I completely ignored the bastard and crouched in front of Evelyn.

She was biting her lip and staring at the ground, her eyes shimmering with a mix of suppressed rage and humiliation. The red imprint of Xavier's hand was stark against her skin, and it was clear she was trembling from the sheer effort of keeping herself from lunging at his throat.

"Are you okay?" I asked softly.

She didn't look up immediately. She just gave a stiff, jerky nod, her fingers digging into Julius' arm for support. "I'm fine, Cedric. It's nothing."

But it wasn't nothing!

"They suddenly came looking for you," She continued. "Since you didn't even come out for dinner, I figured that you were busy and didn't want any disturbances. So I told them to leave and come back in the morning. But they wouldn't." She finally looked up at me. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cause any trouble."

When she spoke, it took a lot of effort to control my rage.

I offered a warm smile. "It's okay. You did good."

Then I brushed her cheek and wiped away the single tear that had escaped.

In the next moment, I stood up and clenched my fists. Then without looking directly at him, I began in a low voice.

"Xavier… I don't remember inviting you to my doorstep, let alone giving you permission to touch my people."

Xavier, who was already turning red from me ignoring him, scoffed. "Your people insulted me. I merely taught her a lesson in—"

He was still talking when I turned and slapped the living daylights out of him.

The sound of the impact was like a gunshot in the quiet shelter. Xavier's head snapped to the side, and his sentence died in his throat as he stumbled back with his hand instinctively flying to his burning face.

For a second, everyone froze. Xavier blinked a few times because he couldn't believe what had just happened.

"You…!" A lady with long black hair and golden eyes, likely Xavier's bond, suddenly lunged forward from behind him to attack me.

But just then, a black katana surged out from Aika's shadow and into her hand. She immediately intercepted the woman, stopping the tip of her blade mere millimeters from the stranger's throat.

"Behave," Aika began, cocking her head to the side. "I'm in a really bad mood right now, so I might actually kill you."

The lady stopped and cast a deadly gaze toward Aika. All of a sudden, the killing intent emanating from both of them became suffocating.

At that moment, all my party members summoned their bonds into their weapon forms. Simultaneously, Xavier's party members who stood outside the shelter, behind him, also summoned theirs.

For a moment, the tension in the air reached a breaking point, and everyone present was dangerously close to drawing blood.

I didn't back down or look away from Xavier. I kept my eyes fixed on him, watching as the shock on his face slowly curdled into a mask of pure, humiliated fury. He was breathing heavily and his fingers were trembling where they touched his reddened cheek.

"You… you actually struck me," he hissed. "Do you not know which party I'm a part of? Do you not know who the leader of my party is?"

"I do not care," I replied, unleashing my aura into the general area.

A sudden chill flooded the space, and it was as if the colors of the shelter had been drained away, replaced by a grey, stagnant haze.

Then I continued, my voice dropping an octave as I stared him down. "I am the leader of this party. If you walk in here and so much as lay a finger on one of my people, I will strike you down to defend them."

The silence that followed was unusually heavy.

Then… Xavier unleashed his own aura.

The space around him seemed to brighten and his golden eyes darkened even further. He clenched his fist and reached out his hand, clearly about to summon his bond into her weapon form, when suddenly, a voice rang out from behind him.

"Enough, Xavier."

It was Leon. He had finally arrived.

His golden eyes had also darkened, and an expression of anger was etched across his face.

He walked forward with a steady, heavy gait that seemed to press down on the conflicting auras in the air. As he approached, the golden light around Xavier flickered and dimmed, as if Leon's mere presence was enough to smother the younger boy's power.

Xavier froze with his hand still outstretched. He didn't turn around immediately, but the trembling in his fingers changed from fury to something more like hesitation.

Leon came to a stop just a few paces behind Xavier. Then he muttered through gritted teeth. "I believe I made it clear that I wouldn't be joining your party."

It was the first time Leon didn't have his jovial expression on, and without it, the guy looked like a completely different person.

He looked like a completely scary person.

When Xavier turned around to face him, Leon grabbed his shoulder with one hand and forced him to kneel on one knee.

The strength in Leon's grip was undeniable, as Xavier's knee hit the dirt with a heavy thud.

"And I believe that I warned you to stay away from my new party," Leon added, his voice dropping to a whisper that felt more threatening than a shout.

Xavier looked up at him, his face pale and his previous bravado entirely gone. The dull golden light that had been radiating from him was completely extinguished, smothered by the sheer weight of Leon's presence.

At that moment, Xavier's bond and his party members all began to move with their weapons drawn toward Leon.

But just then, the cat on Leon's shoulder gracefully lept into the air and shifted into the form of a beautiful girl with long, shimmering silver hair and a blindfold over one of her eyes.

Suddenly, a spear materialized in her grip. Then she landed with a silent precision, and in a voice that was calm, yet threatening, she spoke.

"No one moves."

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