Ethan's expression softened, a mix of excitement and lingering fear flickering across his face. After a few seconds, he spoke. "There's a capable person in our neighborhood.""Capable?" Ray's mind flickered. Could he mean an ability user? He had suspected it before but dismissed the thought—but now, hearing Ethan say there really was someone with powers here, he was genuinely surprised."Please, tell me everything," he said.Since Ethan had opened the topic, he wasted no time hiding anything. After all, this was the reason for his visit. He began, "This capable person's name is Albert Seager. Before retirement, he served in the military, and his rank was very high."Seeing Ray's curious gaze, Ethan smiled and made a gesture showing extreme height. "Even taller than you can imagine."The old man is from Senna City. After retiring, he returned to live quietly. Back then, very few people in all of Senna City even knew of his existence. Of course, now things are different—more people

"Yes, Ray? Is there something else?" Ethan asked.Ray nodded and smiled. "I'd like to pay a visit to the neighbors. That should be fine, right?"Ethan froze for a moment. In weather this cold, who would go out just to check on someone? He was here primarily to warn Ray; otherwise, nobody would brave such bitter cold. After thinking it over, he said, "As long as you stick to the 'live and let live' agreement, I'm sure the neighbors will welcome your visit.""Fine," Ray said with a faint smile."Oh, I almost forgot." Ethan patted his head and pulled a walkie-talkie from his thick coat. "Communications are down, so this is the only way to stay in touch. Going out is too much trouble anyway."Ray took the walkie-talkie, smiling faintly to himself.'Almost forgot, my ass,' he thought, the faint smile still clinging to his lips. 'If I hadn't mentioned visiting the neighbors, this thing would've stayed buried in your coat. Now you've given me a radio—why bother with face-to-face chats

Following the young woman, Ray made his way to the first floor.This villa had only three levels.Some villas, like the Morley family estate, were four stories, and that one even had five floors, making it the tallest building in the entire complex.In the living room on the first floor, an elderly man was indeed sitting with reading glasses perched on his nose, absorbed in a newspaper.Classic setup.Ray shook his head silently. It's been how many days since the apocalypse, and you still have unread newspapers? Sitting there like this, the old soldier image practically leapt off the page. But… too much of a good thing can be overkill.His suspicion deepened as he plopped down across from the old man.Finally, the elder put down his newspaper, scrutinized Ray, and said, "Young man, you came to see me? Well, now you're here—speak your mind."Authority radiated from every line of his face.Ray smiled. "Albert, it's no wonder you're from the army—still so strong!"The man looked

Ray left the Seager residence and returned home, feeling a deep sense of relief.His mind finally settled. Albert was definitely not some top-ranking military officer. Previously, there had been no way to verify this online—there was someone with the same name, but he was a county mayor in a small town, not from Senna City, and the ages didn't match.Ray had still had lingering doubts. What if Albert was involved in secret weapons research? A person of that caliber naturally wouldn't leave a trace online.But Celine had gone and overdone it—she had brought out the Wikipedia entry. That was basically a confession.Ray could relax now. The story about missiles locking onto his residence, about them striking if Albert didn't report in, was nothing more than a scare tactic aimed at the Finleys. At the time, the Finleys had guns! Even without Silvan stepping in, who in the neighborhood wouldn't fear them?And yes, Celine was beautiful, no doubt the Finleys had noticed. So when the disa

With a clear goal in mind, Ray threw himself into training.He kept experimenting with "bending" the spatial portal. Hundreds of attempts passed, and yet the portal remained stubbornly unchanged—not a single bend appeared.But Ray didn't give up. He was just getting started.He also didn't devote all his energy to the spatial portal alone. He split his focus to train his other two abilities: Spatial Perception and Spatial Severing.Spatial Severing leaned toward offense, but Ray's personality… well, he naturally prioritized defense. Surviving came before anything else.In theory, combining Spatial Perception with the spatial portal should allow him to defend against any attack.Any assault within the range of Spatial Perception could be detected instantly. Opening the spatial portal was a matter of thought—how fast could his mind react? Exactly.Ray trained to coordinate Spatial Perception with opening the spatial portal. All ability users had some form of crisis alert, so if he