Chapter 32: This is not Raphael Matthews

Elena stared at Raphael’s receding form, unable to comprehend what had just happened. Her knuckles were white as her hand gripped the hilt of her sheathed broadsword. The air where Raphael had just been standing still felt electric, thick with a lingering authority that made the fine hairs on her arms stand on end.

Her mind raced, desperately trying to reconcile the figure who had just walked past her with the man she had been training for the past few days. Just a few days ago, he was cowering in pain and celebrating for being able to block a simple attack.

The Raphael she knew was dumb and stupid- an idiot who acted like a kid. He had been meek, insecure, and exasperatingly immature. In her mind, he was a liability with no real spine, surviving pure chance and the intervention of others. In simpler terms, he had no balls.

But the person she’d just encountered was completely different. His presence was so suffocating that she was only able to stand in front of him with her aura on full fuel and her pride refusing to step down.

His silver eyes hadn’t just looked at her; they had looked through her, treating her heavy, crushing A-Tier aura as if it were nothing more than a mild draft. Elena was an operative of the Bureau, the "Silver Swordswoman," a veteran who had fought through bloody, razor-thin skirmishes against high-tier gate monsters and rogue Awakened alike. She knew how to read a battlefield. She knew how to distinguish a helpless target from a killer.

And the man who had just closed his apartment door wasn’t a civilian. He was an apex predator- calculating, terrifyingly composed, and utterly indifferent to her presence.

"This is not Raphael Matthews... It can’t be..." Elena muttered, unwilling to believe what had just happened. People didn’t just change overnight from dumb to confident. It wasn’t possible in the logical sense.

Her pride, forged over years of military-grade training and high-tier achievements, revolted against the instinctual fear knotting her stomach. She refused to accept that she, an A-Tier operative, had been intimidated by a man who didn’t even hold an official rank, forgetting entirely that he was never weak in the actual sense, just inexperienced.

She had forgotten that everything about him was incalculable.

Biting her lip, Elena stepped up to his apartment door. Ignoring protocol, she overrode the electronic lock with her master clearance key card.

Inside, the apartment was quiet and pristine.

Raphael was sitting casually on the edge of his bed in his dark grey tracksuit, scrolling through his smartphone with utter indifference. He didn’t even look up as the door clicked open. The sight of his relaxed, untroubled posture ignited a surge of anger in Elena’s chest.

"Get up, Raphael!" she snapped, stepping into the room and letting the door seal behind her.

She forced her voice to carry all the stern, unyielding authority of a senior Bureau instructor.

"I don’t know what kind of game you think you’re playing, or what kind of unmonitored artifact or illegal mana booster you took to pull off whatever happened out there, but you are still under my supervision! Captain Vale is holding an emergency briefing right now, and you are going to walk upstairs with me and give a full account of yourself!"

Raphael slowly lowered his phone, letting it rest face down on his lap. He didn’t rise from the bed. He just tilted his head up, locking his striking silver eyes onto hers with an icy, hollow detachment that made her words freeze in her throat.

"Are you done?" he asked coldly. His deep, baritone voice echoed off the walls of the small room, devoid of humor, anger, or heat. It was a prompt, dry question- the kind one asks an annoying insect buzzing around one’s ear.

Elena’s face flushed red with humiliation and fury. Her pride snapped.

"Don’t you dare look down on me!" she yelled, her hand dropping to her sword as her silver mana exploded around her frame like a storm of razor-sharp glass.

In a fraction of a second, she drew her broadsword halfway out of its sheath, stepping forward with explosive speed to pin him against the wall with the flat of her blade- a swift, dominant strike meant to shatter his composure and force him back into line.

Raphael didn’t even blink as the gleaming steel whistled toward his throat. He didn’t reach for a weapon, and he didn’t attempt to dodge. He only opened his lips and spoke a single word into the air.

"Vanessa."

The temperature in the bedroom instantly dropped below freezing.

Before Elena’s blade could travel another inch, the ambient shadows in the corner of the room surged upward like living ink, coalescing into a towering pillar of dense, violet-black mana.

A dark relic-staff materialized out of thin air, slamming hard into the flat of Elena’s broadsword with a deafening, metallic CLANG! The sheer kinetic force behind the block sent a violent shockwave vibrating up Elena’s arms, shattering her mana reinforcement in an instant and numbing her fingers to the bone.

Before she could process what had intercepted her strike, a cold, silk-soft voice cut through the frost-filled air.

"Know your place, mortal pest."

Vanessa emerged from the shifting shadows, her dark robes floating weightlessly, her eyes blazing with a terrifying, ancient violet light. Without a moment’s hesitation, Vanessa flicked her slender hand outward.

A wave of concentrated, gravitational force erupted from her palm, striking Elena squarely in the chest.

BOOM!

Elena gasped as the invisible impact hit her like a speeding freight train. Her feet left the floor, her broadsword clattering against the carpet as she flew backward through the air. She smashed straight through the reinforced apartment door, shattering the electronic lock frame, and crashed violently into the carpeted corridor outside.

She skidded across the floor, coming to a halt against the opposite wall of the hallway, her chest burning as she coughed raggedly, trying to draw air back into her lungs.

Through her blurred vision, she looked up at the ruined doorway.

Standing in the center of the threshold was the pale, ethereal figure of the dark-haired Saintess, holding her relic-staff, her cold violet gaze looking down at Elena as if she were dirt under her boots. Behind her, sitting calmly on the bed, Raphael picked up his phone once more, his silver eyes never even turning to check if she was still alive.

The shattered door slowly rattled on its hinges, sealing the silent predator back inside his lair, leaving Elena lying in the hallway, her pride broken, trembling in genuine, suffocating terror.