Talent Awakening: Draconic Overlord Of The Apocalypse

Chapter 484: • Leashes And Limitations

The bald man grinned wider, stepping closer with heavy footsteps. “We’ve been dying to give a Union dog a taste of his own medicine. You think you’re better than us? Sitting behind your desks, handing down sentences like you’re gods.”

The wiry one spat near Claus’s boot. “Now you’re here with us, pretty boy. No badge. No armor. Just another sack of meat in a cage.”

Claus sighed and leaned back against the cold stone wall, gazing at them with the tired disinterest of a man who’s already done the math on their threat level—and found it irrelevant.

“You know, it’s fascinating. The human brain, when faced with institutional confinement, tends to latch onto primitive coping mechanisms. Posturing. Threat projection. Displays of pseudo-dominance. You call it toughness—it’s textbook displaced aggression.”

He tilted his head, eyes narrowing with clinical detachment, the same eyes a scientist would give a test subject.

“See, you believe harming me would reassert your sense of control. A classic case of carceral inferiority complex. But what you fail to understand—what you consistently fail to understand—is that your reasoning process is an ouroboros. A self-consuming loop of idiocy.”

The bald man blinked. “What the hell did you just say?”

Claus smiled thinly. “Exactly. That cognitive paralysis right there? That’s why you’re in here. Not because society failed you. Not because the Union’s corrupt. You’re here because your intellectual ceiling hovers somewhere between ‘blunt instrument’ and ‘rotting fruit.’”

He smiled a bit smugly as he finally said, “How unfortunate truly.”

The wiry man snarled and lunged, his fist swinging toward Claus’s face with the clumsy force of someone used to brawling in tight spaces.

Claus didn’t flinch. His body moved swiftly despite the mana-dampening cuffs around his hands in addition to the mana dampening ward. He sidestepped, letting the man’s momentum carry him forward, then drove his elbow into the attacker’s ribs with a sharp crack, braking a couple ribs.

The wiry man gasped, stumbling into the steel sink, clutching his side.

The bald man roared, charging like a bull, his massive fist aimed at Claus’s skull. Claus ducked under the swing, his mutated left hand twitching as he grabbed the man’s wrist and twisted, using the bald man’s own weight to send him crashing into the cot. The metal frame screeched against the floor, buckling under the impact.

The hulking third cellmate hesitated, his raised fist wavering as he watched his companions groan on the floor.

Claus straightened, brushing a lock of ashen hair from his eyes, his expression as calm as if he’d just swatted a fly.

“How predictable. You rely on size and intimidation, but your technique is sloppy. No coordination, no strategy. Just… flailing.”

The bald man scrambled to his feet, his face red with rage. “You think you’re tough, huh? Those cuffs gotta be slowing you down! You’re nothin’ without your fancy Union tricks!”

Claus tilted his head, his blue eyes glinting under the flickering light. “Tricks? No. Training, yes. Reflexes honed by necessity. You assume these cuffs make me helpless because you equate power with mana. A fatal oversimplification, but an expected train of thought from minds as simple as yours.”

He flexed his mutated hand, the claw-like fingers twitching as if straining against the collar’s suppression. “This? This is just a leash. And I’ve broken leashes before.”

The wiry man, still clutching his ribs, spat blood onto the floor and glared. “You talk too much, freak. Keep running that mouth, and we’ll rip it off.”

Claus’s lips curled into a faint, almost pitying smile. “A freak? No. A freak implies mutation without purpose. I am engineered deviance—the result of layers of strategic calculations, proper choices, and brilliant desperation. You could try to rip off my mouth. But you’d need to land a hit first.”

The hulking cellmate finally moved, his massive frame lumbering forward with surprising speed.

Claus’s eyes flicked to him, calculating. The man swung a meaty fist, but Claus was already moving, slipping to the side and delivering a precise knee to the man’s gut. The giant doubled over, wheezing, and Claus brought his bound hands down on the back of the man’s neck, brought his face down to get a kick from his kneecap, dropping him to the floor with a heavy thud, his broken nose bleeding.

Silence fell over the cell, broken only by the labored breathing of the three men sprawled across the floor. Claus stepped back, his jumpsuit barely wrinkled, and leaned against the wall again, crossing his arms as best he could with the cuffs.

“Now…. are we done with the posturing? Or do you need another demonstration of why this is a waste of my time?”

The bald man, still on his knees, glared up at him, but the fight had drained from his eyes.

He muttered something under his breath, too low to hear, and crawled back to the cot. The wiry man just groaned, slumping against the sink, while the hulking one remained on the floor, clutching his stomach.

Claus exhaled, his gaze drifting to the cell’s barred window, where a sliver of Megacity I’s neon glow bled through. He’d expected resistance in a place like this—detainment facilities were breeding grounds for desperation and violence—but he hadn’t anticipated being thrown into a cell with common thugs.

Although he predicted it.

Claus’s mutated hand twitched again, the claw-like digits curling inward. He could feel the faint pulse of mana trapped beneath the cuffswards, like a caged animal pacing in his veins. The Union’s mana suppression tech was advanced, but not infallible. He’d cracked systems like this before, back when he was still a boy. If he could find a weak point in the cuffs’ crystal matrix…

The cell door’s lock clanged, snapping him out of his thoughts. The heavy durasteel slid open, revealing a guard in sleek Union armor, his face obscured by blue tinted visors. The guard’s rifle hummed with a faint mana charge, and his posture was rigid, professional.

“Claus,” the guard barked. “On your feet. You’re being transferred.”

Claus didn’t move immediately. He studied the guard, noting the slight tremor in the man’s grip on the rifle. Nervous. Interesting.

“Transferred,” Claus repeated, his voice flat. “Care to elaborate? Or is this another charming surprise from the director?”

The guard’s visor tilted slightly, as if sizing him up. “Move. Now.”

Claus sighed, pushing off the wall and stepping forward. The three cellmates watched in silence, their earlier bravado replaced by wary curiosity. As Claus passed the bald man, he leaned in slightly, his voice a low whisper.

“Next time, pick a fight you can win.”

The bald man flinched but said nothing.

The guard led Claus down the corridor, the mana wards on the walls pulsing faintly as they passed. The air grew colder the deeper they went, the sterile tang of disinfectant giving way to something sharper, almost metallic. Claus’s mind churned. A transfer this soon after detainment was unusual. Either they were moving him to a more secure facility—or someone wanted him somewhere specific.

They stopped at a reinforced door, its runes glowing a dull red. The guard swiped a keycard, and the door hissed open, revealing a small chamber. Inside stood a woman in a Union officer’s uniform, her dark hair in a tight bun, her gray eyes sharp as blades.

“Detective Claus, or should I say Doctor Claus? I see you’ve been busy.”

Claus raised an eyebrow, his bound hands resting casually in front of him. “Have I? I thought I was just enjoying the Union’s hospitality.”

The woman’s lips twitched, but it wasn’t a smile. “Sit.” She gestured to a metal chair bolted to the floor.

Claus raised an eyebrow, easing into the metal chair. “Commander, I presume? I’d offer a handshake, but…”

He lifted his bound hands, the cuffs glinting under the dim light.

“Commander Veyra,” she said, folding her arms, “And I’d like to talk to you about the conversation you had with the Union branch director.”

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