Leon was baffled.

The man who had appeared before him radiated an aura so immense and suffocating, that it warped the air around him. It wasn't wild or chaotic, it was controlled, deliberate, and impossibly heavy. Leon had only ever felt something like it once before.

'This aura… it's similar to the old man's,' he thought, eyes narrowing.

Of course, "the old man" could only refer to one person, the Governor of the Federation. And if this presence could stand on equal footing with his, then Leon already knew who stood in front of him. Both men were said to exist at the absolute pinnacle of power.

Leon took a moment, studying the man draped in faint gold light. The figure carried himself with an ease that came from centuries of command, his eyes holding the calm weight of someone who had long stopped needing to prove anything. After a few seconds, Leon's expression softened into something between amusement and respect.

"I didn't expect to be graced with the presence of the Emperor himself," he said evenly.

Alexander, the Emperor of the Human Dominion, raised an eyebrow. His voice was smooth, almost casual.

"You don't seem shocked by my presence."

Leon shrugged lightly, leaning back as if speaking to an equal rather than a ruler. "Not really. I expected as much. After all I have what you need."

For a moment, silence filled the room. Then Alexander exhaled softly, his lips curving into the faintest hint of approval.

"That's good. I like direct people. It makes negotiations easier."

Leon's gaze didn't waver. He had read about the Emperor and his family before, buried deep in the archives of the Shantel Library. Even though that library hadn't been updated in three generations, the same Emperor still ruled, unchanged. That alone told Leon everything he needed to know about the kind of being standing before him.

But if Leon wasn't surprised by the Emperor's sudden appearance, the opposite couldn't be said for the Emperor himself.

Because as Alexander looked at the young man before him, calm, poised, unshaken by his divine presence, his expression subtly shifted. In all his long reign, few mortals had ever met his gaze so steadily. And fewer still had done so without trembling.

****

The Emperor was not just surprised, he was shaken.

It wasn't Leon's composure that unsettled him, though that alone was enough to raise an eyebrow. No, what truly disturbed Alexander Arman was what he had witnessed before stepping into the chamber.

From his palace, through the layered perception of a Rank 9 professional, a being who stood a step away from godhood he had seen everything. Every deliberate cut, every torn limb, every grotesque act of self-dismemberment Leon had inflicted upon himself. And every time, he had watched those wounds close as if reality itself refused to let the boy die.

Alexander's gaze lingered on Leon now, calm on the surface, but his thoughts were in disarray.

'What even is he?'

That question gnawed at the Emperor as his emerald eyes quietly studied the young man standing before him. The boy was neither alive nor dead, neither human nor entirely other. His form was a perfect imitation, but Alexander could see through it, the faint shimmer of the void pulsing beneath his skin like a false heartbeat.

'So that's it,' Alexander thought. 'He isn't merely touched by corruption… he was born from it.'

Unlike Lancelot, who had hastily concluded that Leon was corruption incarnate, Alexander understood better. His eyes, honed through centuries of wielding divine power, traced the intricate balance between decay and creation inside Leon's body. It wasn't chaos, it was structure. The corruption didn't consume him; it obeyed him.

That was what made the boy dangerous. And extraordinary.

'Perhaps that's why he can destroy corruption,' Alexander mused. 'Because he is part of it. No, because he is what it wishes to be. Complete, Whole and Controlled.'

He exhaled slowly, the weight of a dying world pressing against his mind. 'It doesn't matter. The world is already doomed… and if there's even a single chance this boy can change that, he's a risk worth taking.'

While the Emperor pondered, Leon was having his own quiet thoughts. His sharp eyes caught the faint change in Alexander's gaze, the look of someone who had already seen too much.

'He must have figured it out,' Leon thought, a smirk tugging at his lips. 'He knows I'm not human.'

****

The reason Leon was pleased by the emperor discovering his true nature was simple, he had wanted it that way.

Testing his regeneration inside the Imperial Guard headquarters wasn't an act of carelessness. It was a calculated move. Leon wasn't naïve enough to think a place like this, a stronghold sitting under the empire's watchful eye, wouldn't be monitored. If anything, the certainty that he was being watched was exactly why he dared to test it there.

As he thought slightly, a faint glint crossed his eyes. 'Lancelot already knows what I am,' he thought. 'And it's only a matter of time before the rest find out too. Better they see it clearly now than create their own stories later.'

There was no shame in the thought or fear. Leon smirked faintly, his hand brushing against the faint, now-healed mark on his palm. 'It's not as if I'm ashamed of it.'

He had long accepted what he'd become. His new race—Void Spawn—wasn't a curse in his eyes. It was simply evolution, another step forward. Whether the world labeled it heresy or horror didn't matter. It didn't change who he was, or what he chose to do.

Leon straightened and met the emperor's gaze head-on. The flickering chandelier-Due to the presence of the emperor- carved faint shadows across his face, giving his smile an edge.

"Alright then," Leon said evenly, his tone calm but carrying the weight of quiet resolve. "Let's negotiate."

****

Despite elves being one of the major races in the world of Pandora, their presence still drew attention wherever they went. It wasn't that they were rare, just that they carried a certain allure that made people stop and stare. Their refined features, sharp ears, and natural grace had a way of standing out, even among other races. It was similar to how locals on Earth reacted when a foreigner visited their town, curiosity mixed with awe, and maybe a hint of envy.

That was exactly what was happening to Racheal as she sat in the Imperial Guards' cafeteria, quietly eating her long-overdue meal. The hall was loud, filled with the clatter of trays and the low hum of soldiers chatting after training, but it didn't take long for whispers to ripple through the room.

"Hey… is that an elf?"

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