The air in the boutique had shifted.Everett stood frozen, blinking like he hadn’t just been handed the biggest embarrassment of his trust-funded life.Kai stepped closer, the silence around them so sharp it felt like glass waiting to shatter. The staff watched from behind shelves and mirrored panels. No one dared move.“I said—move.”Kai’s voice wasn’t loud. It didn’t need to be.Everett’s lips parted, then closed again, his Adam’s apple bobbing with a thick swallow. He took a shaky step back, but Kai didn’t let him off that easily.“Before you go,” Kai murmured, “let’s make something clear.”He reached into the glass case, which was now unlocked with a soft click at Clara’s command, and lifted the limited-edition chrono Everett had been mocking him for admiring. A midnight-black dial, obsidian casing, diamond-studded compass ring. One of ten in the entire world.Kai held it up with the same indifference a monarch might display a coin. “You said this cost more than my year’s rent?”E

The moment Kai stepped out of the cruiser, the air shifted.His Zhilak erupted. He closed the door calmly, his senses stretching far past the empty street.Shadows loomed from above.Three shapes. Watching him like prey.Kai’s eyes narrowed. “Khyronian,” he murmured. Astrophel? Their cloaks didn’t move in the wind. Their gold-glowing eyes didn’t blink. Their mouths were sewn shut. These weren’t beasts. They were assassins. Designed for slaughter.One moved.In a blink, it descended, a black blur against the sky.Kai didn’t flinch. Instead, Zhilak cracked outward from his body like lightning from a sealed vault. He vanished from the spot, leaving only shattered concrete behind.He reappeared in an abandoned rail yard a few miles away. It was one of the places he’d marked, a safe zone, in case someone got bold.Tonight, they had.The demons shimmered into view. They had followed his mana trail.Kai raised his hand. A glowing sigil appeared mid-air, forming a circular gate with three ri