Inside the expansive main hall, Claire and everyone else sat around the central table, all their faces grim and entirely uncertain. The tactical readouts floating above the table meant absolutely nothing to them right now.

Claire pinched the bridge of her nose, her crimson aura slowly retracting back into her skin as the explosive flare of her anger gave way to a deeply gnawing anxiety. She looked up, her red eyes sweeping over the quiet faces of the squad.

"Where... where did they go?" Claire presented her question to the room, her voice dropping from its previous shout into a strained, frustrated rasp. "First Commander Maddox, and now Hide. Why aren’t they picking up their calls?!"

No one had an immediate answer. Commander Maddox had inexplicably gone out of service yesterday evening, without leaving so much as a sticky note behind, his last message to Claire was the training schedule.

And not long after that, Hide went missing. No one saw where he went. He hadn’t informed anyone, hadn’t spoken to his squadmates, and most baffling of all, he didn’t even get captured on almost all the main surveillance cameras.

He had simply melted into the dark.

Kai shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He was wearing his formal uniform as the Vice Leader of newly established Exterminator Agency named Dark Dragon. The Uniform featured a symbol with two D’s interlocking upside down.

His hands were tightly clasped together on his lap. He was feeling entirely out of place here. Being neither their team member, and to most of the hardened Exterminators in this room, he wasn’t even a friend.

He was just permitted into the high-security staging area strictly because of his connection to Hide. But Hide was nowhere to be found!

"He wouldn’t just... leave like that," Kai said hesitatingly, his voice barely cutting through the heavy tension. He looked around the table, intimidated by the feeling, but refusing to back down. "I mean, it’s not like him. Something must have happened." He insisted, his knuckles turning white. "Hide doesn’t abandon his goals."

Rol scoffed loudly, crossing his arms over his chest as he leaned back against the leather couch. "That bastard ran away at the critical moment," the veteran assassin growled, his grey eyes narrowing into dangerous slits. "All that talk, all that arrogant posturing... and he ghosts us before the first round. I am gonna snap him in half when I find him!"

"He was acting weird since that loop gate yesterday," Gideon pointed out, his deep voice rumbling through the room. The massive warrior leaned his elbows on the table, his brow furrowed in thought. "You know, the one with the dragon. Where he came out of the exit portal late, completely alone, and sweating as if he had run a marathon. He hasn’t been right since we cleared that with Julian’s team."

"Well, he was never too much into socializing to begin with," Sora commented quietly. "But I agree with them. He wouldn’t just run away like that."

There was a distinct longing and sadness in her voice. Over the past month of hellish training, they had fought together, bled together, and survived together. Had he really left and abandoned them just before the most important tournament of their lives? She bit her lower lip, staring at her reflection in the polished table. She would not want to believe that.

Evelyn, ever the pragmatic analyst, pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose and tapped her tablet. "There is a chance that he got in a fight with someone from another team?" Evelyn questioned. "Julian’s team did have some problem with him. If they cornered him..."

But before anyone could answer Evelyn’s grim hypothesis, the automated announcement speakers mounted in the corners of their main hall chimed with a crisp, piercing electronic tone.

"Attention all registered national squads. The opening ceremony is commencing. Please proceed immediately to your designated spectating boxes."

The order hung in the air. The waiting was over.

Claire let out a long, heavy exhale, forcefully shelving her panic. She was the handler now with Maddox gone. She was an S-Rank Exterminator and the most experienced of them all. She had to lead, with or without their missing handler and member. "We move out," Claire instructed, her voice regaining its sharp, authoritative edge.

Claire took the lead, guiding the somber team out of Compartment No. 9 and down the pristine, brightly lit corridors of the stadium’s inner ring. The ambient noise of the colossal structure grew exponentially louder with every step they took.

All the participating teams were given a specific room with chairs, situated in a grand arc in front of all the other millions of audience members. These VIP rooms were constructed completely out of reinforced, transparent bio-glass and were positioned around the main ground, jutting out just outside the massive, pitch-black stasis seal that protected the crowd from the arena floor.

Claire led them into their respective room. The squad filed in, taking their seats in the plush chairs overlooking the colossal battleground.

The sheer scale of the arena from this point was awe-inspiring and terrifying. Beyond the shimmering barrier of the containment seal, the ground was composed of a highly reinforced alloy designed to withstand the impacts of even Calamity Lords. Above them, the digitized dome broadcasted the event to the roaring sea of three hundred thousand spectators.

After all the international teams had filed out and settled into their respective boxes, the stadium lights suddenly dimmed, plunging the audience into a dramatic, breathless twilight.

The two commentators—the young man in the blue tuxedo and the woman in the sharp silver suit—appeared on the massive holographic displays overhead. Their voices boomed across the acoustic amplifiers.

"Finally Everyone! The waiting is over!" the young man shouted, his voice dripping with electric enthusiasm. "To inaugurate this historic clash of humanity’s greatest defenders, we will not bore you with speeches! We will remind you exactly what we are fighting against!"

Down on the expansive arena floor, the ground heavily shuddered. Two massive, hydraulic platforms ascended from the subterranean holding levels. Resting on the platforms were two colossal containment boxes.

Suddenly, the heavy doors of the boxes were violently blown off their hinges from the inside.

A collective gasp ripped through the stadium as the two nightmarish Calamity Beasts were revealed. They were grotesque, towering abominations—a twisted amalgamation of razor-sharp bio-mechanical plating and oozing, corrupted dark mana. They were easily C-Rank entities not yet fully evolved, radiating a suffocating, bloodthirsty pressure that even the spectators could feel pressing against the stasis seal.

The beasts let out a dual, ear-piercing shriek that rattled the reinforced glass of the viewing boxes.

"But fear not!" the female commentator’s voice sliced through the terrifying roars. "For against the darkness, humanity has forged its own monsters! Ladies and gentlemen, it is my absolute honor to introduce our Head Judge for the preliminaries!"

The stadium spotlights violently converged on a high platform hovering near the apex of the dome.

"He is the reigning champion! The undeniable Top 1 Ranking Exterminator from the previous World Tournament! The youngest powerhouse to ever shake the foundations of the world!" the male commentator bellowed, entirely losing his composure to the hype. "S-Rank Exterminator... Valerius!"

The guy was in his mid-twenties, dressed in an immaculate, flowing white coat with golden accents that fluttered wildly in the artificial wind. He possessed a relaxed, almost bored expression on his handsome face.

Without waiting for the platform to lower, Valerius casually stepped off the edge. He plummeted hundreds of feet, making a spectacular, meteor-like entrance into the ground. He landed directly between the two raging Calamity Beasts without making a single sound.

Deafening, ground-shaking cheering erupted from the three hundred thousand people in the stands. It was a wave of pure, unfiltered fanaticism.

The two nightmarish beasts immediately snapped their attention to the lone human standing between them. They lunged, their massive jaws unhinging to tear him to shreds.

Valerius didn’t draw a weapon. He simply opened his eyes and released a fraction of his aura.

BOOM!

The atmospheric pressure inside the arena completely inverted. The two towering beasts were violently slammed into the reinforced alloy floor as if an invisible skyscraper had been dropped on their backs.

The reinforced ground spider-webbed with massive craters beneath their struggling bodies. They couldn’t move a single muscle, whimpering pathetically under the unquestionable dominion of the reigning champion.

Valerius looked up at the floating cameras, offering the world a brilliant, arrogant smile.

The commentators’ voices synchronized in a roaring crescendo that echoed across the globe.

"THE WORLD EXTERMINATOR RANKING TOURNAMENT HAS OFFICIALLY BEGUN!"