Klaus drove his supercar through the winding roads of the countryside, William seated calmly beside him.
The early morning light painted the rolling hills and dense forests in soft hues. After approximately an hour of travel, the car approached its destination.
The landscape began to shift, the scattered farmlands giving way to a hidden, secluded valley. The air grew cooler here, a fresh scent of pine and damp earth replacing the city’s lingering odors.
A colossal mansion, almost double the size of William’s city residence, came into view.
It was not merely large, it was an imposing structure, built from dark, weathered stone that seemed to emerge naturally from the landscape.
Its architecture suggested that it was hundereds of years old.
It was situated at the bottommost point of a secluded valley, entirely surrounded by towering mountains on two sides.
These mountains, massive and silent, covered in ancient trees and jagged rock formations, provided a natural, formidable defense, isolating the mansion completely from the outside world.
As the supercar approached the main gates, a grand, wrought-iron structure adorned with intricate, unidentifiable symbols, a signboard became visible.
It read, in bold, carved into dark wood: "Bennet Ancestral Home." The massive gates swung open silently as the car approached, a long winding driveway, paved with dark, smooth stone, led them deeper into the sprawling estate.
As the car entered the mansion grounds, several black-suited security personnel, their forms solid and watchful, emerged from their hidden positions.
They walked in a uniform formation alongside the vehicle, their hands were resting subtly on the hilts of concealed weapons.
Klaus, observing them with his enhanced perception, was genuinely surprised by their sheer power.
These were not ordinary guards, not mere human attendants. He detected mana signatures indicating that most were S-rank hunters, with several even reaching SS-rank.
Even the headquarters of the Adventurer’s Association which was a global hub of hunters or even William’s city mansion, despite their importance, did not incorporate such a high level of on-site security.
William walked out of the car as it came to a gentle stop before the mansion’s main entrance. His posture was straight, his movements unhurried.
Klaus followed, stepping out and handing the car keys to one of the security guards, a silent, imposing man whose SS-rank aura was unmistakable.
The guard took them without a word, his expression impassive, his eyes fixed on Klaus for a brief, moment.
They both entered the mansion.
Klaus had half-expected to find it dusty, perhaps a little overgrown, given its remote location and the implication that no one lived there permanently, only caretakers.
However, the scene that greeted him defied his expectations. The mansion was thoroughly clean and meticulously well-maintained.
Polished marble floors gleamed, reflecting the subtle light filtering through tall, arched windows. Furniture was spotless, covered in pristine white sheets.
The air carried a faint, pleasant scent of old wood, ancient paper, and fresh beeswax.
William led Klaus towards a large hall inside the mansion.
The corridors they traversed were wide and airy, adorned with massive statues depicting scenes of heroic battles and ancestral figures.
They reached a set of grand, double doors, intricately carved from dark oak wood, above which a simple, elegantly written signboard read: "Hall of Memories."
Inside, Klaus found a vast, circular room. The ceiling soared far overhead, culminating in a central dome that allowed a soft, natural light to filter in.
The walls were lined with meticulously organized displays of historical pieces, ancient weaponry, worn and battle-scarred armor, artifacts that pulsed with mana, and yellowed documents protected behind thick, reinforced glass.
It was like a private museum of the Bennet family’s long history.
In the very center of the room, on a raised circular pedestal made of dark, polished stone was a statue.
It depicted a man with powerfully chiseled muscles and resolve, even in static stone.
His face was set in a grim expression of determination, as he was in the act of violently killing an alien Watcher.
This was clearly a statue of Thomas Bennet, William’s grandfather, the first Paragon of humanity, immortalized in his defining act of heroism.
The detail in the statue was astonishing, capturing every nuance of the battle.
For the first time, Klaus came to know the true physical appearance of a Watcher, not from a diagram or a vague description, but from this incredibly lifelike sculpture.
The statue’s depiction was incredibly detailed, almost to a disturbing degree. To his surprise, they were indeed humanoid beings, much like humans in their basic form, but with distinct, undeniably alien features.
Their skin was a uniform shade of deep blue, a cold, unnatural hue. Their facial features were much sharper, more angular, and less rounded than human faces, giving them a predatory, almost insectoid appearance.
