CHAPTER 130: CHAPTER 130 - CALLING OUT THE ALVAREZ FAMILY

Logan stared straight at the camera, calmness flowing through him as he spoke.

"Thank you for allowing me to be here," he said, flashing a polite smile.

The hosts exchanged quick glances, eyebrows raised. They hadn’t expected someone like Logan to be so... polite.

Recovering quickly, the same hostess who had introduced him returned the smile.

"Mr. Mercer, with everything that’s happened, the public’s been waiting to hear directly from you. What would you like to say?"

Logan nodded once, his expression calm but firm.

"I’m not here to clear my name or play politics," he said, his voice steady. "I just came to say one thing."

He looked at the lens, his polite smile fading.

"We believe in evidence. If others want to spin their own story and stir up senseless rumors, that’s on them," Logan said, his expression cold. "I am not hiding from anything, and I’m not stepping down either."

"The truth is out there now. Do with it what you will."

For a moment, the studio was silent.

"That’s all I came to say," Logan said, smiling politely again.

The hostess stared ahead with an empty look, clearly caught off guard by how direct he’d been.

"...Understood," she finally said, her smile faltering slightly. "Thank you for your time, Mr. Mercer."

Logan gave a slow nod.

Then, he disconnected himself from the feed.

His surroundings slowly returned to normal as the hologram figures from the news outlet hosts vanished.

Exhaling sharply, Logan stepped away from the recorder.

Heading back over to Silas and Edric, he noticed them staring at him with wide eyes.

"What?" Logan asked, raising an eyebrow.

Silas let out a breath, shaking his head slightly. "That was brutal, kid."

Edric nodded, a weird look on his face.

"I meant every word," Logan shrugged, sitting back down at the table.

A large grin spread on Silas’s face, also throwing himself on a chair.

"You just slapped the Alvarez family in the face," he said, chuckling. "What was it again? Some people create their own stories and stir up baseless rumors?"

Edric leaned forward, lacing his fingers together.

"They’re not going to take this quietly," he said. "I expect a response within the next few hours. Maybe even a press release tonight."

Silas scoffed. "Let them. It won’t be long before they get the legal notice for the defamation suit."

Earlier that day, Edric and Marissa had filed the suit to the Commerce Tribunal and the Mana Enforcement Bureau, meaning the Alvarez family would be served within a day.

"Good," Logan nodded, eyes turning back to the live broadcast.

The chat had gone wild after he left, many people calling out the Alvarez family for their lies and embarrassing behavior.

’This is the exact response I wanted,’ Logan thought, smiling.

He didn’t need to act overly passive or call the Alvarez family out by name. One sharp comment was enough to sway public opinion.

The Alvarez family hadn’t responded yet—but they would.

Logan stood up from his chair, giving a small nod to Silas.

"There’s nothing left to do for now. I want to head back to my room."

Silas nodded, standing up as well.

"Ah, Logan," Edric said, before he could leave. "The new disguise suit will be here tomorrow evening."

Turning around, Logan smiled. "Sounds amazing. Thank you."

He gave a final nod, then stepped out of the room.

By the time he reached his room, the adrenaline from the broadcast had worn off.

The couch tempted him as he stepped inside, but something else was on his mind.

As he walked to his training room, he glanced at the small hologram on his watch.

"To think Allen managed to get this undead technique," Logan mumbled, sitting down on the floor.

Displayed on his hologram was a manual with a Silver Core entry level and a Platinum growth potential.

"Call of the Dead? Seriously? Who names these things?" he shook his head at the ridiculous name.

The name was dumb, but the skill was exactly what he’d been looking for.

"Finally, a technique that can create actual skeletons," he said, enlarging the hologram.

No matter how hard Logan tried, he hadn’t been able to recreate the skeletal creatures that had surrounded him during his awakening.

’It always felt like something was lacking,’ he thought, shaking his head.

He had the control. He could shape bones into limbs, ribs, even full torsos—that part was easy.

But every time he tried to build an actual body, it just collapsed.

’I’d temporarily given up on it since I had other priorities,’ Logan thought. ’But now with a technique that can offer me insight, why would I wait?’

A technique like this could save his life if he were to get outnumbered again since he still lacked ways to deal with groups of creatures.

He swiped the hologram fully open and pulled up the first few pages of Call of the Dead.

Dense lines of text, pictures, and diagrams showed up, each detailing steps of the process to temporarily create skeletal lifeforms.

Logan narrowed his eyes as he read, eventually coming to a halt at a picture showing a strange web-like pattern near a ribcage.

The threads flowed out of the ribcage like veins, linking each limb before meeting at a small blue dot near the chest.

’Are those threads?’ Logan thought, raising an eyebrow.

He tapped on the picture, bringing up the description.

"The Anchor Core forms the central command hub. From it, undead mana threads are spun outwards, connecting its entire body."

Logan stared at the description expressionlessly.

"That makes sense," he mumbled, mind racing.

He’d always tried to force the bones into position like some kind of statue. But this technique was different.

It treated the skeleton like a puppet, and he, the caster, could send commands through the anchor point.

’No wonder everything I built collapsed,’ he thought, shaking his head as he switched off the hologram.

Logan stood up and moved to the center of his training room.

He closed his eyes, channeling undead mana through his body as he formed a pile of bones in front of him.

Then, he focused, controlling his mana into thin strands.

Logan slowly guided the threads into the bones, connecting them one by one.

Minutes flew by as he assembled a skeleton of his own height.

Finally, he bundled the threads inside its ribcage, shaping the mana into a tiny blue dot.

He stared at the finished form—a full humanoid skeleton holding a bone spear, the thin blue mana lines pulsing mana through its body.

Logan raised an arm, concentrating on the anchor point.

"Move your arm," he commanded, sending a small mana thread towards the anchor.

For a split second, the skeleton twitched, its arm slowly raising.

Then—

Snap.

A single thread near its shoulder broke apart. Its right arm fell beside it, followed by its ribs shifting out of place and the entire skeleton collapsing on itself.

"...Tch."

Logan exhaled deeply, watching the bones scatter on the floor.

’What went wrong?’

He crouched down, eyes narrowing as he inspected the bones.

"I’ll get it right," he muttered. "Even if I have to work through the night... and the next one too."