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In his master bedroom, where the CEO usually finds rest, Aryan is hard at work on projects assigned by Daniel. Tonight, he focuses on launching a new line of affordable prosthetics and smartphones featuring cutting-edge technology.

However, Aryan\'s concentration is fractured by a myriad of concerns weighing on his mind. Recent events, including the conflict with Tessia Kingdom and the outbreak of a bio-weapon from an underground lab, as reported by UN personnel, have left him uneasy.

During the chaos, Aryan observed unsettling phenomena and found himself among evacuees escorted to shelters by soldiers clad in formidable battle armor. Later, he discovered that these soldiers were mercenaries from his boss\'s private military company.

The Director of his boss\'s PMC, Penthesilea, and her Vice Director, Odysseus, met with him to discuss cooperation due to essential resource shortages such as food and daily necessities that needed to be imported from elsewhere because of the massive influx of refugees from the Tessia Kingdom.

Currently, the security of Sector Alpha City was fully managed by the PMC, along with traditional authorities like the fire department and police, who were integrating into the company\'s employee system. Frankly, he believed that in terms of authority, the PMC seemed to hold more sway than the traditional establishments.

However, as the CEO of Astral Tech, his position afforded him the opportunity to witness many peculiar occurrences that cast doubt on the UN staff\'s claims that the demon-like creatures were products of science.

During his time working under his boss, he had a chance to talk with Don Veneciale and even went out to eat with him and some of his confidantes. During that time, Don Veneciale seemed intoxicated enough to speak unfiltered. He once mentioned that in this world, there existed hidden realms where magic and creatures from myth and nightmare, such as vampires, ghosts, and demons, were real.

Initially, Aryan dismissed it as drunken ramblings. But after the war and witnessing numerous strange phenomena, along with the grotesque corpses of demonic beings washing ashore, his skepticism waned. The swift intervention of UN personnel to collect the bodies and evacuate the area further fueled his doubts.

All of this led him to consider the possibility that magic might indeed be real. He found himself leaning towards believing that Don Veneciale\'s drunken babble held some truth about the hidden realities of the world.

At that moment, a strange light emanated from the west, the same direction as his panoramic window. The yellow glow intensified as it approached, causing his laptop to abruptly shut down, as if power had vanished into thin air.

"Is that... magic?" Aryan uttered, before the light enveloped him and the entire city.

Aryan braced himself for the anticipated pain, expecting the searing burn of whatever strange force enveloped him. But instead of agony, he felt an intense pressure building in his head, threatening to split it open. The pain was unbearable, and he longed for relief from the torment.

"Grrrr…" He groaned in agony, clutching his head as though trying to contain the onslaught of pain. Strange memories began to flood his mind, memories that were clearly not his own. He instinctively rejected them, recognizing them as foreign intrusions.

But his attempts to push the memories away only exacerbated the pain, intensifying it to an unbearable level. As he struggled against the invading memories, his own recollections began to fade, slipping through his grasp like sand through his fingers. Yet, he fought to hold onto them, clinging desperately to the fragments of his own identity amidst the turmoil.

The pain dredged up memories he had long tried to bury, memories of his childhood in the ancestral home in India. He remembered the poverty and hardship he and his mother endured, scraping together meager meals and enduring the callous indifference of his noble father, who viewed them as beneath him.

Domestic violence was a constant presence in their lives, inflicted upon them by his father\'s cruel hands. How they survived those harrowing days without succumbing to madness or perishing under his father\'s abuse was a testament to their resilience and inner strength.

As luck would have it, Aryan\'s business acumen shone brightly, contrasting starkly with the wastrel behavior of his father\'s four sons that were born from the so-called legal wife, who squandered their wealth on indulgent lifestyles.

During this time, Aryan got the appreciation from the patriarch of the Sharma family, his so-called grandfather, who had sponsored his education at Cambridge University. In return for this opportunity, Aryan worked tirelessly for the Sharma family, navigating through numerous failed business ventures caused by his four wayward cousins.

