Leon immediately called upon his system interface and tried to examine the information of the beautiful, red, blindfolded woman, desperate to understand what secret she possessed that allowed her to know about his connection to the monster.

Let's see what the system tells me about her.

SHIMMER...

A transparent golden screen appeared before his eyes, visible only to him.

Leon scanned through her basic information—her name was Cassandra, along with all her physical ability statistics and mana capacity displayed in neat rows of numbers. There was nothing particularly special or unusual about those metrics, so he didn't focus much attention on them.

However, when his eyes reached the section listing her affinity, Leon felt genuine confusion wash over him.

He had never seen something like this before in any system analysis he'd performed.

What the hell?

He couldn't read the information at all. Not even the rank or classification—nothing. The text appeared as complete gibberish to him, scrambled characters that refused to resolve into anything comprehensible, no matter how hard he focused.

[Affinity: ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓ (Rank: ▓▓▓)]

Other than that mysterious affinity, she possessed a couple of skills and techniques listed, but nothing particularly out of the ordinary or noteworthy compared to other powerful adventurers he'd analyzed.

Whatever ability she used to detect my connection to Morpheus must lie within that secret affinity. But I can't even read the name of it.

This frustrated him immensely. He was supposed to possess all elemental affinities, just waiting to be discovered and copied. Yet here was something his system couldn't properly identify or translate.

This makes me genuinely interested in this woman. What secret does her unknown affinity actually hold?

Similar to Leon's intense curiosity about her, Cassandra—who continued staring at the silver-haired prisoner with unwavering focus through her blindfold—was also deeply preoccupied with thoughts about what profound secrets this man held to have literally countless threads of fate connected to his existence.

And most of them... I can't even sense where they're leading. They stretch beyond my perception into places I've never witnessed before. Into realms that shouldn't even exist in this world.

She desperately wanted to discover more about him, to understand this unprecedented phenomenon.

Just then, she suddenly backed away slightly in genuine surprise as a new thread materialized right before her supernatural vision. A fresh connection formed directly between her own fate and his, appearing spontaneously in the space between them like a glowing red strand.

What?! How?!

It was completely unprecedented and deeply shocking to her. In all her years of possessing this ability, she had never witnessed a fate thread form in real-time like this.

Threads don't just appear out of nowhere. They exist, or they don't. But this one... It's being created right now, in this very moment, connecting us directly.

Meanwhile, the man named Arthur—who clearly served as the leader of this elite group—addressed the massive demi-human directly.

"Kaelor, take him with us."

His tone brooked no argument as he gestured dismissively toward the confirmed criminal.

He then ordered the two officers who had been holding Leon to leave and return to their regular duties.

"You're dismissed. Return to your posts."

The officers released Leon's arms immediately and departed after delivering slight respectful bows, their boots clicking sharply against stone.

"Yes, Sir Arthur."

CLICK! CLICK! CLICK!

The towering demi-human named Kaelor—whose features bore a striking resemblance to an actual lion with golden fur and amber eyes—stepped closer to Leon. He grabbed the chains connecting the handcuffs with one massive paw-like hand and started pulling forward with considerable force, clearly intending to drag the prisoner along like a sack of grain.

CLINK! RATTLE!

The force was definitely enough to drag any normal person off their feet and across the ground unceremoniously. However, Leon simply walked forward normally at his own pace, maintaining his balance and dignity despite the aggressive pulling.

Nice try. But you're nowhere near strong enough to actually move me against my will.

Leon followed along calmly, allowing himself to be nominally "led" to wherever they intended to take him.

Aria, the red-haired guild master, was also accompanying the group as they proceeded deeper into the castle complex, her expression troubled and conflicted.

The expression on Kaelor's face told Leon everything—this creature clearly didn't like the fact that he wasn't able to drag the prisoner around as dramatically as he'd intended.

He's probably thinking I can't use mana because of these suppression cuffs, so there's no way I should be able to resist his considerable physical strength. Yet here I am, walking normally as if nothing's happening.

While being escorted through the interior, Leon observed that everything appeared pristine and architecturally grand. Walking through endless corridors with vaulted ceilings, marble floors, and ornate decorations, he genuinely couldn't determine where they were heading at all.

If I used my spatial awareness properly, the mana flow would definitely break these handcuffs. So I don't have my usual detection abilities to find out if we're going toward wherever Seraphine and Loriel are being held or somewhere else entirely.

So Leon decided to just ask directly, his voice cutting through the tense silence.

