Chapter 194 :The world did not end loudly.There was no final scream from the sky, no global blackout, no instant understanding that something ancient had slipped through humanity’s fingers again. Instead, the world did what it always did best.It kept going.Traffic lights flickered back into rhythm. News anchors adjusted their ties and talked about seismic irregularities, unexplained volcanic pressure releases, and “localized atmospheric disturbances.” Scientists argued on panels. Governments issued statements that said everything and nothing at the same time.Life continued.Which was exactly why the shadow survived.Far from the ravine where Billy, Tyla, and Owen moved carefully through unfamiliar terrain, something thin and wrong drifted through the cracks between places. It didn’t bleed. It didn’t breathe. It didn’t exist the way things were supposed to.It persisted.The shadow had learned something in the collapse.It had learned that force drew resistance.And resistance hur

Chapter 196 :Billy woke up with the taste of copper in his mouth.Not blood. Not pain. Just that sharp, electric bitterness that came when the relic decided to remind him it was still there. Still watching. Still awake.He sat up slowly, careful not to trigger the dull pressure behind his eyes. The sky above them was a washed-out gray, dawn barely convincing the clouds to move. The city below looked calm from this distance — lights fading, traffic resuming, people stepping back into routines like nothing had cracked open beneath their feet.That illusion made his stomach twist.Tyla noticed him stir and straightened immediately. “You okay?”He nodded, then hesitated. “Define okay.”She didn’t push. She just handed him a cup of something warm and waited until he wrapped his fingers around it.Owen stood a few meters away, phone pressed to his ear, voice low and clipped — the tone he used when he was filtering truth from noise. When he hung up, his face was tight.“They’re already spin

Chapter 198 :Owen didn’t find the clue in a blaze of insight.It came the way most real answers did — slow, stubborn, and buried under things everyone else had stopped looking at.The others were asleep when it clicked.Billy was down the hall, stretched out on a narrow mattress he didn’t actually need anymore. Tyla was curled on the couch with her jacket pulled up around her shoulders, pretending exhaustion was the same thing as rest. The building they’d holed up in creaked softly as the wind pressed against its broken windows.Owen sat alone at the table, coffee long gone cold, eyes burning as he scrolled through layered data feeds.News reports. Classified briefings. Old Luoshen archives scraped from half-corrupted servers. Police seizure logs that never made it to public record.He wasn’t chasing relics.He was chasing patterns.And patterns didn’t lie — people did.He froze.There it was again.A location code that kept appearing where it didn’t belong. Not tied to star-points.

Chapter 200 :The first sign wasn’t dramatic.No thunder. No alarms screaming across continents.It was a flicker.Deep beneath the surface of the world—far from the forge, far from Billy and the others—something that had survived collapse, severance, and near-erasure twitched.The Curator’s shadow had learned patience.It had learned how to wait.---Billy felt it before anyone else.They hadn’t gone far from the forge site yet. Dawn was just beginning to bleed into the sky, turning the horizon pale and uncertain. The world looked deceptively normal again—stone, dust, wind, gravity behaving the way it was supposed to.Too normal.Billy stopped walking.Tyla noticed immediately. She always did now. “What?”He pressed a hand to his chest. The relic was quiet—but not empty. Not gone. It felt like standing in a room after someone had left, knowing they hadn’t gone far.“It’s not over,” Billy said.Owen exhaled slowly. “That wasn’t the plan.”“No,” Billy replied. “That was hope.”They sto