95 Infiltration

On the door, he could faintly see that there was an indistinct imprint of a hand. The finisher was that there were some bullet holes on the ground. At first, when he sensed it, he thought that those were simply holes.

From this, he could tell that there was a battle that took place here. A large-scale one. 'Mhm, one man? Who stormed this palace?'

As this was none of his business, Hayden cloaked himself and went back to the car. When he was back inside, he briefed the three.

"Well, our way in is pretty straightforward." Hayden touched his black denim jacket, it disappeared. "I've disabled all of the sensors I can find around the perimeter, and also in the door. I've also confirmed that there is a large underground facility of some sort beneath the mansion."

Wearing his mask, Hayden touched his black shirt as it disappeared into his Space Ring. This unanticipated reveal of Hayden's flawless body distracted the three women.

Sayuri gulped at the sight of Hayden's sculpted abs. Ayesha, who leaned on the backseat to have a view of Hayden's face as he spoke collapsed to the seat. While Chung-hee, who had not that much of a view since her vision of Hayden was blocked by Ayesha, was still startled.

Hayden disregarded the reactions of the three as a black military uniform materialized in his hand. "I really don't care for the lives of these soldiers. However, for this mission, we can't kill aimlessly. We don't know the capability of that Angus Concepcion. That is why, all night, we will have to stick together."

When he wore the uniform, he touched his boots and pants, making it vanish. Sayuri couldn't take it as she covered her eyes. She shrieked. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Come on, you're embarrassed by this?" Hayden rolled his eyes. He put on the black military pants and boots. He wanted to tease Sayuri hard, but they were in the presence of Ayesha. Therefore, he restrained himself.

"Here's for you." When he finished everything, a plain pink mask popped up in his hand and he handed it to Ayesha. "We can't risk exposing our identities here."

Ayesha took the mask without saying anything. She was too astounded by Hayden's efficient rundown. It was concise and packed, easy to understand. Plus, his disposition as a king was pouring out of him. She had no doubts that Hayden was a natural-born leader. Also, Hayden's abs…

The three behind him were all shocked of this. In a hushed tone, Sayuri inquired, "How come you were able to open the gate with your phone."

"I hacked into the system mainframe and the defense system of the house." Hayden impassively answered as if those were trivial feats.

In truth, during the time he was hacking the outdoor cameras, he was able to see a loophole in the program and tunnel through what appeared to be the entire defense system and system mainframe of the house. First, he replaced the camera feed with gifs then registered his Identity Number that granted him admin access to the server files and the house itself.

What he did from there was make his Identity Number invisible from the list and kick the actual admin from the admin position, placing most of the functions in the house as admin-only access.

Also, in the case that something happens, Hayden registered Ayesha's Identity Number. Not like Identity Numbers can be looked up on the internet.

For a powerful mafia family, their defense system was easily bypassed.

If the programmer of the defense system of the house heard Hayden, he would cry. What Hayden didn't know was that the defense system of the Concepcion Family was handwritten from scratch and was entirely unique. It may even be considered one of the nigh-impenetrable ones. And Hayden cracked it within minutes. With a tablet no less.

Irrespective of the difficulty of Hayden's feat, the trio was lost of Hayden's programmer-speak. None of them has dabbled in any field related to computers, hence, they were clueless of how good of a hacker Hayden was.

To work with that much efficiency, hack through the system without the detection of modern AI, and even kick the admin to the curb were all unbelievable feats.

Going inside, Hayden also opened the door for themselves. What met their eyes was a huge hall with a glass twin staircase.

"Who are you?" Abruptly, a voice sounded out. "How did you get-"

Before he can finish his sentence, a beam of light flew out of Hayden's hands and hit him, evaporating him to oblivion.

Tapping something on his phone, the wall behind the staircase parted. It was a secret doorway. "Come."

In a daze, Sayuri, Chung-hee, and Ayesha followed Hayden. Hayden was treating the place as his own. It was bizarre.

