Empires | Arc 2 | Chapter 8 | Mr. Snob

It is a bright, sunny morning in Titan City.

The reconstruction of the 1st Block cafe—the exact establishment blown apart by Taglia‘s wind cutters —has finally been completed. Because he was instrumental in the rebuilding and rescue efforts, Jarrod was personally invited as a guest of honor for its grand reopening.

Leaving the penthouse, Jarrod had asked both Friling and Lesca if they wanted to accompany him. Both refused, citing reasons of varying importance.

Friling politely declined, buried under a mountain of administrative paperwork required to oversee the ongoing construction of the 3rd Block.

Lesca, on the other hand, simply scoffed when asked.

“Why rebuild it?” she had said, casually as she waved him off. “Someone will just come and break it again.” She announced she would rather go to the movies and left it at that.

Dressed in his signature olive Noragi jacket, Jarrod feels a rare, profound sense of pride. For the first time in his life, he has actively helped build something new. Being acknowledged for that effort is more than he could have ever asked for.

Even walking the streets from the Head Family tower in the 2nd Block down to the 1st Block, Jarrod is recognized. After his efforts on the frontlines, he has become a well-known, beloved face around the city. It is his genuinely helpful, grounded nature that makes the citizens view him not just as a powerful Heat user, but as a part of their own family.

They wave to him from the sidewalks, greeting him with casual, familiar “Mornings,” which Jarrod reflects back with an easygoing, enthusiastic smile.

The moment Jarrod walks into the newly rebuilt cafe, the faces of the entire staff brighten. They rush out from behind the counter to usher him inside, seating him directly opposite the barista station so that no matter how trivial his needs might be, they can attend to him instantly. Jarrod offers a warm smile and a slight bow of appreciation as he takes his seat. A fresh cup of coffee is immediately placed in front of him.

He is in the middle of peeling the paper cover off a sugar pouch when a gentleman quietly enters the cafe. He stands around six feet tall, dressed immaculately in a casual jacket, a fitted tee, chinos, and pristine casual boots.

Because Jarrod is seated with his back to the entrance, he doesn’t immediately notice the man. But unlike every other patron who simply pushes through, this individual grabs the door handle, twists the knob with deliberate precision all the way to its absolute limit to open it, steps inside, and then twists it all the way back to close it silently.

The man walks past Jarrod and takes a seat directly by the newly installed floor-to-ceiling windows.

Ironically—though Jarrod does not know this—it is the exact same seat where Taglia sat during his meeting with Chaos.

Through the rising steam of his hot coffee, Jarrod serenely observes the man. It is a completely mundane moment, yet a deep, primal instinct in Jarrod‘s gut begins to twist. Something is out of place.

As a waitress approaches the table, the man raises his head and speaks with mechanical flatness. “Coffee. Three spoons of sugar. Two and a half spoons of milk powder, not liquid milk. And make it an even temperature of exactly 49 degrees Celsius, or 120 degrees Fahrenheit, please.”

He doesn’t just list his ingredients; he mandates the exact thermal physics of his coffee.

The waitress blinks, entirely confused.

Seeing her hesitation, the man sighs. “Please just get me your most traditional coffee. Thank you.”

Looking baffled, the waitress nods and retreats.

Jarrod watches the entire incident unfold. Despite the presence of a few other early-morning customers, the atmosphere remains completely relaxed.

It is the fatal flaw of Titan City—its citizens simply do not care about a threat until the danger is physically breathing in their faces. The man crosses his fingers, rests both hands on the table, and closes his eyes in quiet meditation as he waits for his coffee.

Intrigued, Jarrod keeps watching.

When the barista brings the man his traditional coffee, he lifts the cup, meticulously inspects the dark liquid swirling inside, and lets out a heavy, defeated sigh. “Thank you,” he mutters, offering a tight smile that suggests asking these people for competence is like asking a cat to fetch.

Seeing the barista visibly uncomfortable, Jarrod intervenes before taking a sip of his own drink. “That is exactly why they leave the extra pouches on the tables, you know. So you can make the coffee yourself.”

The man’s eyes snap open. His gaze locks onto Jarrod, holding a long, calculating stare. “Very well.”

The barista quietly excuses herself, leaving the two men alone. While the man clinically inspects the sugar packets on the table, he speaks without looking up. “I am Intellectual. And you are, Mister…?”

Since Jarrod had already been studying his erratic behavior, he replies swiftly. “Jarrod. Just Jarrod. No need for ‘Mister.'”

