After Ethan left with Ryan leaning on his shoulder and Amy rushing to the door to help, Natasha turned to Hawkins. The old fighter was sitting on the floor with his back against the wall, one hand pressed against the wound on his shoulder, his face carrying the hollow devastation of a man whose entire identity had just been dismantled in front of him."Tell me exactly what happened." Natasha crouched beside him. Her voice was firm but not unkind. "How did he beat you?""He copied it." Hawkins's voice was hoarse. Cracked. The voice of a man still trying to convince himself that what happened was real. "Eagle Claw. My Eagle Claw. He watched me throw three strikes and he replicated the entire technique. Not an imitation. Not an approximation. The real thing. Performed at a level I couldn't reach in fifty years of training." His hand trembled against his wound. "He must have been training in secret for years. There's no other explanation."Natasha looked at him for a long moment. Then she

Richard's hand hung in the air for a moment. Then it lowered. His smile thinned by a fraction."Still stubborn." Patricia's voice cut across the room like a blade coated in sugar. "Three weeks away and you still walk into this house like a stray dog that forgot who feeds it. Show some respect to your father, Ethan. He's giving you a chance most ungrateful wretches like you don't deserve.""Respect is earned." Ethan looked at Richard. "And nothing in this room has earned mine. You're not an elder worth addressing as one. You're a man who stole from his own son while he was drugged and unconscious, and calling yourself a father doesn't change what you are."The silence that followed was thick enough to chew.Patricia's face went from contempt to fury so fast it looked like a mask being ripped off. Richard's jaw worked in slow, grinding circles. His eyes flicked to the largest bodyguard standing by the window, a burly man with a neck like a tree trunk and fists the size of small hams."T

Brandon let the silence breathe for exactly three seconds before delivering the pitch. He had rehearsed this.Ethan could see it in the way Brandon's weight shifted forward at precisely the right moment, the way his voice dropped half a register into something warm and conspiratorial, the way his hands opened as if he were offering a gift instead of setting a trap."It's simple, really. We want you to arrange a meeting between Father and Serena Clarke." Brandon tilted his head with a smile that could have sold ice to a snowman. "The Morrison family is interested in the Ashford cooperation deal. Your wife has connections. You're her husband. You have the leverage to make this happen. One meeting, Ethan. That's all we're asking.""One meeting." Ethan rubbed his chin. His brow furrowed with the concentrated effort of a man weighing a decision that required deep moral consideration. In reality, his mind was already three steps ahead and enjoying the view. "And what's in it for me?""Five

Neither of them knew that Ethan had fought Hawkins that very morning, copied his Eagle Claw technique in three observations, and slashed his shoulder down to the bone.Across town, Ethan needed a workspace. He had ten sets of rare medicinal herbs, a list of elixir formulas the Spirit had been dictating from memory, and exactly zero facilities in the Clarke estate where he could work without being watched, questioned, or reported to Catherine's network of household spies.He called Vivienne."I need a favor. Can I borrow a room at your villa? I need somewhere private to work on some medicine.""Of course." Vivienne's voice was warm through the phone. Immediate. No hesitation. "Come whenever you want. The guest wing is empty."The Ashford villa was quiet when Ethan arrived. Rachel met him at the gate with a nod that was almost friendly and led him through the marble foyer to the lounge where Vivienne was waiting.She was lounging on a white leather sofa in a black spaghetti strap outfit

Vivienne did not need to be told twice. She picked up a single yellow pill, crossed her legs on the living room floor, closed her eyes, and swallowed it.The effect was immediate. The air around her body thickened. A pressure built in the room that made the candle flames bend sideways and the wine in the glasses tremble.Vivienne's aura, already powerful at peak Tier Nine, surged upward like a wave cresting a seawall. It pushed, strained, hit the Grandmaster threshold, and broke through with a force that rattled the windows in their frames.The breakthrough expelled everything. Accumulated impurities that had been lodged in her body for years, toxins, stagnant energy, cellular waste, all of it pushed to the surface at once.A layer of foul smelling, dark, oily residue seeped through her pores and coated her skin in a film so thick and so rank that the smell hit the room like a physical wall.Vivienne's face went from triumphant to mortified in approximately half a second. Her eyes fle