Not long after, Lucy came back, her expression settled and bright, a genuine smile lighting up her face, thanks to the small, colorful bird now perched on her shoulder.The bird had bright, strikingly intelligent eyes, feathers in a blend of blue, red, and purple, and a crest of red plumage on its head that resembled a rooster's comb.Aiden's brow lifted with curiosity. "Where'd this little guy come from? Pretty thing." He reached a finger out, eager to tease it a little.Snap.The bird's beak caught his finger, a sharp sting shooting through it, like being jabbed with a fine silver needle. Genuine surprise crossed Aiden's face, considering he now sat at the peak of the mid-stage Spirit Awakening Realm.And still, he hadn't managed to dodge the little creature's "sneak attack." More surprising still, it had actually hurt him. No feathers plucked, no marrow cleansed, sure, but an ordinary bird should never have been able to cause Aiden pain at all.Interesting. A spark lit behind his e

After lunch, the already sparse office thinned out even further, three more people drifting off. The man in white-rimmed glasses claimed a headache from drinking too much and left early. The other two gave similarly flimsy excuses.Aiden found it all genuinely funny in a resigned sort of way. No clock-in system here, no facial scans, no one checking up on anyone. Total freedom.He let out a quiet sigh. The atmosphere in this office was pleasant enough, and it didn't interfere with his cultivation at all, but he knew better than to settle in too long. A cultivator who stayed stagnant somewhere too long inevitably started showing cracks.Thankfully, Aiden already suspected he'd be heading to Celestara before long, so there was no real risk of exposing himself here in the meantime.The mortal world, after all, had already been picked clean by every major power and conglomerate searching it. As for the Sword Immortal Palace he'd stumbled into, Aiden knew that discovery had been pure coinc

Confusion crossed Redmane's face. Watching Red Moon locked in combat outside, he pressed the voice on the other end. "What do you mean, exactly? Has something gone wrong?""A second Red Moon unit is already inbound. They're planning to ambush you directly, and there's a medium warship closing in with them." The voice on the line stayed perfectly calm.Redmane nearly choked on his own breath. He hadn't considered for a second that their own escape route might already be cut off. Red Moon had been playing them from the start, and now the hook was about to set.Aiden felt his own headache building. Something about that unhurried, measured tone made him want to reach through the line and shake the old man personally."Your digging into Red Moon already puts them on alert. And wiping out one of their elite squads back at Mount Halcyon didn't help matters. This time, the leak was deliberate. You were the lure.""When the moment's right, we're bringing down full firepower from above and send

A cold sweat broke out across Aiden's back. The lab maintained a constant, comfortable temperature year-round, and yet he felt as though he'd dropped straight into an ice cave, his face draining of color.The power of curses was notoriously elusive, brutally difficult to master. Even at the Great Perfection of the Immortal King realm, Aiden had never managed to grasp its deeper mysteries, never even crossed the real threshold into understanding it.Back at Mount Aurelia, finding a cultivator felled by a curse might have passed as coincidence. But encountering a second one now, with methods clearly more refined, this went beyond coincidence entirely.Because the Death Immortal Venerable's signature art was a method unlike any other, capable of cursing an enemy's very soul and consciousness to death. They called it the Soul-Shattering Curse.What made the Soul-Shattering Curse so distinctive was simple: the soul died, but the body remained whole. The body never fully decayed because, in

That evening, Aiden got home right at eight o'clock sharp. He'd already arranged with Lucy beforehand for a proper dinner, four dishes and a soup, waiting for him.He handed over his refined version of the Nine Ancestors Sovereign Scripture for Lucy to continue training with, then pulled out the stone carrying spiritual energy. Not quite as potent as the previous golden spirit stone, sure, but close enough.Aiden had no intention of hoarding this one for himself. He picked up the Duskdawn Profound Iron sword embryo instead, planning to crack it open so the two of them could share the spiritual energy sealed inside.This was exactly why Lucy had taken up the Nine Ancestors Sovereign Scripture in the first place. The technique aligned closely enough with other proper cultivation methods that there'd be no complications. Any lesser martial technique simply wouldn't have worked the same way.Just as he moved to split the spirit stone open, a flying saucer streaked across the city skyline