The silence Kaelen left in his wake was a physical entity, a thick, suffocating blanket that smothered all sound in the gallery. For a long moment that stretched into an eternity, the thirty or so remaining guests stood as frozen statues, their minds struggling to process the impossible event they had just witnessed. Their world, a comfortable, predictable place governed by the laws of physics and the subtle hierarchies of wealth, had just been violently upended.
On the raised platform, Dante Valerius lay in a crumpled, unconscious heap, his expensive suit rumpled, his face slack. He was a broken toy, a symbol of absolute power that had been effortlessly, almost contemptuously, dismantled. The twelve formidable members of the martial arts club, who had been ready to tear Kaelen apart, now stood huddled together, their faces pale with a primal fear that had completely eclipsed their earlier rage. They were fighters. They understood violence, strength, and technique. What they had just seen was none of those things. It was something else, something ancient and incomprehensible, and it terrified them to their very cores.
It was Marcus Valerius, the patriarch, who was the first to break the spell. The cold, horrified shock on his face was slowly being replaced by something far more dangerous: a glacial, calculating fury. The public humiliation of his son, the heir to the Valerius name, in his own home, in front of his peers and rivals, was a catastrophic loss of face. But it was the nature of the defeat that chilled him to the bone. This was not a simple loss; it was a statement of overwhelming, terrifying power.
He rose from his chair, his movements stiff. His voice, when he finally spoke, was not loud, but it cut through the silence like a shard of ice.
"The demonstration is over," he announced, his gaze sweeping across the room, locking eyes with every single guest. "The evening has come to an end. You will all leave now."
There was no room for argument in his tone. It was a command, an edict from the lord of the manor. The mortal guests, the wealthy scions and their partners, needed no further encouragement. They began to move, a quiet, shuffling exodus, their minds still reeling. They avoided looking at Dante's unconscious form, they avoided looking at the pale-faced martial artists, and most of all, they avoided looking at Marcus Valerius. They wanted nothing more than to escape this place, to return to their world of predictable rules and forget the impossible thing they had just seen.
As the mortals fled, Marcus's gaze settled on the small group of the Hermetic Circle. He saw them not as students or academics, but as witnesses, loose ends in a situation that demanded absolute control. His eyes met Isolde Thorne's.
Isolde, who had regained her professional composure, gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod. She understood the unspoken command. "A fascinating evening, Mr. Valerius," she said, her voice calm and level, cutting through the tension. "Thank you for your hospitality." She turned to the still-stunned members of her circle. "It is late. We should be going." She moved with a quiet, efficient authority, gathering her flock and herding them towards the exit, extricating them from the volatile situation before it could escalate further.
Soon, only the Valerius family, their household staff, and the humiliated fighters remained.
"Get him off the stage," Marcus snarled, gesturing at his unconscious son. "Take him to his room. And find Doctor Evans. I want a full medical workup. Now."
Two household guards hurried forward, their movements clumsy with fear, and lifted Dante's limp form, carrying him away like a sack of grain.
Marcus then turned his cold, furious gaze upon the captain of the martial arts club. "Leo," he said, his voice dangerously quiet. "You and your champions have disgraced yourselves and my family name. You were twelve. He was one. Explain."
Leo, the hulking student, looked down at the floor, his face a mask of shame and confusion. "Sir… Mr. Valerius… I don't know how. He didn't fight. He just… moved. It was like trying to punch smoke. He… he talked to us, and… we just… fell apart." He couldn't articulate it properly. He couldn't explain how Kaelen had dismantled them not with his fists, but with his words and his impossible, ghostly movements.
Marcus stared at him, his lip curling with contempt. "Useless," he hissed. "Get out of my sight. All of you."
The athletes scurried away, their earlier arrogance completely gone, replaced by the shame of their utter, incomprehensible defeat.
The gallery was finally empty, save for Marcus and a few of his most trusted, senior household guards—men who were also members of his minor cultivation family. The silence returned, heavier and more menacing than before.
"Find Elias," Marcus commanded, his voice a low growl. "He was supposed to be monitoring the situation. Where is he?"
It took them nearly an hour. They found him not in the mansion, but in a grimy back alley across town, where Kaelen had left him. He had been discovered by a pair of city sanitation workers who had called for an ambulance. When the Valerius retrieval team arrived at the hospital, they found a broken man. Both of Elias's knees had been shattered beyond repair. His career as a cultivator, such as it was, was over. But it was his mind that was truly broken. He was babbling incoherently, his eyes wide with a terror that had nothing to do with his physical injuries. He spoke of a gaze that could read his soul, of a pressure that felt like a mountain, of an enemy who was not a man, but a demon wearing human skin.
Later that night, in the patriarch's private study—a dark, wood-paneled room that smelled of old leather and fear—Marcus Valerius held his own council of war. He sat behind his massive desk, his face carved from stone. Before him stood the few remaining cultivators in his service, their expressions grim. A patched-up Elias, now confined to a wheelchair, recounted his tale of the ambush in the alley, his voice trembling. Others reported on the earlier confrontation in the campus quad, describing how Kaelen had systematically humiliated the martial arts club.
They pieced together the timeline, and a horrifying picture began to emerge.