"You're taking me to my companions, right?"

His straightforward question made the entire group pause mid-step and turn to stare at him simultaneously, as if he'd just said something utterly incomprehensible.

The one to answer was Kaelor, the demi-human who'd been attempting to drag him. The creature actually laughed—a harsh, mocking sound that echoed off the stone walls.

"HAHAHA!"

"You don't even know if you'll walk out of here alive or not, and you're seriously asking about your companions?"

The lion-man's laughter grew louder and more openly derisive.

"You really are a complete idiot, aren't you?"

Kaelor's expression shifted then, his words becoming noticeably more personal and vindictive. His amber eyes blazed with genuine contempt.

"Hah! If you were going to be such a useless idiot anyway, you should have at least succeeded in fully awakening that world-class monster!"

Leon's eyes narrowed dangerously at those deeply revealing words.

He wanted the monster to awaken? What kind of twisted logic—

The statement seemed to strongly suggest this creature actually wanted the catastrophic threat to emerge and wreak havoc, and disturbingly, no one else in the group was refuting or contradicting his inflammatory words—including their supposed righteous leader, Arthur.

Only Aria's face showed a visibly conflicted, uncomfortable expression, like she fundamentally disagreed but wasn't in any position to voice open opposition to the number one-ranked party.

What's really going on here? What am I missing? Aria was thinking, as she didn't believe they really wanted the monster to be awakened, there had to be something she was missing here.

The demi-human's words carried an entirely different underlying meaning than the surface interpretation suggested.

As Kaelor was thinking in his mind. You useless bastard, you should have died fighting that monster and stalled it long enough for us to arrive at the scene and claim all the glory of defeating it ourselves. You robbed us of our destiny!

Cassandra maintained a completely neutral, almost serene expression—showing no positive or negative reaction whatsoever to the lion-man's disturbing statement, as if she genuinely didn't care about the implications either way. Her blindfolded face remained impassive.

Their party leader, Arthur, appeared to be clutching his ornate sword handle with white-knuckled intensity at this particular moment, his jaw clenched so tight that muscles visibly jumped in his cheek.

Their party... ranked number one in the entire middle domain for decades. They've been searching relentlessly for the prophesied threat that would one day attempt to destroy our entire realm.

Arthur had been waiting with growing impatience for the perfect opportunity—the exact right moment when the legendary threat would emerge, vulnerable enough to be defeated but significant enough for them to gain maximum eternal glory from vanquishing it.

Their entire existence, their unified life's purpose spanning years of preparation, was to locate and heroically destroy this foretold catastrophe before the masses.

But now some idiotic fool had apparently awakened it prematurely—likely by complete accident or sheer ignorance—and somehow the creature had escaped or been killed before they could arrive and claim their rightful destiny as saviors.

The perfect chance might have been lost forever because of this incompetent silver-haired idiot.

However, Arthur was absolutely convinced deep down that this clueless fool standing before them in chains wasn't actually trying to deliberately awaken a world-ending monster for genuinely malicious purposes.

This amateur must have simply stumbled across it by terrible luck.

And all of us know this fact for absolute certainty, because according to the ancient prophecy we've studied for decades, the designated time for the monster's fated emergence still hasn't arrived yet. It awakened prematurely, unprepared and weakened.

But regardless of the circumstances, the incredible once-in-a-lifetime opportunity had been catastrophically squandered.

This incompetent idiot has to pay dearly for ruining everything we've worked toward. My chance—our entire party's chance—to become officially titled as legendary heroes after so many centuries without one appearing in our domain... It's gone. Destroyed.

Arthur's thoughts spiraled darker. The monster would undoubtedly be on full alert now, fully aware that powerful individuals knew of its existence and location. It would likely remain in deep hiding for hundreds of additional years now, waiting patiently until it had grown probably hundreds of times stronger than its current already-formidable state.

By the time it emerged again, they might all be left behind by some stronger party emerging, or worse, they might be dead. This was thier time, and the glory would go to some future generation who hadn't spent decades preparing.

Arthur's internal rage built to an absolute crescendo as these bitter thoughts consumed him.

AHHHHHHHHH!

He was absolutely fuming inside, barely containing the murderous impulse to draw his sword right here in this corridor and execute this catastrophic fool who had single-handedly destroyed their collective destiny and life's purpose.

They are meant to be heroes party.

No... He was meant to be a hero.

It was his dream and purpose, but now it felt far away...

His hand trembled on the sword's grip, fighting every instinct screaming at him to act.

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