Intellectual looks up, offering a thin, smile, before returning to his meticulous coffee preparation. After perfectly stirring the liquid, he takes a single, measured sip. “Are you a resident of this city, Jarrod?”

“No. Just staying here for a while,” Jarrod replies innocently. “Why do you ask?”

Intellectual turns his head to the right, looking out through the pristine glass window at the waking city. “My employer sent me here to scout and hire powerful individuals.” He slowly turns his gaze back to Jarrod. “Do you happen to know any?”

The easygoing warmth entirely vanishes from Jarrod‘s face, replaced by a cold, hardened shadow. He doesn’t let his fighting intent bleed into the sunlit atmosphere of the cafe just yet. “What exactly do you mean by ‘powerful’?”

Intellectual looks up at the ceiling, shaking his head slightly as if searching for the most basic terminology a child could understand. “You know. Heat users.”

Jarrod‘s remaining calmness evaporates. Point blank, he demands, “Who are you?”

Intellectual squints. A deeply amused, patronizing smile spreads across his face. “I told you. My name is Intellectual, and I am currently employed as a recruiter.”

Jarrod pushes his chair back and stands up. He steps toward the man, stopping just a few feet away, but his massive presence looms directly over Intellectual‘s seated frame. Jarrod leans down, his voice dropping into a hushed gravel. “Whatever it is you truly want… if it results in hurting the people in this city, I will hurt you. Badly.”

Intellectual looks up at him. The amusement entirely dies from his eyes, replaced by a look of contempt. He lets out a heavy, exhausted sigh. “A buffoon, after all.”

The cafe is violently sucked of its very air.

Suddenly, the staff and the customers open their mouths gasping, their lungs burning as if the oxygen in the room has been instantly deleted.

But it isn’t a vacuum.

It is an crushing physical pressure—a weight that instantly sinks into flesh, skin, and bone.

“Let me guide you to your true destination, buffoons,” Intellectual whispers. “Domain of the Shepard’s Wisdom.”

BAM.

The gravity within a ten-meter spherical radius instantly doubles.

Everyone in the room feels the invisible pressure—except for Intellectual, who remains casually seated, stirring his coffee.

The staff and customers are instantly slapped down onto their tables or slammed directly onto the floor.

They are paralyzed, glued to the ground as a constant, unrelenting pressure buries them deeper. Not a single scream escapes their throats; the gravitational force is so heavy it physically crushes their vocal cords.

Only Jarrod refuses to grovel.

Straining against the weight, he forces his body into a desperate knight’s stance—one knee planted violently into the floor, the other leg bent to support his frame. He drops his head to adjust to the crushing equilibrium, planting both of his palms flat onto the ground just to keep his torso upright.

This is entirely different from the agonizing, supersonic slap he endured against Taglia. That was a momentary impact. This is a constant, suffocating avalanche.

The entire structure of the cafe begins to groan. The ceiling violently tremors, the wooden pillars shaking under the invisible mass. Behind the counter, the display cakes, glass cups, and ceramic plates are instantly flattened into dust the exact second the gravity spiked. The newly installed floor-to-ceiling windows shatter outward in a explosion of glass.

Thank the gods there are no children in the room at this exact moment. The sheer internal pressure would have caused them to bleed to death from their eyes and ears. Even the adults pinned to the floor begin to visibly leak thin, shiny trails of crimson blood from their nostrils.

Intellectual finally stands up, unbothered by the gravitational pressure. “Ah. So you must be the man I heard about. The one who gave the famous Taglia a somewhat entertaining fight before getting knocked unconscious. Congratulations!”

Intellectual slowly claps his hands, looking up at the groaning ceiling as if speaking to God himself. “Despite being an absolute monster, he certainly has my respect… There is just something incredibly fascinating about him, you know?” He looks down at Jarrod‘s trembling form. “I do hope that one day, I will get the opportunity to study him.”

While the recruiter blabbers, Jarrod desperately tries to channel his Push into the floor beneath his planted palms. He needs to make his body lighter to stand up. But it is an agonizing, impossible labor; his body weight has been effectively doubled, if not more.

What Jarrod fails to realize is the tactical math of his Domain. The gravity isn’t isolated to him; it blankets the entire area. Rather than forcing a specific vector of Push directly under his palms, if he simply focused his Push into a massive, omnidirectional burst, the resulting displacement would automatically lift him out of the gravitational lock.

But the problem isn’t his technique—it is his biology.