Inside the doorway. There was nothing there. It was a small enclosure of approximately 10 square meters.

"What is this?" Ayesha asked.

"It's an elevator." With a tap on his phone, the wall closed and the floor descended, taking them with it.

As they descended, Hayden briefed them once more. This time, with a tablet. On the tablet was the map layout of the underground basement.

"This is not a mere basement." Hayden pointed to his tablet. "This place also serves as the main hub of the Concepcion Family. In here, they keep their weapons, they have their training facilities, and there's the prison."

Hayden pointed to the farthest one of the elevator. It was inordinate of a prison for a facility of this size. Ayesha commented, "They must have a lot of prisoners."

"Oh yes they have." With a few taps, Hayden got to the files of all the prisoners of the Concepcion Family. "Most of them offended the family in some way. Your father's file is quite the sight."

Showing Ayesha her father's file, she was dumbstruck. His Ability was Master of Frost, a variant of a rather common Ability. Notwithstanding, that's not the one that dumbstruck her. It was that her father was a former hitman of Concepcion Family.

In addition, with the utilization of his Master of Frost, her father had a kill count of… 236 people within a decade.

Aside from this, unlike the other prisoners, there was nothing else. There was no reason for detainment nor his background.

"Wow." Ayesha's sight blackened temporarily. She steadied herself. "My… My father killed so many people."

"Trust me, it's not that high." He nonchalantly said.

Hayden himself had killed a sum of 79 people. Aswang, Tikbalang, the four rookies, 44 in South Korea, the 28 thugs that blocked his way to Grande Mall, and that sniper. That was all in a span of six, seven months. The number would simply increase.

Precipitously, a passing suspicion popped up in his head. 'Can it be…?'

The elevator reached the bottom level. The elevator doors opened. The quartet was welcomed by the sight of a large technological facility.

With the help of Hayden's grasp of the surroundings and Heavenly Sense, they avoided any form of detection. Sayuri and Chung-hee was starting to doubt their usefulness in this situation. Hayden was too good at leading this covert rescue operation.

So far, they've made no slip-up at all. Hell, they didn't encounter a single guard along the way. The prison, unlike the rest of the facility, were old-school prisons. No, that's wrong. It was more reminiscent of a medieval dungeon.

The place was even lit-up by torches. Or at least what appeared to be torches. Hayden could sense the inner workings of the technological torches.

The jail exclusively incarcerated male prisoners. There were no records of any female prisoners in the cell at all. Consequently, when the prisoners noticed Sayuri, Chung-hee, and Ayesha's stunning body lines, they were akin to a pack of wolves in a sheep pen.

The three's skin crawled under the intense lascivious gazes of the prisoners. In the end, Sayuri and Chung-hee disregarded it when they saw that they had black stone handcuffs. As for Ayesha, she did not have the same luxury.

With hasty footsteps, Hayden led the three women as he zigzagged through the maze-like dungeons. A few seconds passed when Hayden stopped them.

Turning to them, life force came out from his gloved hands. It formed into a sentence. 'Your father is heavily guarded by five people. Tiger, can you tell us the power levels of those five people?'

Chung-hee closed her eyes. Thereon, she raised four of her hands, and put down two. Next, she raised one, then three.

"Manageable." Hayden muttered, disappearing from his position. Indeed, there were five men, all carrying guns. Not wanting to make a noise, he threw five throwing knives at them, all rocket-propelled by life-force.

Four people were killed without resistance, while one caught the knife. Without giving him time to react, Hayden kneed him to the stone wall, smashing it.

Subsequently, Hayden punched the guy's face then shredded his vocal cords out with his claws, thwarting his scream. With a claw, Hayden stabbed the man's heart, killing him.

The trio couldn't react in time as the faint sound of people being killed was heard. When they peered around the corner, they saw the five bodies in the ground.

Sayuri and Chung-hee locked eyes. They had a tacit understanding that they seriously did not have to come. Hayden literally killed a Level 3 wielder in no time. Chung-hee was more surprised due to the fact that Hayden could barely stand up against Haetae back in South Korea.

