Kaelen walked away from the Valerius estate under a sky of bruised velvet and distant, indifferent stars. He did not look back. The opulent mansion, with its simmering pot of fear, rage, and shattered pride, was already fading from his thoughts, an irrelevant footnote in a cosmic saga that only he understood. He had accomplished his objective. He had not just defeated an enemy; he had dismantled an entire family's sense of security and prestige with minimal effort, turning their fortress of arrogance into his personal theater of contempt.
He walked down the long, lamp-lit driveway, his footsteps the only sound in the cool night air. The massive wrought-iron gates, which had seemed so imposing upon his arrival, now swung open for him automatically, a silent, fearful deference from the unseen guards who watched his departure from their security monitors. They did not dare to impede him. He was no longer a guest or an intruder; he was a natural disaster that had passed, leaving behind a wake of quiet devastation.
He did not call for a car. He walked. The rhythmic, steady pace helped him center his thoughts, to purge the lingering, unpleasant residue of the evening's mortal drama. His mind was already moving on, returning to the far more important matters at hand. He had proven the existence of a Celestial Seal. He had acquired the inkstone—a key, however depleted—and now needed to find a way to replenish its power or find a true source of spiritual energy to fuel his own cultivation. The Blackstone Mountains were a beacon in his mind, a place of power that called to the dormant sovereign within him.
His [Soul Sense] was passively active, a sphere of awareness that mapped the world around him. He felt the fear radiating from the Valerius estate behind him, a chaotic, flickering mess of psychic energy. He felt the distant, endless hum of the city ahead. And he felt the single, focused, and now rapidly approaching presence.
Isolde Thorne.
He was not surprised. He had known, from the moment he walked out of the gallery, that their strange, intellectual duel was not yet over. She had allowed him to leave the estate unimpeded, giving him a wide berth, but he knew she would seek him out. She was a seeker of puzzles, and he was the most complex puzzle she had ever encountered.
He continued his unhurried walk, leaving the manicured opulence of the wealthy enclave behind and re-entering the more mundane reality of the city's outer suburbs. He headed towards the campus, a familiar and convenient terrain. He found a quiet, secluded spot near the campus gates, a small, stone bench set beneath the sprawling branches of a massive, ancient oak tree—the very same grove where she had approached him after his confrontation with the martial arts club. It was a fitting location for the next act of their play.
He sat on the bench, the cool night air a welcome sensation. He waited.
A few minutes later, she appeared, emerging from the shadows of the path. She was no longer wearing the elegant dark blue dress from the party. She had changed into a more practical, tactical outfit—dark trousers, sturdy boots, and a close-fitting, high-necked black jacket that concealed whatever equipment she was carrying. Her hair was pulled back from her face, and her expression was stripped of all social pleasantry. The enigmatic student was gone. The professional agent had taken her place.
She did not offer a greeting. She stopped directly in front of him, her posture tense, her eyes sharp and analytical.
"That was quite a show," she said, her voice low and serious, all traces of her earlier warmth gone. "You didn't just win a fight. You waged a psychological war and left an entire family in ruins. All because their idiot son picked a fight with you at a flea market."
"He was an obstacle," Kaelen replied calmly, looking up at her from the bench. "I removed him."
"You did more than that," she countered, her gaze unwavering. "You humiliated a Jailer Family in their own home. You exposed their weaknesses to their rivals. You have destabilized the entire power structure of this city's hidden community. Do you have any idea what you've done?"
"I have ended a tedious distraction," Kaelen said, his voice holding a faint note of annoyance. "Their internal politics are of no concern to me."
Isolde let out a short, sharp breath that was almost a laugh, but it held no humor. "No concern? Kaelen, you have to be the most brilliant and the most suicidally arrogant man I have ever met. You think this is over? You think Marcus Valerius, after what you did tonight, is just going to retreat and lick his wounds?"
She began to pace back and forth in front of the bench, a predator in a cage of her own making. "You have poked a hornet's nest with a stick. No, you have dropped a bomb on the hornet's nest, and now you're sitting here as if you're waiting for a bus."
She stopped pacing and turned to face him, her expression grim. "I came here to warn you. I just received intelligence from my organization. Marcus Valerius made a call less than an hour ago. A secure, encrypted call to the Valerius Main House."
Kaelen's expression remained unchanged, but a flicker of genuine interest sparked within him. This was new information. This was data he could use.
"The Main House has been placated," Isolde continued, her voice now a low, urgent whisper. "They see you as a threat to their family's honor, an anomaly that must be dealt with. They are not sending a team of enforcers, Kaelen. They are not sending assassins. They are sending an Elder."