In the span of a single day, this unknown entity, Kaelen Vance, had emerged from absolute obscurity. He had psychologically broken two hardened thugs. He had found a priceless, unknown spiritual artifact at a common flea market. He had effortlessly evaded Elias, a trained tracker. He had humiliated a dozen trained martial artists without throwing a punch. And he had defeated the heir of the family, a man trained in their most advanced techniques, with a single, gentle touch.
"His power is not of the Qi Sensing realm," one of the advisors, an old man with a wispy grey beard, concluded, his voice heavy. "The techniques you describe—the mental pressure, the instant disabling of a trained fighter—it sounds more like the abilities of a master in the Foundation Establishment realm."
Marcus slammed his fist on the desk, the sound making the others flinch. "Impossible! There are no Foundation Establishment masters in this city! I would know! And even if there were, why would one concern himself with a pathetic university student's life? Why would he be haggling at a flea market?"
"Perhaps… perhaps he is not a local master," Elias whispered from his wheelchair, his eyes still wide with remembered terror. "Perhaps he is a young master from a more powerful family, hiding his identity, playing a game with us."
"A game?" Marcus scoffed. "This is not a game. This is a declaration of war. He has taken something that belongs to us. He has broken my enforcer. He has publicly humiliated my son and heir in my own home. This is an attack on the honor of the entire Valerius name."
He stood up and began to pace before the massive fireplace, the flames casting dancing, monstrous shadows on the walls. He was trapped. This Kaelen was a ghost, an enigma. His motives were unknown, his true power level a terrifying mystery. A direct assault was now out of the question. The ease with which Kaelen had dispatched Elias and Dante proved that their local resources were hopelessly outmatched. But to do nothing, to allow this insult to stand, was unthinkable. It would be a sign of weakness that their rivals in the city would pounce on in an instant.
He was a king who had discovered a dragon sleeping in his backyard. He could not fight it. He could not ignore it.
His pacing stopped. A grim, hard light entered his eyes. There was only one option left. It was an option he despised, an option that would cost him dearly in both pride and resources, but it was the only path forward.
He walked back to his desk and touched a hidden panel. A secure, encrypted communication line, one he had not used in over a decade, whirred to life. It was a direct, private link to a place far away, a place of true power.
He took a deep breath, swallowing the bitter pill of his own inadequacy. He pressed the activation key.
The line connected almost instantly. A cold, imperious voice, a voice that held the weight of true authority, spoke from the device. "Marcus. This is an unscheduled call. It had better be a matter of life and death. The Main House does not have time for the trivial squabbles of its branch families."
Marcus Valerius, the proud patriarch, the feared master of his city's underworld, bowed his head respectfully to the empty speaker. His voice, when he spoke, was no longer that of a king, but of a humble, subservient vassal.
"My apologies, honored Elder," he said, his voice laced with a deference that bordered on fear. "I would not trouble you if the matter were not of the utmost gravity. We have… encountered a problem. An entity of unknown origin and immense power has appeared in our city."
He proceeded to recount the events of the past two days, his voice low and urgent. He described the impossible defeat of his son, the breaking of Elias, the unnerving calm and terrifying eyes of the young man known as Kaelen.
There was a long silence on the other end of the line. The Elder was processing the information.
"A single touch," the cold voice finally said, a note of genuine, academic curiosity now tinging its usual arrogance. "You say he defeated your heir with a single touch to the forehead, and his energy simply… dissipated?"
"Yes, honored Elder," Marcus confirmed.
Another pause. "And he is young? He appears to be no more than a university student?"
"That is correct."
"Fascinating," the voice murmured. "This is not a technique of any family I know. It is either a forgotten, ancient art, or something new entirely. And he possesses a spiritual artifact of unknown origin." The Elder went silent for another moment, clearly deep in thought. Marcus waited, his heart pounding, his fate hanging in the balance.
"Very well, Marcus," the voice finally declared, its tone shifting back to one of cold, decisive command. "You were right to call. Your branch is clearly incompetent to handle this matter. You have failed." The words were a sharp, painful sting. "I will dispatch someone to clean up your mess. An Elder of the clan will arrive in your city within forty-eight hours. He will take command of the situation. You will provide him with all your resources and offer him your absolute, unquestioning obedience. Do you understand?"
"Yes, honored Elder," Marcus said, bowing his head even lower, a wave of profound relief washing over him, so potent it almost made him dizzy. Help was coming. True power was coming.
"The Elder who is coming is Ivan Valerius," the voice on the line continued. "You will know him when you see him. He is... thorough. He will retrieve the artifact, and he will erase this 'Kaelen Vance' from existence." The voice held a chilling finality. "And Marcus," the Elder added, his tone a soft, silk-covered threat, "for the sake of your branch's continued existence, I suggest you do nothing to displease Elder Ivan."
The line went dead.
Marcus leaned back in his chair, his body trembling slightly, a mixture of relief and a new, cold dread settling in his heart. The local problem was solved. A true master, an expert from the Main House, an executioner in the Energy Shaping realm, was on his way. Kaelen Vance was a dead man walking.
But a dragon had been summoned to deal with a wolf, and Marcus knew, with a sinking feeling, that when a dragon descends, it often burns the entire forest to the ground just to be certain.