewsNet feed showed Lana and Kael staring in shock at their monitors.

Lana’s brows pinched. “Who… who is this? He just waltzed past all that security—past dragons—and acts like he owns the hall.”

Kael squinted, leaning forward until his headset almost slipped. Then his eyes went wide.

“Wait… hold on.” He pulled up a separate data window, his fingers flicking rapidly over the screen as old profile archives scrolled by.

A faded image loaded — a slightly younger version of the man now standing in the Grand Hall, hair styled differently, wearing the tailored blue garb of one of the major merchant families.

“That’s…” Kael’s breath caught. Then he slammed his palm on the console. “That’s Young Master Kai! From the Li family. He was assumed to be dead since he and his raid team went missing during the last wasteland event. Soon after the last Gran meeting, the Li family also went missing — their entire estate vanished without a trace last year!”

Lana’s mouth parted in stunned realization. “The same Li family that ran nearly half the trade channels through three sectors… and then just… disappeared overnight?”

Kael nodded grimly, gaze darting back to the live footage of the hall. “He looks a little older, a bit sharper maybe, but that’s him. Gods, what is he doing here? And what’s this about the Reapers raid team?”

Lana’s face hardened, her journalist instincts firing to life. “We’re about to find out. Keep the feed rolling. If this gets any more explosive, we might be witnessing the unraveling of the entire Union power structure live on air.”

Back in the Grand Hall, all eyes were on Young Master Kai as he smiled up at Alister — a smile that was half-playful, half a blade pressed to a pulse point, daring him to respond.

“About time,” Aethel suddenly spoke.

Draven’s eyes, still aglow with faint arcs of purple lightning, snapped immediately from Kai back down toward his prisoner. But there was no longer just polished marble beneath his boot — a dark, rippling pool of ink had begun to spread out under Aethel, slick and oily, almost alive, and he began to sink inside it.

With a sharp snarl, Draven drove his clawed gauntlet down, attempting to seize Aethel by the collar before he could slip away.

But it was too late.

Aethel’s body dissolved into the swirling ink with a sound like tearing silk and vanished completely. Draven’s claws raked only empty air and a smear of fading black residue.

A beat later, that same pool of ink rose up beside Kai — twisting and coiling like a serpent — before vomiting Aethel out of its depths, whole and completely dry, adjusting his suit cuffs as though he’d merely stepped through a doorway.

Aethel exhaled, fixing the lapels of his suit and giving Kai a brief, wry glance.

“Your timing, as always, is… impeccably inconvenient. You were supposed to arrive several minutes earlier.”

Kai only laughed, lightly clapping the Director on the shoulder. “Please, Director. What are friends for if not to drag you dramatically back from the jaws of doom?”

Meanwhile, Draven’s reptilian eyes narrowed, lightning cracking more violently over his obsidian armor as he stepped forward again, blade half-raised. The entire hall bristled, every guild member, union officer, and dragon knight suddenly on the razor’s edge of conflict.

And in the midst of it, Kai smiled even wider, his mismatched eyes glinting with something between mockery and open challenge.

“Now then… why don’t we continue this little theater properly, summoned?”

Kai raised his voice.

“Good day, people of the Union! As I’m sure most of you can already tell, I am Kai Li — yes, that Li family. The very same Kai who supposedly died, or was written off as MIA, during the last Wasteland Display Event. I imagine you’ve all comforted yourselves believing it was monsters that ripped me and my team apart out there, when in actuality—”

“Yu’Keto.”

His words were cut abruptly.

Because from the dais, Alister’s voice rang out.

At the mention of that name, a colossal pulse of silver mana erupted outward from the White Comet guild seats.

It rolled over the Grand Hall like a tidal wave, then beyond, racing across every street, tower, and hidden crevice of the entire Megacity.

In an instant, everything changed.

The bustling feeds broadcasting the summit across the sectors turned to ghostly black and snow white. All motion stopped — birds frozen mid-flight outside the windows, falling petals caught hovering in the air.

Even the shifting glow of neon signs across the skyline ceased, as if time itself had been robbed of momentum.

All across the Union, in all the other cities beyond City I territory, screens flickered with the same haunting stillness.

Confused viewers leaned forward, tapping their devices, some muttering if it was a broadcast glitch or a catastrophic system crash.

In Megacity VI, far to the west, inside a sleek Union Director’s office, a woman with long blue hair and piercing sapphire eyes watched the phenomenon unfold on her wall-sized data display. A knowing, bitter smile tugged at the corner of her lips.

“He’s actually doing it… again…” she whispered, her breath fogging the glass. Her fingers curled around her pendant of a silver dragon scale, knuckles white. “After he swore to me he’d never do it again…”

Back in the Grand Hall of Megacity I, Yuuto slowly rose from his seat. His white coat billowed as though caught in an unseen breeze, his silver hair lifting with his mana. Those normally gentle silver eyes had sharpened, pupils narrowing into thin predatory slits.

He let out a long sigh, hands flexing at his sides.

“What exactly do you intend to do now, young lord?”