The mental toll of existing in 2x gravity is catastrophic. While the ordinary humans on the floor are teetering on the edge of passing out, Jarrod is fighting to stay conscious, his vision fogging into a gray blur. The extreme gravity has forcefully drained the blood from his brain, pooling it heavily into his legs. Executing complex vector math requires a fully oxygenated, operational mind.

Jarrod simply cannot process the thought at this moment.

Intellectual, whose brain is completely unaffected and operating at maximum efficiency, catches Jarrod‘s futile, straining effort.

“Pathetic,” he mutters.

ZHUUUUUUMMM.

He instantly cancels his Heat.

The deafening, buzzing pressure inside everyone’s skulls vanishes. Because the crushing force is canceled so abruptly, the staff and customers are slightly thrown upward, bouncing an inch off the floor, the counters, and their tables in a jarring release of pressure.

Jarrod collapses entirely, falling flat onto his chest as he violently coughs, desperately sucking air back into his burning lungs. The terrified civilians immediately scramble to their feet, crawling and sprinting toward the shattered door.

Intellectual watches them flee but makes absolutely no effort to stop them.

Even between ragged gasps for breath, Jarrod turns his head, weakly waving his arm. “Go out… now… just go.”

The pedestrians outside, who had felt the pressure of the gravity but couldn’t cross the threshold, finally rush in to drag the bleeding victims out to the street. They freeze for a split second at the sight of the destruction, but hearing Jarrod‘s raspy command, they immediately obey, pulling the staff to safety.

Intellectual hops lightly onto the broken window sill. He glances up and down the street before turning his gaze back to Jarrod, who is still kneeling on the floor, his back facing the villain.

“You fought the great Taglia and survived,” Intellectual muses. “That means, even for a buffoon, you possess some intrinsic value. I can see it now. After all, you are still conscious after being pinned by twice the earth’s gravity for over four minutes. So… let’s test your actual growth, shall we? Given your last encounter with Taglia took place some time ago, you surely haven’t been sitting on your ass. You must have found some way to… evolve. Am I correct?”

Jarrod slowly turns his head. His breathing has finally stabilized. His brutal encounter with Taglia fundamentally hardened his physical durability, meaning his bones didn’t snap under the gravitational pressure like they used to.

“So… you are his messenger?” Jarrod growls.

Intellectual lets out a booming, wholehearted laugh. “His… messenger? What a profoundly stupid question.” The laugh abruptly dies, and the playful arrogance vanishes completely from his eyes. “Let me explain this so that even a buffoon like you can comprehend the reality of your situation. I am currently employed by a man named Chaos. And I can assure you, I do not know Mr. Taglia personally.”

Intellectual’s face twists into a cold sneer. “Now, enough of this pointless chatter. Show me what you—”

“He is not the only one who grew,” a calm, composed voice rings out.

Intellectual snaps his head around. Hovering silently in the air directly behind him is Friling. His Heat is fully activated, the magnificent pair of Raphael’s Wings spread wide, shining in the morning sunlight. The right wing, once nearly torn from his back by Taglia, looks flawless attached.

Before Intellectual can fully rotate his body or activate his Heat, Friling sweeps his wing in a blinding arc, violently slapping Intellectual across the right side of his face.

Intellectual is launched through the air, tumbling several meters down the street. But before he can even hit the asphalt, he is snatched out of the air.

Four towering, maroon-blooded skeletons catch his airborne body, slamming him brutally against the concrete, his face buried. They instantly pin his legs, his arms, his shoulders, and his neck to the ground.

Without his gravitational field active, Intellectual is just a tall man with a severe case of OCD. Pinned beneath the massive, suffocating weight of literal bone and blood, he is completely immobilized. Struggling against them feels like trying to break out of rapid-freezing cement.

“Look at you, finding trouble for us every now and then,” an aloof, arrogant voice echoes across the street.

Jarrod looks up from the ruined cafe to see Lesca walking casually toward them. Flanking her on both side are six more maroon-blooded skeletons, matching her unbothered stride.

Friling lands softly on the asphalt, offering a knowing smirk as he looks between his sister and Jarrod.

Lesca stops just outside the shattered boundaries of the cafe. She looks up at the ruined awning, offering a heavy, dramatic sigh. “Hah. I really should opt out for a career as a fortune teller. It fell apart again.”

The lighthearted chatter is suddenly shattered.

From behind them, a broken roar tears through the morning air. It is not a beastly growl. It is a roar of pure, unfiltered hatred and agonizing pain—a horrific mixture of a weeping cry and unhinged rage.

All three of them freeze, snapping their heads around to look behind them.