CHAPTER 167: QUESTIONS

The silence between them stretched like the last sliver of dusk before night. The ruins around them groaned with the wind, ancient wood creaking against broken steel. Radiant Man stood tall beneath the crumbling arch, his golden cape rippling in the breeze like a banner of celestial wrath. His eyes, glowing faintly like twin suns caught behind clouded glass, bore into Elius with unsettling intensity.

Elius met the gaze without flinching.

The silence broke when Radiant Man stepped forward. Dust rose around his boots, the ground itself seemingly unwilling to bear his weight. His voice, when it finally emerged, was steady—low, calculated, almost casual—but each syllable vibrated with power too vast to contain.

"...You’ve been near him, haven’t you?"

Elius blinked once. "Him?"

Radiant Man tilted his head, just slightly. "Keith. Young man. Sixteen. Brown eyes. Temper like wildfire. A mother who hides behind curtains and lies. You’ve seen him, haven’t you?"

Elius said nothing at first. Not because he didn’t know what to say, but because the stakes of this moment were like tightropes over abyssal truths. His breathing slowed as he allowed a slight frown to form—not confusion, not denial. Just the precise amount of curiosity required to believably mislead a man who had once rearranged the stars over a battlefield just to win a war faster.

"...Oh," Elius finally said, as if only now realizing something. "That kid."

Radiant Man’s eyes narrowed, subtle and sharp like blades retracting instead of striking. "You knew him?"

"I saw him once," Elius said, voice casual, distant. "Caught him mid-scuffle a few districts east of the academy zone. He was using unregistered ability surges. Borderline villain-type behavior."

Radiant Man’s shoulders tensed just slightly. "What kind of abilities?"

"Hard to say," Elius murmured. He turned, looking up at the cracked spires around them, letting his voice drift. "Nothing refined. Looked like an incomplete transformation quirk. Maybe combat augmentation. Aggressive instincts. His power spikes were... erratic. Brutal. Honestly, it felt like someone who’d been trained by trial and error, rather than system."

He let the silence stretch, subtly weaving just enough truth to lace the lie with credibility.

"He was ready to kill someone that day," Elius continued. "Didn’t care who. Anyone in his way. But there was something else too... desperation. Not ambition. Not revenge. Just raw desperation."

Radiant Man’s expression remained unreadable. The sunlight around him seemed to dim, ever so slightly, as if even the light itself bent to his doubt.

"What did you do to him?"

Elius shrugged one shoulder. "Stopped him, obviously. I could’ve handed him over to the Enforcers, but something about him..." He paused as if reflecting. "I’ve seen villains. True villains. The type who kill because they like it. This kid wasn’t that. He was confused. Angry. But the kind of angry that comes from years of being ignored."

Radiant Man’s face twitched imperceptibly.

"So," Elius added, his voice now laced with carefully constructed indifference, "I offered him something better."

Radiant Man tilted his head again. "Better?"

Elius nodded. "A path. Not as a sidekick. Not as a lab rat for government rehab. But something more honest. A clean slate. Train with me. Become something useful. Not a hero—at least, not yet. But a protector. A warrior."

He let the words simmer in the space between them.

"Waste not, right?" he said at last. "We lose too many like him. Potential wasted because they weren’t born into the right district or blessed with the right face."

That last jab was intentional.

Radiant Man didn’t react, but Elius could feel the shift. A slight flare in the aura. Not enough to explode, but enough to mark where the cut landed.

"I wasn’t aware he had... family," Elius added lazily, stepping closer to Grivalis’s unconscious form. "Didn’t ask, either. Don’t really care. I’m not interested in drama. I just wanted to make sure he didn’t end up dead in a ditch because no one gave him a reason to live."

Radiant Man studied him. That was the real test. The scrutiny. The weighing of words. The dissection of tone, body language, energy flow. A normal man would’ve buckled under that stare. Even seasoned Supers often cracked from mere eye contact with Radiant Man. He wasn’t just a man—he was a living judge of worth, a god sculpted from cosmic brilliance, who could shatter minds with a whisper if he chose.

But Elius stood there—relaxed, eyes half-lidded, shoulders loose—as if none of it mattered.

Radiant Man finally spoke. "You’re not lying."

Elius didn’t answer. He didn’t need to.

"I scanned your pulse," Radiant Man added. "Micro-muscle twitches. Psionic residue. You’re not lying. You really don’t know who he is."

Elius resisted the urge to smile. He merely dipped his head, just slightly.

"I don’t like being manipulated," Radiant Man said flatly.

Elius gave a soft chuckle. "Who does?"

There was a long pause. Radiant Man took a step back and looked up at the fractured tower above them. For a moment, the storm in his eyes quieted. His breath exhaled not like fire, but like wind over old embers.

"He’s nothing," Radiant Man said, almost to himself. "A broken piece. I left him behind for a reason."

Elius didn’t respond.

"Next time you see him," Radiant Man continued, his voice colder now, "don’t waste your time. He won’t be a hero. Some souls are born flawed. Some lights aren’t meant to burn."

Elius tilted his head. "Funny," he said. "I thought even broken stars still shine."

Radiant Man said nothing. For a long moment, he simply stared at Elius, that unreadable expression hardening, as if memorizing every line of his face. Then, slowly, almost reluctantly, he turned.

Golden light surged from beneath his feet.

A radiant pulse echoed outward, sending a shockwave through the rubble. Grivalis stirred, groaning softly. Elius turned away from the blinding light just in time to avoid the worst of it. When the glow faded, Radiant Man was gone—only a thin trail of golden particles drifting in the air, like sparks dying in the wind.

Elius let out a long breath and finally allowed his shoulders to relax.

He waited a few more minutes, scanning the area for hidden surveillance bugs or psionic traces. None. Radiant Man had truly left.

Only then did Elius crouch beside Grivalis again and whisper softly, "You see, old man? Some illusions are built with more than mind tricks."

He stood, turned toward the distant skyline of the F-Ranked City, and began walking again—alone, and unshaken.