Talent Awakening: Draconic Overlord Of The Apocalypse - Chapter 520: Shadows Over Sector Zero
Chapter 520: Shadows Over Sector Zero
A flicker of something like guilt, or maybe disgust, crossed his face.
Then, without warning, a voice crackled through the speaker system behind him, light and mocking.
“Admiring the view, are we, Director?”
Aethel didn’t turn. His jaw tightened.
“Honestly, every time I hear your voice, I can’t help but feel like I’m speaking to a ghost…” He narrowed his eyes. “Young Master Kai.”
Footsteps echoed softly behind him. A tall figure emerged from the hallway’s shadows, sunlight catching on hair streaked deep brown and silver. As he stepped forward, the overhead light revealed a face both striking and unsettling, one eye a deep crimson, the other a vivid green, set in features that teetered between handsome and unnerving.
He smiled, wolfish and cold.
“Oh, come now, Director. I told you already, Young Master Kai is dead.”
He spread his arms theatrically.
“The name is Helexor. Or better yet, an Apostle of the Abyss.”
A glint passed through his mismatched eyes as he stepped closer, the city sprawling beneath them like prey.
“I trust the preparations are in place? My lady isn’t fond of wasting time. Despite the nature of her power, every move she makes serves a grand purpose.”
Aethel’s gaze never left the window.
But his fingers curled slightly behind his back.
“I just hope,” he muttered, “that your grand purpose doesn’t burn this world down before it even understands what’s coming.”
Helexor only grinned.
“Isn’t that the point?”
His grin deepened, teeth gleaming under the cabin’s soft light.
“To burn it all down? To reduce this rotting stage to ash, so that something worthy can rise?”
He strolled toward the glass, now standing beside Aethel, their reflections stark against the city stretched out beneath them. For a moment, they looked almost like allies, two powerful men above the world. But only for a moment.
Aethel’s voice dropped, cold as the air outside the gondola.
“You speak of worth as if you’ve ever known what it meant… If I remember correctly, everything you’ve ever wanted has always been within reach. And now you’ve suddenly decided to destroy the city that was once your home.”
Helexor didn’t flinch. Instead, he chuckled softly, eyes fixed on the streets below.
“Says the man who once promised to shield this world from the dark, then bargained with it the moment it suited his plans.”
Aethel’s jaw clenched again.
“You know nothing of my plans.”
“Oh, but I do,” Helexor said, brushing imaginary dust from his coat sleeve. “We all do. My lady sees into those little cracks. Regret. Fear. That persistent itch of doubt in the back of your mind that makes you question everything.”
A beat passed.
Aethel finally turned to face him, steel sharpening his tone.
“Watch your tongue.”
Helexor raised his hands in mock surrender, that glint of mockery never leaving his eyes.
“Touchy, touchy. I’m only here to ensure everything is… aligned. The grand hall. The speech. The chaos. Your men are in place?”
Aethel didn’t answer. But the silence was answer enough.
Helexor leaned forward, grinning like a viper whispering lullabies.
“Good. Then everything is according to script.”
He turned to walk away, his coat fluttering behind him like a shadow with a heartbeat.
“Soon, Director… that fool Alister will perish, and the world will finally understand what it means to kneel, not to kings or dragons, but to the abyss itself.”
Aethel remained still, even after Helexor’s footsteps faded down the corridor. He stared once more at the city, at the people walking unknowingly into the maw of something far beyond politics or power.
He whispered, almost too low to hear:
“…Galisk… why didn’t you kill him when you had the chance?”
In the Grand Hall, flags of every major district hung in still silence. The vast chamber buzzed with tension as figures of power filled the rows.
Then the hush fell.
A side door near the platform opened, and Branch Director Aethel emerged.
He walked past the gathering and stepped to the central podium.
Camera drones whirred as lenses zoomed in.
Every screen in the hall, and across Sector Zero, locked onto his image.
He cleared his throat once. The microphone adjusted automatically.
“Esteemed colleagues, citizens of the Union… friends.”
His voice echoed crisply, magnified not just by tech, but by the sheer weight of what everyone knew was coming.
“Before I begin, I must speak plainly: We have failed you.”
A ripple of murmurs.
“Over the past several months, our performance in ensuring public safety has fallen short. Corruption crept through sectors unchecked. The Mist tested our resolve. Dragons soared above our rooftops, not summoned by the Union, but by a member of a guild… a man who has chosen to disregard the Union entirely.”
He paused, letting the word linger.
“And through it all, we have done what bureaucracy always does, wait. Debate. Delay.”
He placed both gloved hands on the podium, leaning forward slightly.
“For that, I offer no excuses. Only my deepest apologies.”
There was no applause. Only silence.
Then, he straightened.
“But now we must turn to a greater matter. One that can no longer be whispered behind closed doors or dismissed as spectacle.”
“Alister.”
The name alone made several in the audience shift uneasily.
“He has moved unchecked through our systems of power. He has executed criminals without trial, entered forbidden airspace on a whim, summoned Class-level beasts in the city without clearance, and even now, he garners public support not through diplomacy, but intimidation.”
His voice turned colder.
“What you call strength, I call instability. What you call decisive, I call dangerous.”
He paused again.
“So I ask this gathering, every leader present, every citizen watching from their screens: Is this the future you want?”
“A world ruled not by laws, but by the will of one man?”
He let that hang, then stepped back from the podium, his final words resonating like the edge of a blade:
“We must make our decision, before someone else makes it for us. With that said, I now call him to the stage and demand that he apologize for his actions. Immediately afterward, he will be taken into custody. Thank you. That is all.”
