Vile Evil Hides Under The Veil

Rufus was stunned when he saw the condition of the flying vehicle as it was approaching the Arena.

It had caught fire and released a dense amount of smoke that covered its entire appearance. The mana pulse it was releasing made it abundantly clear that it was going to blow up.

"Who the f…"

Rufus and the panel of Grandmaster rankers were about to make their move when an overwhelming presence shrouded their psyche. They stopped in their tracks and looked at each other before dropping to their knees in unison.

"Let me handle it."

A simple command. A serene voice that was neither too dominant nor too servile.

Everyone in the immediate vicinity froze in their positions. They stopped what they were doing and looked up. A single man appeared in the sky and intercepted the flying vehicle's projected trajectory.

He raised his hand and it seemed like everything had come to a standstill.

'A Sage!'

The people in the surrounding area shared a collective thought and felt the need to venerate this man.

***

Hansen Lehan.

This man looked to be in his early 20s– exuding nothing but a youthful vibe. He had jet-black hair and sharp but attractive facial features. His snow-like skin had a pinkish hue as if he was a newborn.

This man looked at ease in his surroundings. He had a frail-looking body and a lack of manly features on his face as if he was only a juvenile. But nobody in their right mind would mistake a Sage for a young brat.

Hansen Lehan wore a traditional Hanfu ensemble. An azure black long overcoat over his all-white clothes. He had his waist-length hair tied in a knot before letting it loose over his back. He carried a long spear behind his back that made him look like a warrior.

Hansen Lehan had a carefree air around him as if he knew there was nobody here to challenge his authority. Even Edinburgh royalty would speak to him with utter respect and try to fulfill his every demand.

When Hansen raised his hand in front of him, the vehicle's speed was cut off on its own. The moving object seemingly defied all the classical laws of physics and came to a halt abruptly.

For a while, nobody talked. A deafening silence engulfed the surrounding area, causing everyone to hear their heartbeats.

When Eren looked around, the participants as well as the rankers in the crowd started kneeling. They were all paying their respects to Hansen Lehan - someone with Sage rank that was considered the pinnacle of existence in the land of Anfang.

'Respect is one of the greatest expressions of fear.'

Eren thought to himself and smiled as he looked at everyone around him. He sighed before joining them by taking a knee. The butcher didn't want to stand out any further than he already had. At least not in front of a Sage.

As much as Eren had heard about the Demon Princess from Alephee, those entities were not part of his current reality. His current reality demanded that he respect a Sage.

"It's fine. It's safe for you to come out."

Hansen Lehan said casually before snapping his fingers. All of a sudden, the fire was put out and smoke stopped being produced. The haywire elemental runes over the flying vessel dissolved on their own. A platform made of the altered space fabric itself was created which Marla and Almera could use to step out of the vehicle.

It took a while for Marla and Almera to understand what had happened. Even with Hansen's gentle voice, the two felt like they had done something horribly wrong. They both came out of the flying vehicle at the same time and took a bow.

"I... I apologize for this accident, Sage Hansen. I didn't mean to… it was…"

Hansen ignored what Marla and Almera were trying to say to him. He snapped his fingers, and the flying vehicle vanished into thin air. In the next moment, Marla and Alemra found themselves standing in the audience zone of the arena. Their positions were changed in the blink of an eye.

Eren saw someone standing next to him while he was kneeling. He looked up to see Hansen had appeared in front of him.

"Brat… it was you, wasn't it?"

Eren knew what Hansen was talking about. So he nodded quickly before presenting his apology.

"I apologize, Sage Hansen."

Hansen narrowed his eyes at Eren and inspected him from head to toe. Eren's response to his presence was not how Hansen expected it to be. He could tell that the butcher respected his rank but he wasn't afraid of him.

Hansen didn't fail to notice Eren's Blink right before the flying vehicle's arrival. The butcher might have caught Rufus and other rankers on the panel off guard. But a Sage couldn't be fooled by neat tricks alone.

'Strange! So very strange… this boy. With the way, he executed that blink... I would have thought he was a space element ranker. But he is not.'

Hansen didn't make use of his mana sense to inspect Eren. The Sage felt that he shouldn't affect a participant's psyche and their performance by proxy by subjecting them to his mana sense.

Hansen couldn't help but develop a bit of curiosity about Eren for a few moments. But then he discarded it because it was not his first time seeing a talented ranker rise from the masses. He had seen many exceptional talents with a varied range of expertise rise to fame before dying in the darkness of mediocrity later down the line.

Only a few of them achieved the Grandmaster rank. And even the Grandmaster rank became the final cut-off for these so-called geniuses.

Still, Hansen felt like the boy in front of him had some redeeming qualities about him. It reminded him of his youth. So he smiled lightly before speaking to Eren.

"Good.

Footprints in the sands of time can't be left while sitting down or using someone's back for a piggyback ride. I hope you remember this, young man."

Hansen said before he disappeared from view. He appeared on the platform in the next moment and replaced Rufus right away.

"I'll take it from here."

The Sage declared.

===

AN: Hansen Lehan was first mentioned in chapter 995.