Ayesha was flummoxed for a different reason. It was that Hayden could kill people without any emotion at all. Also, she was dizzy from the metallic scent of blood.

Sayuri, Chung-hee, and Ayesha walked over to Hayden, who stood in front of a prison cell. Without moving, he queried, "Is this your father?"

Hearing this, Ayesha ran to Hayden's side. The sight of her father made her tear up. She could deduce that the wounds on his body were all fresh. His face was all black and blue. He was kneeling with both hands shackled on the stone wall. Around his hands were some sort of black stone. Ones slightly thicker than the rest of the prisoners.

Ayesha's hands transformed into bear hands. She bent the steel bars of the cell. Rushing to her father's side, she knelt alongside to him. She sobbed, "Dad… Dad…"

Hayden was going to say something. He stopped himself from doing so as Ayesha was too emotional. 'I could have opened it with my admin controls, but sure, that works.'

She was going to endeavor to break free Jeremy from the manacles when Sayuri stopped her. She verbalized in English, "You won't be able to break that, that's Voidstone. If you touch that, you'll die."

"What?" Ayesha shuddered when she heard those words. "What do you mean?"

Sayuri continued on to explain what Voidstone is. Apparently, Voidstone is a rare naturally-occurring form of basalt that can sap essence energy out of living organisms, a power that is affected by its size. For Level 1 wielders and non-wielders, it is deadly as they don't have the power of circulation of Level 2 wielders and above.

Meanwhile, while it has no lasting effects for wielders, it can be used as a deterrence for Abilities. This is because of the Voidstone's power to suck essence energy out of the wielder's body. This effectively prevented them from activating any of their Ability.

She even went as far as saying that she won't easily make physical contact with it. Voidstone was too dangerous.

"Wait, how rare is this substance exactly?" Hayden was intrigued of this Voidstone. First, there was the 'Space Stone,' and now there was this Voidstone.

"You know the mineral rhenium?" Sayuri returned a question.

"One of the rarest naturally elements found on Earth's cru- Oh, that scarce?" Hayden was confounded. If he wasn't wrong, all the wielders here wore Voidstone shackles. If it was that rare, why waste it when you can create one of the strongest weapons?

For the meantime, Hayden threw this at the back of his head. Ayesha spoke up, "How would we get him out then?"

"Thankfully, with this meager amount of Voidstone, as long as your skin is not in direct contact with the Voidstone itself, you won't get affected one bit." Sayuri followed up. "Which is why even the paltriest of hand protection can protect you from these handcuffs."

"Okay then." Hayden stepped forward, forcing the Voidstone fetters apart. While he was doing that, he was surprised of the unanticipated hardness of the cuffs. He had to use 100% of the power of his Indestructible Devil to break it in half. "Intriguing."

Storing the pieces of Voidstone back in his Space Ring, Hayden formulated a plan to later utilize it.

When Jeremy was finally free, Ayesha hugged him. With the power of his life force, Hayden roused Jeremy from his sleep by tapping his forehead.

Weakly, Jeremy groaned. "W-what's happening? W-who are you?"

"Dad… Dad…" Ayesha's eyes were full of tears. "It's me, Ayesha. We came here to rescue you."

"A-Ayesha?" Jeremy pushed Ayesha away. "What are you doing here? I sacrificed myself to save you!"

"Really? You're going to treat your daughter coldly when she tried to help you?" Hayden couldn't help interfere. In the case of people actually given a helping hand yet ungrateful, no matter how reasonably placed their ungratefulness was, were one of his pet peeves.

In his opinion, if you're helped, at least don't say aloud that you're not grateful at all. Scolding someone when they helped you? Goodness. It's spiteful.

"And who are you people?" Jeremy's gaze hardened. "Why did you lead my daughter into the mouth of a tiger? Leave me here! All of this was to protect you, Ayesha. Please, leave me here."

