"As you wish."

Zero opened his hand.

The resistance vanished instantly.

Because Voros was pulling with the force to uproot an ancient oak tree, leveraging every ounce of his Peak 3rd Order strength against an anchor that was no longer there, the result was catastrophic physics.

Voros flew backward. His balance shattered. His chest was left wide open, defenseless, his heavy armor offering no protection against his own momentum.

In that split second, the cold, calculating mask of "Zero" slipped, just for a heartbeat, revealing the frustrated boy underneath.

Leona is gone. Lyra is gone. The house is empty.

The anger he had suppressed all morning, the grief of watching his only friends in this world leave,

Thought of the future silent breakfast table, the crushing weight of the sixteen years stretching out before him, surged into his right arm.

The Golden Dragon Aura erupted, roaring to life as it condensed around his fist, the sheer heat warping the air itself.

And you… you loud, greedy insect… you're annoying me.

"Dual-Art: Golden Impact."

Zero stepped into the void of Voros's defense and drove his fist into the Guildmaster's stomach.

KA-BOOM!

The impact detonated like a thunderclap, shattering every glass window in the street outside.

Time seemed to freeze. Voros's armor, forged from high-grade mithril, dissolved like wet paper.

His eyes bulged, capillaries bursting, as the force of the blow traveled through his body and exited his spine.

Then, he launched.

Voros became a cannonball. He flew backward, smashing through the Guildmaster's throne, turning the ornate wood into splinters.

He kept going, crashing through the reinforced brick wall behind it. And the wall behind that.

The entire Steel Guild Hall groaned. The structural beams buckled from the shockwave. Dust rained down like a blizzard.

CRASH!

Voros flew out into the alleyway behind the guild, skipping across the cobblestones like a stone on a pond before burying himself in a pile of scrap metal.

Zero stood amidst the destruction, steam rising from his fist.

He took a deep breath, but the hollowness in his chest didn't leave. Breaking the Guildmaster hadn't brought his friends or family back.

He walked over to the jagged hole in the wall, his boots crunching on the debris.

Outside, Voros lay in a crater of rubble, coughing up blood, his aura completely shattered. He was alive, but he would never hold a hammer again.

Zero looked up at the magical sensor still floating in the ruined hall, broadcasting his image to the terrified city.

He adjusted his fedora. The white mask with the black "0" stared down at the citizens of Gravestone like a judgmental god.

"Guildmaster Voros has resigned due to… severe health complications," Zero's distorted voice echoed through the silent city.

"From this moment forth, the Steel Guild is under the protection of the Black Thread."

He swept his arm out, gesturing to the wreckage around him.

"We pay fair wages. We sell at fair prices. And most importantly…"

His voice dropped an octave, becoming a growl that vibrated in the bones of everyone listening.

"We do not tolerate interruption."

"Business… is open."

HUMMM.

The projection in the sky flickered and died. The beams of blue light faded. The streetlamps of Gravestone buzzed back to life as the mana grid stabilized.

The show was over.

In the silence of the wrecked hall, a timid figure stepped through the shattered front doors. Barnaby picked his way carefully over the unconscious guards and the piles of rubble, clutching his ledger to his chest like a shield.

He looked at the destroyed throne. He looked at the hole in the wall where a 3rd Order powerhouse used to be.

Then he looked at Zero, who was standing perfectly still in the center of the chaos.

"Young Master..." Barnaby squeaked, his voice trembling. "That was… thorough."

Zero remained silent, staring at his own hand. The golden aura faded, retreating beneath his skin. The adrenaline crash hit him, leaving only the cold reality of his solitude.

"Send a team to clean this up," Zero said, his voice flat.

"And send the new contract to the Magistrate. I doubt he will argue about the protection fee now."

"Yes, Lord Zero! I will handle it immediately."

Barnaby scurried off to bark orders at the surviving guild staff, sensing that his master needed space.

Zero walked out of the back exit, stepping into the cold night air. The alley smelled of ozone and blood.

He looked up at the moon, partially obscured by the smog of the factories.

For the first time since waking up in this world, he truly felt the weight of the path he had chosen. There were no more jokes. No more easy dungeon runs with friends.

"Sixteen years," he whispered to the empty alley.

The time skip. The gap between the prologue and the main story.

"In sixteen years, the Protagonist arrives at the Academy. The main plot begins. And the countdown to the Demon King's war starts ticking."

He clenched his fist again. He could feel the Golden Dragon blood boiling in his veins, restless and wild.

It was currently suppressed, limiting him to the peak of the 4th Order, but he could feel the barrier weakening.

"I have sixteen years to build an empire from the shadows. To find out what happened to my parents."

He looked at his hand, where the golden scales shimmered faintly beneath the skin.

"And sixteen years to get stronger"

"Once I fully digest this dragon blood, then breaking thorough fifth order would be a breaze, the same with breakting through with my shadow aura"

Knowing that the break through of either his aura or mana would push for the break through of the other, he couldn't help but smirked underneath the mask, the air around him distorting with the sheer density of his suppressed power.

"I'll be a 5th Order calamity."

He turned his collar up against the wind. The white mask gleamed in the moonlight.

"Wait for me, Leona. Lyra. When we meet again… you won't even recognize me."

He vanished into the shadows of the city, leaving the Legend of Zero behind him.

The Prologue was over.

The Era of Chaos had begun.

.....

[Time Skip: Year 1]

[Location: The Northern Tundra – Border of the Beast Tribes]

The Northern wind bit with savage intensity, tearing at exposed skin like invisible teeth and freezing sweat before it could even drip.

A blizzard was raging, turning the world into a white void.

In the center of the storm, a battlefield lay strewn with bodies.

They were massive figures, Bear-kin warriors, clad in heavy fur and crude iron armor. They lay broken in the snow, their weapons shattered, their bodies bruised and battered.

Standing amidst the fallen was a single figure.

She wore a heavy cloak made of white fur that blended with the snow, but beneath it, the glint of black, dragon-scale armor was visible.

Leona exhaled, her breath pluming in the freezing air.

She reached down with her left hand the Void Gauntlet, and grabbed the massive Chieftain of the Bear Tribe by the throat.

The Chieftain, a warrior who stood eight feet tall and weighed four hundred pounds, dangled helplessly in her grip.

His eyes were wide with terror as he looked at the mechanical, black metal fingers tightening around his windpipe.

"You said the White Lion line was dead," Leona growled. Her voice had changed over the last year. It was deeper, rougher, tempered by a hundred battles.

"You said my Uncle was the true King because he was strong."

She tightened her grip. The servos in the Void Gauntlet whirred menacingly.

"Look at you now, Chieftain. Where is your strength?"

"M-Mercy..." the Bear-kin choked out. "Princess... mercy..."

"Princess?" Leona laughed. It was a cold, sharp sound.

She threw him.

The massive Chieftain flew twenty feet through the air, crashing into a snowbank.

Leona turned away, her golden eyes glowing in the storm. She didn't kill him. She didn't need to as he was already broken.

She looked South, toward the distant, unseen lands of the Human Empire.

She touched the communication crystal hanging around her neck. It had been silent for a year.

"One year down, Young Lord," Leona whispered to the wind.

She clenched her metal fist, the purple light of the Void Core pulsing in the blizzard.

"I've taken the border. Next year... I take the Throne."

She walked into the whiteout, leaving a trail of defeated warriors in her wake. The Lioness had returned home. And she was hungry.

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