She let the word hang in the air. Kaelen raised a single, questioning eyebrow, inviting her to continue.
"His name is Ivan Valerius," she said, her voice dropping even lower. "He is not a Qi Sensing cultivator like the pathetic guards you've encountered. He is a master of the Energy Shaping realm. He has been at that level for over fifty years. In the DAA's threat assessment database, he is classified as a Class-Three threat, capable of leveling an entire city block on his own. He is not a gangster or a fighter. He is an executioner."
Kaelen processed this information. Energy Shaping. In the vast, complex cultivation systems he knew, it was still a pathetically low level, the realm of junior disciples who were barely qualified to sweep the outer courtyards of his celestial palace. The idea of such a being being considered an "Elder" or an "executioner" was laughable. His sovereign pride instinctively dismissed the threat as insignificant.
But then, he remembered the cold, hard reality of his own situation. He was no longer a sovereign. He was a Qi Sensing cultivator, Stage 1. This body was still a fragile, mortal shell.
"He will arrive in this city within forty-eight hours," Isolde said, her eyes boring into his, trying to make him understand the gravity of the situation. "His mission will be simple: to retrieve the artifact you took, and to erase you from existence. He will not challenge you to a duel. He will not engage in psychological games. He will locate you, and he will annihilate you. You cannot fight him. You cannot reason with him. Your only option is to run."
She finished speaking, the stark warning delivered. She watched him, waiting for his reaction. She expected fear, panic, a desperate plea for help.
Kaelen remained silent for a long moment. He looked past her, his gaze seemingly fixed on the distant, glittering lights of the city. He was performing a complex, internal calculation, weighing his own limited capabilities against this new, quantifiable threat.
"Why are you telling me this?" he finally asked, his voice genuinely curious. "Why would your organization want to help me?"
Isolde hesitated, a flicker of internal conflict crossing her face. "Let's just say," she said carefully, "that my organization values… unique assets. And you, Kaelen Vance, are the most unique asset to appear in a very long time. We believe it would be a waste to see you erased by the brutish, old-world politics of the Valerius clan before we have had a chance to fully… understand you." It was a cold, pragmatic answer, the answer of an agent, not a friend. "We can offer you a way out. A safe house. Extraction from the city. In exchange for your full cooperation, of course."
Kaelen considered her offer. It was a tempting one. An alliance with a powerful, mysterious organization could provide him with the resources and protection he desperately needed. But it would also come with a leash. He would be trading one cage for another, becoming a valuable specimen in their laboratory.
He was still weighing the possibilities when the familiar, ethereal chime echoed in his mind, sharp and urgent. The blue screen of the System materialized in his vision, its light a brilliant, flashing, blood-red.
[CRITICAL WARNING: High-level hostile intent has been locked onto Host's spiritual signature.]
[Detecting source of intent... Source identified: Ivan Valerius. Cultivation Realm: Energy Shaping - Stage 2.]
[Threat analysis: Enemy combat power exceeds Host's current capabilities by a factor of 1,200. Enemy possesses multiple lethal spiritual techniques. Host's defensive capabilities are insufficient.]
Kaelen's mind went cold. The threat was no longer a future possibility. It was a present, locked-in reality. The Elder hadn't just been dispatched; he had already focused his will, his killing intent, on Kaelen from afar. He was being actively hunted, his soul marked for death across hundreds of miles.
The System's text continued to scroll, each word a nail in his coffin.
[Calculating probability of survival based on Host's current stats, known abilities, and available resources...]
[Calculating...]
[Calculation complete.]
Kaelen looked at the final, stark line of text, and for the first time since his rebirth, he felt a genuine, chilling flicker of something that was almost, but not quite, fear. It was the cold, hard mathematical certainty of his own impending doom.
The final notification was a new quest, a quest that superseded all others, a quest for his very existence.
[New Main Quest Issued: SURVIVE THE HUNT.]
He looked up from his internal screen, his golden eyes meeting Isolde's, who was still waiting for his answer. She saw the subtle shift in his expression, the sudden, absolute stillness that fell over him. She didn't know what he had just seen, but she felt a sudden, terrifying chill, as if the temperature of the night had dropped by twenty degrees.
She was about to speak again, to press him for an answer, when his phone, the cheap burner phone he had acquired, vibrated in his pocket. He pulled it out, his movements fluid and calm. It was a System notification, pushed to his mortal device. It was a single, brutal, quantifying number.
It was the result of the System's calculation. A final, damning verdict.
Probability of Survival: 0.3%