Chapter 220: Beginning (XX)
Because of its proximity to Sector 4, the town was mostly abandoned. Decaying concrete buildings sat empty, their shopfronts boarded up, while a few impoverished, mundane civilians moved hurriedly along the cracked sidewalks, keeping their heads down. Nobody paid attention to the ragged, white-haired woman shuffling past.
As Erin walked through the silent streets, a complex, chaotic storm of thoughts raged within her chest.
She felt a profound, aching sadness for the loss of her child. But beneath that grief, buried deep within the hidden, taboo corners of her mind... she felt a strange, sickening wave of relief.
’What would I have done with him here?’ Erin thought bitterly, her hands clenching into tight fists inside her coat pockets.
Rosh was not a human child. He had no face, no eyes, and a body forged from the empty void. Even if the Doom Overseer’s prophecy was true—even if the baby would eventually learn to project an illusory human template over himself.
He was still a beast. If she had brought him back to Earth, the International Exterminator Corporation or the legacy assassin clans would have hunted them down within days. They would have ripped the child from her arms, locked him in a black-site laboratory, and dissected him.
Separation was cruel, but at least he would remain safe from human greed.
Her thoughts then shifted back to the Doom Overseer.
The feline beast had promised to keep the response teams busy, specifically mentioning Commander Maddox. How could a creature with a non-combatant core hold back an elite force of S-Rank Awakeners?
How did it know Maddox’s name? Why was it willing to sacrifice itself for her escape? Erin pondered the questions for miles, and yet the answer was same and simple.
The Overseer was an Oracle—an entity that walked through the tapestry of past, present, and future. It possessed knowledge that defied human logic. The ancient beast operated on a level of cosmic strategy that her human mind could barely comprehend.
Pushing the unsolvable mysteries aside, Erin focused on her immediate survival. She needed to reach home.
After wandering through the commercial district for nearly an hour, Erin spotted a small, rusted public telephone booth mounted against the side of a closed gas station. To her immense luck, the ancient, hardwired landline service was still functional, its small green display glowing dimly in the twilight.
Erin stepped into the booth and picked up the plastic receiver. She stood there in complete silence for ten agonizing minutes, her fingers hovering over the keypad as she contemplated who to call.
She couldn’t call Commander Maddox, nor could she reach out to the upper echelons of the National Exterminator Agency.
Finally, Erin dialed a private, unlisted number—the personal line of a young, junior researcher who worked directly under her in the Gate Research Facility at the NEA Headquarters in Area 5.
The line rang three times before connecting.
"Hello? Who is this?" a tired, familiar male voice answered over the static.
"It’s me," Erin whispered, her voice rough, dry, and raspy. "Erin."
A loud, violent crash echoed over the receiver, followed by the sound of a chair being knocked over. "Dr... Dr. Volter?!" the young man gasped, his tone pitching up in utter, hysterical disbelief. "Is that... is that really you?! Where are you?! Everyone thinks you’re dead! You’ve been missing for almost a year!"
"Listen to me carefully," Erin interrupted sharply. "Do not ask questions. And more importantly... do not tell anyone that I called you. Not the Agency, not the directors, and especially not Commander Maddox. Do you understand me?"
"Dr. Volter, I... I don’t understand—"
"If you value my life, and if you value your own career, you will keep this phone call a secret," Erin instructed firmly. "I need you to arrange a few things for me. Use my private emergency grant funds. Do it now."
The young assistant hesitated for a long, heavy moment over the static line. "Okay..." he whispered, his voice trembling.
The journey back to the Southern Continent took two grueling, exhausting days.
Traveling via low-altitude, unregistered cargo transports, Erin crossed the ocean under the cover of dark, grey storm clouds. When she finally stepped back onto the cold, smog-choked soil of Varisus, the familiar, gloomy atmosphere of her home country felt like an anchor.
She did not return to her high-rise apartment in Area 5, nor did she step foot back inside the glittering laboratories of the NEA Headquarters. Instead, she walked directly into the central administrative bureau, submitted a brief, sanitized report claiming she had suffered severe memory loss following an illegal gate excursion, and formally tendered her resignation from the National Exterminator Agency.
The bureaucratic directors were furious and deeply suspicious. They subjected her to a rigorous assessment.
However, Erin’s razor-sharp intellect easily outmaneuvered their screening protocols. When they scanned her body for magical signatures, the Agency’s diagnostic arrays detected nothing unusual. Human scanners were calibrated strictly to measure pure mana pathways; they were utterly blind to dark mana. Finding no proof of corruption, treason, or awakening, the government was forced to accept her resignation, granting her a standard civilian discharge.
Once free from the Agency’s shackles, Erin severed every single tie to her past life.
She sold her remaining research patents, emptied her savings accounts, and abandoned Area 5 entirely. She moved to Area 17—a remote, impoverished residential district in the far southern sector of Varisus.
Area 17 was a dreary, industrial ghost town choked by factory smog and low-tier gate activity, a place where the government rarely monitored civilian records and where Exterminators seldom patrolled. It was the perfect place to vanish.
Erin purchased a modest, two-room apartment, intending to live out her remaining days as a quiet, mundane civilian.
Gate activities around the world had come to a halt. She knew the answer to them... because there was no one to control them.
However, three weeks after settling into her new life, a strange, persistent nausea began to plague her mornings.
She was once again pregnant.
She pieced the cosmic puzzle together. When Roshhide eventually died at the hands of the descending Gods of Rilth, his remaining life mana—the concentrated essence of his soul—had not vanished into the void. Bound by their cosmic bond, the residual life mana had traveled across dimensions, seeking refuge within Erin’s dark core.
That residual essence had catalyzed a second life within her womb.
A profound, paralyzing anxiety took root in Erin’s chest. For months, she lived in constant fear. Every single day, she stared at her growing belly in the mirror, terrified that she was carrying another monster—another face-less anomaly that would tear her sanity apart.
Eight months later, Erin endured the painful process entirely alone, gritting her teeth against the bedsheets so her screams wouldn’t alert the neighbors. She pushed through the agonizing contractions, her body drenched in a cold sweat, praying to whatever merciful gods governed the universe for a normal child.
With a final, breathless push, a sharp, healthy cry filled the quiet apartment.
Erin collapsed back onto the pillows, her chest heaving violently, tears spilling freely down her cheeks as she weakly reached out to pull the newborn infant into her arms.
She gently pulled back the soft cotton blanket, her heart hammering against her ribs as she looked down at her second son.
The moment her eyes landed on the baby, Erin let out a loud, weeping sob of overwhelming, exquisite relief.
It was a human child. A beautiful, perfect human baby.
The infant had a soft, fine tuft of pristine silver-white hair clinging to his forehead—the exact same hair color she carried. And when his tiny eyelids fluttered open in the dim light of the bedroom, two brilliant, piercing ocean-blue eyes looked up at her with quiet, mesmerizing clarity.
He had a delicate face, a tiny nose, soft skin, and a healthy, warm pulse. He was a normal human boy.
Erin held the baby tightly against her chest, weeping tears of pure joy as she kissed his forehead.
Looking down into those piercing blue eyes, Erin smiled through her tears, making a silent, unbreakable vow to protect this child from the brutal, cruel world of Exterminators, gates, and monsters.
"Hide..." Erin whispered softly, cradling her son in the quiet room. "Your name is Hide... Hide Volter."