They had prominent horns protruding from their heads; some depicted with a single, sharp horn curving back, others with two, twisting upwards or sideways, indicating variations within their species.
Klaus inferred from the precise details of the depiction that they possessed naturally hardened skin that could function like effective armor.
"So, those are the Watchers?" Klaus asked
"Yes, they are," William nodded
He stood beside Klaus, his own gaze reflecting immense, inherited burden. The statue served as a constant reminder of their family’s ultimate purpose.
Klaus’s attention then shifted. In the very center of the room, directly beneath the monumental statue of Thomas Bennet, he noticed a large, intricate prism.
It was crafted from clear, hard crystal. Inside this prism, suspended perfectly in its geometric center, was a mesmerizing, pulsating blue core.
It glowed with a faint, internal light, radiating a subtle, yet immensely potent, aura of raw mana.
Klaus, drawn by its unique energy signature, instinctively curious about its nature, found himself walking towards it, extending a hand towards the prism.
William, seeing Klaus’s fascination, offered a sad, almost melancholic smile.
"This was the core that Thomas integrated with," he explained
"The very first Watcher core ever successfully retrieved by humanity, the source of our initial, desperate breakthrough against them. It allowed us to fight back, to survive."
His tone saddened further as he continued, recounting the grim reality of that early, desperate experiment.
"This core was also, ultimately, responsible for Thomas’s demise. The integration process, in its early stages, was incredibly crude, experimental, and fraught with unimaginable danger.
It wasn’t a refined procedure. After a few years of successfully gaining a crucial foothold against the Watchers, turning the tide of the war with his unparalleled power, my grandfather, Thomas, started showing severe signs of mana contamination.
The alien mana, not perfectly harmonized with his human biology, slowly began to corrode his system, causing immense physical pain, internal organ failure, and severe mental instability.
It was a slow, agonizing process, a constant battle against a foreign energy that consumed him from within,
until the day this very core finally took his life."
William’s voice gained a complex sense of pride.
"Yet, even in his death, this core was also the reason Thomas was able to cultivate another Paragon: my father.
Thomas, in his final years would see visions, he would say that those were memories of the watcher he had absorbed.
His mental stability was severely affected due to these symptoms, he would often seem distant, lost in these alien visions, muttering in unknown tongues.
But through these harrowing visions, he also came to know about so many critical secrets of the Watchers, their weaknesses, their vulnerabilities, their military strategies, their technological capabilities, and their ultimate goals for humanity.
These secrets he then meticulously recorded in his personal archive. It was a desperate attempt on his part to pass on crucial knowledge before his mind fully deteriorated."
William’s gaze hardened again "That archive is still guarded by me. It is located in a secure, hidden vault deep within this mansion. No one else in the world knows about its existence, not even the other Paragons.
It is a top secret, Klaus, something we, the Bennet family, have protected with our lives for decades. It is the absolute key to understanding our enemy which was earned through immense sacrifice."
"Have you ever read the archive?" Klaus asked William, his voice quiet, his mind racing with the immense implications of such knowledge.
An archive of alien secrets, penned by the first human EX-ranker, a man who had sacrificed his sanity for humanity’s future.
"Yes, Klaus, I have," William replied, a grim expression on his face.
"But I understood only parts of it, only a mere fraction of its true content. It is written in a very cryptic language.
Although the script he write was English, the words he wrote were a complex puzzle, encoded with layers of personal experience, alien concepts he glimpsed, and fragmented, often terrifying, visions.
He wrote things in a poetic and cryptic way.
After his death, we genuinely thought that his mental health had simply deteriorated entirely in his final days, showing him meaningless hallucinations."
"But as we tirelessly proceeded with decrypting some of his messages, piecing together fragments of his later entries, we came to know about so many shocking secrets.
The full extent of the Watchers’ plans, their true vulnerabilities, and the terrifying scale of their operations in the universe became slowly apparent to us.
It was a horrifying, yet invaluable trove of information.
"So, how much of the book has been truly decrypted, Grandpa?" Klaus asked, his voice low, his focus entirely on the immense scale of the undertaking. He understood the monumental effort involved in deciphering such a complex, encrypted document.
"I believe only about 5%," William said, his tone grim.
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auth note - the 1st Chapter [prologue] has been updated again as i have added an action packed sneak peak to the future you can check it out again.