CHAPTER 66: CALL

Lucen didn’t look at his team.

Didn’t ask.

He just stepped forward slightly and started talking. Calm. Controlled. No performance.

"Rift breach started twenty meters past the junction. Unstable signature. No core formation. Street ruptured on emergence. Three Class One spawn. Light carapace, mid-speed, no mana weapons. I neutralized them in the first thirty seconds."

The guy typed quickly.

"Then two higher-tier types emerged. First was heavy. Armor scale. Shock immune. Second was speed-adapted. Bone weapons. Fast regen. Minimal spell resistance. I stalled both. Reinforcements arrived—"

"Names?" the crewman asked.

Lucen pointed without turning. "Senna. Mira. Callen. They handled flank coverage."

The man noted each one with a thumb flick. "Kill count?"

Lucen raised an eyebrow. "Didn’t count."

"Estimate?"

"Three on me. Two shared. Last one dropped when we focused."

The guy scribbled something. "Casualties?"

"Two civilians before I got here," Lucen said. "One courier, one storefront clerk. Others made it inside before contact."

A nod. "Any spell flares over Tier Three?"

Lucen paused.

Then smiled.

"Nothing that breached city containment."

The crewman looked up at him like he was trying to figure something out.

Lucen didn’t help.

He just waited.

Eventually, the man tapped one final note.

"Alright. I’m flagging this as a priority report. You might get a follow-up call."

Lucen shrugged. "I might ignore it."

The guy snorted and walked off.

Senna stepped up beside him, arms crossed.

"You’re getting better at lying."

Lucen didn’t look at her. "I’m not lying. Just leaving out everything that sounds expensive."

Callen muttered behind them, "That’s still lying."

Lucen finally turned. "It’s called public relations."

Mira huffed a tired laugh. "Pretty sure it’s called ’not wanting to get arrested.’"

Lucen rolled his shoulders once. The tension hadn’t left. Just settled lower. Like a knife under fabric.

Behind him, the cleanup crew kept moving.

The street buzzed with low comms and clangs of tools. Smoke still rose in thin lines.

Lucen watched the damage for a few seconds longer.

Then finally said, "Alright. We’re done here."

He turned.

Didn’t wait to see if they followed.

—

Lucen shut the door behind him and locked it with a soft click. No noise. No motion sensors. Just the kind of quiet you earned after surviving a street full of monsters and high-tier observers.

He dropped his coat on the back of the chair, pulled the laminate from his inner pocket, and set it flat on the desk.

Not a badge. Not a scroll. Just a matte-black rectangle the size of a card slip. Smooth surface. No ornamentation. But it held weight.

He looked down.

The top left corner had a number printed in faint silver.

0962‑V

Centered in small, fine lettering.

Name: Lucen Ivara

Designation: Pending Association

Verified By: Varik Aensyr

That was it. No guild. No rank. No flashy emblem. No system-binding signature.

Just a name.

Lucen tapped the card once.

’Not a contract. Not a recruitment form. Just... a door.’

He picked it up, turned it in his hand. The back had no design, only a hex-sig marker in faint red, almost invisible unless you tilted it against the desk lamp.

Probably a traceable signature. Low-energy. Non-binding. But uniquely keyed.

His system pinged once. Background check.

[Unaffiliated Authority Tag – Identified]

[SS‑Rank Registered Agent – Varik Aensyr]

[No threat detected]

[Note: You may choose to bind contact ID to external channel]

Lucen dismissed the prompt. He wasn’t binding anything.

Not yet.

He held the card in two fingers and stared at it. Then set it down flat again.

’This isn’t a guild offer. It’s a test.’

He leaned back in his chair.

Let his thoughts wander.

’SS‑ranks don’t drop their names for no reason. They don’t hand out numbers. And they definitely don’t give warning shots unless they’re watching you.’

The number blinked in his head again. 0962‑V.

He pulled open the desk drawer and set the card inside. Didn’t bury it. Just placed it on top of an old sketchpad.

Closed the drawer.

Locked it.

’If I use that number, it means I’m out of options... or I’m done pretending I’m small.’

He stood, moved to the window, and looked out over the half-lit rooftops.

Streetlights buzzed low. One flickered.

Below, normal life was creeping back in. Clean-up crews. Mana stabilization drones. Patrol lights flickering in rhythm.

Lucen cracked his neck once.

Didn’t smile.

Didn’t speak.

Just let the silence press in.

And for the first time in days, he didn’t feel like hiding.

Lucen didn’t sit. He didn’t turn off the lights or make himself tea or even bother checking his system panel.

—

He just walked straight to the drawer, slid it open, and pulled out the card again. The laminate felt warmer now than when he first touched it.

Not hot, not pulsing, but faintly aware, like it had been waiting for him to stop pretending he wasn’t going to use it.

He turned it over in his hand. The red hex-sig near the corner gleamed under the lamplight. It wasn’t glowing, just catching the light in a way that felt deliberate. He tapped it with his thumb, not hard, just enough to trigger whatever was embedded in the interface layer.

There was no ringing, no traditional connection delay. The card blinked once, a line of light crawling from one end to the other.

Then a voice spoke, female, smooth, detached. It wasn’t quite synthetic, but it lacked the warmth of a human operator.

"Contact channel authenticated. State name."

Lucen didn’t flinch. "Lucen Ivara."

Silence followed, just long enough to make it feel like a test. Then the voice came again.

"Confirm number and code."

He glanced at the top corner. "Zero-nine-six-two, suffix V."

Another pause.

This time, the voice changed. It didn’t distort or glitch. It just... shifted. Became real.

Varik.

"You sure you want to do this?"

Lucen leaned against the edge of the desk, hand still on the card. "You left me a card. A name. A number. What did you think I’d do?"

"And?"

"I’m done pretending," he said simply. "I’ve been quiet, careful, fake. I’ve outgrown the act."

The line crackled faintly. In the background, Lucen could make out soft metallic wind, a low hum like generators or air filtration, and something else, a rhythmic beep. A heart monitor? Maybe a mana stabilizer. It didn’t matter.

Varik’s voice returned, low and even. "You’re ahead of schedule."