A Father-Son Showdown

Different people pursued different things.

Hawkins, for one, had largely stopped pursuing power. Instead, he looked forward to watching the players grow.

He would grow stronger as the players did, without needing to train. If a player ever achieved Transcendence, Hawkins would transcend along with them.

So he spent most of his time either doing whatever interested him in Infinite City or keeping an eye on players with potential.

After bringing Mani back to Infinite City, he suddenly felt something stir and smiled.

"Finally found him?"

He led Mani into the house and left her with his parents, then returned to his study alone.

Several fugitives from Infinite City had committed heinous crimes, so Hawkins had issued warrants for their arrest. They had been wanted ever since.

He could find and kill them whenever he wished, but he had no intention of doing so. Sometimes death was not the greatest punishment a person could face. It was a mercy.

They spent their days hiding and fleeing across the Dream Realm, never knowing a moment's peace. Wasn't that worse than death?

Now, though, a player had found one of the fugitives and intended to bring him back to Infinite City for trial.

Ordinarily, that would have been unremarkable. But the player who had found the fugitive was his son. That made things interesting enough to catch Hawkins's attention.

Over the storm-tossed Gourd Sea, two black specks raced through flashes of lightning.

Suddenly, countless enormous pillars of golden light descended in front of the speck in the lead. It changed direction at once and continued fleeing along the pillars.

"Kent, you have nowhere left to run! Surrender now, or you'll face a harsher sentence!" Tom roared.

His eyes stayed fixed on the fleeing fugitive, sparks of fire flaring in them now