Kai read Shen Tian's message a second time. “Come alone.” Then the one beneath it. “I know who Darius Veyne is.”His fingers tightened on the phone."What did he say?" Aria asked, watching him too closely.He locked the screen. "Nothing important.""You've been saying that a lot lately.""Aria, go home.""No.""Please.""Not after what happened." She crossed her arms like that settled it."You're exhausted. You should rest.""So should you, and yet here we are.""That's different.""Is it? Or do you just like being the only one who gets to be reckless?"Kai opened his mouth, then closed it, because she wasn't entirely wrong and he hated when that happened. "Fine," he said instead. "But stay somewhere safe. Somewhere with people. Somewhere with cameras.""Look at you," she said, "trying so hard to sound like you don't care.""I'm doing what anyone would do.""Sure you are." She smiled like she'd caught him in something. "You gave Iron Palm to rope, Kai. Anyone doesn't do that.""The ro

Kai didn't sleep. Shen Tian's message sat open on his phone, glowing accusingly in the dark.“Darius isn't the real one behind this. He's only preparing the way for someone else.”He sat by the window, watching the city sleep like it had no idea how close everything had come to unraveling. He'd reached Spirit Transformation Realm, Initial Stage, real power, finally, and somehow that made him feel less safe, not more. Every breakthrough handed him a new enemy. Every answer birthed three more questions. And now Aria was tangled up in some ancient cultivation bloodline neither of them understood.She was asleep on his couch, having flatly refused to go home after everything that happened. Kai hadn't argued. He didn't trust the government, didn't trust Darius, didn't trust Lucian, and lately even Shen Tian's words carried a weight that made his skin itch.“Especially me,” Shen Tian had said once, like it meant something."What are you hiding," Kai murmured to the empty room, and got no an

The city went dark. For several seconds, Kai didn't move, every light beyond the window had died at once, traffic signals, street lamps, billboards, all of it. But it wasn't the darkness that frightened him. It was the red warning still burning across his Clone Mask.GLOBAL QI DETECTION NETWORK — LOCK ACQUIRED.He pulled the mask off. "That's impossible."Aria looked toward the window. "What happened?""They found me." He activated the mask again, jaw tight. "Not Kai Ashford. They found the Last Cultivator. One of those names is supposed to be an ordinary investigation worker. The other is supposed to be a threat to the entire world." A siren rose in the distance. Then another. Then dozens. "They're moving."Miles away, inside the Human Defense Agency's command center, Director Evelyn Ashford watched a red circle pulse over a tactical map crowded with light. "Director, the network's confirmed the signature," an officer said."How accurate?""Seventy-eight percent. The target's using s

Kai carried Aria through the ruined tunnel, glancing back every few steps. Nothing followed. That should have reassured him. It didn't, the God-Slaying Machine had been too powerful to be the government's only answer, and somewhere above them soldiers were already searching. Worse, a phrase kept circling in his head: *Subject M-00 has awakened.* He didn't know what it meant. Evelyn Ashford clearly did, and that alone made it dangerous.Aria stirred against his shoulder. "Kai…""I'm here.""Put me down.""You can walk?""Probably."He set her down carefully. She swayed and caught the wall, her face pale. Kai studied her palm, the strange mark had vanished, but he could still feel a faint presence humming beneath her skin."Does it hurt?""No.""Do you remember anything?""Pieces." She shook her head slowly. "Not my parents. A boy.""Do you remember him?""Not his face." She touched her temple. "Just his voice.""What did he say?"She closed her eyes. "'I'll come back.' That's all."Kai

The city had forgotten. That was the strange part. By morning, the roads were full again, drivers leaning on horns like nothing had happened. Shops opened their shutters. Students hurried toward school arguing about homework instead of monsters. The news blamed the blackout on a "technical failure" and moved on to the weather. Nobody knew that beneath the city, the Human Defense Agency had lost one of its most powerful weapons. Nobody knew the Last Cultivator had survived. And nobody knew that Kai Ashford had broken through to the Spirit Transformation Realm — Advanced Stage. Kai sat at his desk inside the investigation agency, laptop open, a case file glowing on the screen he hadn't actually read in ten minutes. His manager stood behind him, arms crossed, patience visibly running out. "You've been staring at that report for ten minutes and you haven't scrolled once," his manager said. "Either you're memorizing it or you've left your body somewhere." Kai blinked himself back