Despite the attempts of foreign memories to take root in his mind, Aryan remained steadfast. He had endured too much hardship to allow anything to alter his identity. Aryan was inherently stubborn, a trait that had served him well in the past. The only reason he had broken during Don Veneciale\'s interrogation was his lack of loyalty to Benjamin Prescott.

But this time was different. He sensed that his memories were integral to his sense of self, and he was determined to protect them, regardless of their nature.

"Arrgggggghhh Get the fuck out of my head!" Aryan shouted with all his might, willing the intrusive memories to retreat.

In that moment, he felt a surge of energy coursing through his body, starting from his brain and flowing down to his heart and throughout his entire being. The excruciating agony ceased abruptly, replaced by a sense of clarity and renewal. Blue energy emanated from his body, dispelling the yellow light that had enveloped him moments before.

With purposeful strides, Aryan made his way to the window and looked down at the street below. People stood frozen in their tracks, as if time itself had come to a halt, yet Aryan remained unaffected, able to move freely in the frozen scene.

Realizing the gravity of the situation, Aryan dashed out of his room, determined to find someone amidst the eerie stillness that gripped the hallway and elevator hall. Every person he encountered was frozen in place, mirroring the surreal scene unfolding on the streets below.

As Aryan navigated through the frozen hallway, his attention was drawn to a strikingly beautiful woman dressed in an alluring outfit, seemingly on her way to a night party with her equally attractive boyfriend, who stood frozen beside her. Both exuded an air of allure, with the boyfriend possessing an unnaturally handsome appearance reminiscent of Korean celebrity boy bands.

"Tch…" Aryan clicked his tongue in annoyance at the sight of the lovey-dovey couple.

Suddenly, an intrusive thought invaded his mind, recalling a leisurely moment spent browsing through "men\'s cultural" websites. The memory of a particular style of cultural manhwa with a tagline of "Time stop" surfaced in his consciousness.

Isn\'t this the same situation as those manhwa!? A strange, mischievous smile spread across Aryan\'s face as he approached the side of the boyfriend, poking his cheek with his finger.

poke poke…

There was no response, no retaliation in the form of a fist aimed at his face. "This plastic surgery face is really good; it has the same texture as the real thing," Aryan mused to himself, amused by the lifelike touch of the frozen plastic surgery face guy.

Seeing this, Aryan giggled as if he had been given a jolt of energy. He quickly retrieved his pen and began to draw on the man\'s face, adding a "men\'s jewel" picture near the man\'s mouth and some cut-like drawings here and there, finishing it off with the words "Plastic Man."

"Hahahahahaha!" Aryan laughed to himself before heading toward the elevator. However, he suddenly stopped, as if remembering something important.

Turning toward the frozen, beautiful woman in the tempting outfit, Aryan hesitated, pacing back and forth. He didn\'t want to be the kind of person who would take advantage of a woman in a situation like this, reminiscent of the peculiar manhwa with a tag of "Time Stop." He wasn\'t a degenerate.

…Okay, maybe he was a little bit degenerate, but he wasn\'t that bad. [But maybe… just a touch. A small touch wouldn\'t hurt.] Aryan thought, his gaze lingering on the woman\'s chest.

Moving closer, his heart rate intensified as his hand inched toward its target.

DING!!

"Arrrrg! It\'s not me! It\'s not what you think, officer!" Aryan screamed in alarm, hastily retreating at the sound of the elevator.

The doors opened, revealing an African descent skinhead man stepping out, eyeing Aryan with a puzzled expression.

"What the hell are you talking about…" the man began, but then he noticed the couple and the man\'s face covered in drawings. He also observed the woman, her beauty undeniable.

"Ooohhh hohohoooo, you degenerate. You want to do those things from those degenerate manhwa with the Time Stop tag? Ohhh buoyyyy." The man said with a knowing, mischievous smile as he approached the CEO.

The man was none other than Viper, the mage hunter, who had arrived on a job from The Hightower.

"So, you\'re one of the natural awakened mages? Can you come with me, Mr. CEO?" asked Viper.