"She was the one who approached us." Hayden impassively answered. He was getting increasingly annoyed by Jeremy. "Be thankful that she did. You see, there are two outcomes if she didn't. One, you'll either rot in this cell, with your daughter hunted forever by this Concepcion Family. The second is worse. Your daughter takes that Angus up with his offer to protect you."

"I-I…" Jeremy couldn't refute Hayden's words. "What do you know about this Concepcion Family? What do you know about sacrifice?"

"Did you ever think that your so-called sacrifice wouldn't make your daughter's life easier? It will make it tough! You ever think that?" By this point in time, Hayden's tone contained so much rage that he practically shook. "And you have the fucking gall to say those words to your daughter? Fucking ingrate! You're a disgrace of a father!"

Ayesha, Sayuri, and Chung-hee all froze. Hayden crouched in front of Jeremy and took his mask off. He stared Jeremy in the eyes. "What was your plan? Huh? Put your daughter in an eternal state of anxiety as you live? Endanger your own daughter's life? Think! These people are criminals. Ever since you left them, you're nothing to them. You don't matter to them. Do you really think they'll stop at the loss of your life? No! They will pursue your daughter to the ends of the Earth. Did you think that? Charging in here when you're this weak was the last thing you should've done. If anything, you should've run away with your daughter. It would've been wiser to migrate."

"What do you mean charging in here? He was kidnapped!" Ayesha was angry of Hayden's wild accusations.

"Huh?" Hayden turned to Ayesha. His eyes were brimming with rage that it made her back off instinctively. "Tell them, Jeremy. Tell them what you did."

"I-I…" Jeremy couldn't speak. His brain didn't register seeing Hayden's face as Hayden's words were "H-how did you know I stormed this place?"

"The first clue was that the cameras at your place having no evidence of anything at all. With today's technology, that's impossible." Hayden stood up. His rage vanished, replaced by a cold analytical tone. "The second was the stalks of grass outside the mansion. The third was your Ability, Master of Frost. I'd be stupid if these three puzzles pieces that glared at me couldn't be pieced together."

Jeremy couldn't rebut Hayden. Before he could explain himself, Hayden's enrage act came back. "And you say you're concerned of the well-being of your daughter? Your kind of people sickens me. Now, you will be assisted by your daughter, you will protect her with your life, and not make any stupid decisions from now on. I signed a contract I intend to fulfill. We'll continue this talk in my car. Ayesha."

Ayesha unconsciously helped her father up at Hayden's words. She gulped when she was reminded of Hayden's fury. She couldn't shake off her irrational indignation of Hayden's accusations.

What she didn't know was that Hayden wasn't really infuriated. He simply acted up to wake Jeremy up from his own unacceptance of Ayesha's help. In reality, Hayden could understand why Jeremy recklessly assaulted the mansion. If he had a daughter, he'd do the same. No one shall treat his children like that, especially in front of him.

Though he'd be more calculating than what Jeremy did. Jeremy was too careless. He was furious, not feral. There's a big difference. He should've been more calculating, thus, part of Hayden's words was indeed true.

He was away from the Concepcion Family for a long time. He should've weighed their strength more prior to attacking. Otherwise, it will be of no use in doing so. The smarter thing would've indeed been migrating.

As they were exiting, Hayden picked up on footsteps. Sayuri talked in Japanese, "Hayden, there are five Level 2 wielders and three Level 3 wielders."

"Okay." Hayden shrugged, wearing his mask again. "Wolf-san, please conserve your strength and protect them. Tiger-san, shall we dance with these idiots?"

"You don't have to word it so disgustingly." Chung-hee's voice was somehow a mix of repulsion and shyness. Simultaneously, a tiger made of pure air was summoned. It ran into her as it vanished. "Also, you don't have to remind me."

Hayden and Chung-hee's bodies flickered from sight. In the corner, the light of gunfire and the screams of people can be heard. Hayden and Chung-hee emerged from the place without any blood on them at all.

"Let's go. We should escape while we can." Hayden pointed his thumb behind him. Calmly, he spoke, "I think we've been found out."