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Chapter 209: A sacrifice of legacy
The drive back to the city was a tunnel of grim silence. The sleek car handled the curves of the mountain road with effortless precision, but Ethan felt disconnected from the machine, from the scenery blurring past, from everything except the seared-afterimage burned onto the back of his eyelids: two names on white stone under a dead sky.The Quieting held. The raw, screaming panic he’d felt in the vision was contained, analyzed, and filed away in the new, orderly structure of his mind. But it had been replaced by something colder, heavier, and more absolute: a dread that had crystallized into purpose. It was no longer a fear of losing them; it was the mathematical certainty of what would happen if he failed. The equation was simple, its solution non-negotiable.He arrived at the Wirtkov penthouse as night fully claimed the city. The elevator ride to the top floor was a silent ascent in a glass tube, the glittering skyline below looking fragile, a painted backdrop over an abyss.The
Chapter 208: Visions like a prophecy
Ethan settled back into the stillness, his breath evening out. The newfound order in his mind was a fortress, but the Grand Physician’s words hinted at a final test, a vision not of the past, but of a possible future.He closed his eyes again, expecting perhaps a glimpse of the coming confrontation with Nathan, a tactical preview.What came was not a glimpse. It was an obliteration.The orderly library of his mind dissolved into a roaring, chaotic wind. The visions did not flow; they shattered.”, fragmenting into a kaleidoscope of apocalyptic imagery.Skies the color of a fresh bruise, boiling with unnatural storms.Cities he recognized—New York, London, Tokyo—reduced to jagged, skeletal ruins against a hellish glow.Silent, empty streets littered not with debris, but with a fine, ash-like dust that swirled in the toxic breeze.A profound, global silence, broken only by the distant groan of collapsing metal and the hungry crackle of eternal fires.This was not a memory. It was a proph
Chapter 207: Visions like memories
Ethan lowered himself onto the woven mat, the coarse fibers a tactile anchor in the surreal chamber. He crossed his legs, rested his hands on his knees, and closed his eyes. The weight of the stone room, the scent of earth, the profound silence—it all pressed in, not as an assault, but as an invitation to dissolve.This was the same thing he had run away from back then that he was now finding himself performing again.But what choice had he got? He needed to complete this before he could think of facing Nathan for the sake of Emma and his unborn baby.“Breathe into the stillness,” the Grand Physician’s voice murmured, not from across the room, but seemingly from within the stillness itself. “The Quieting is not an erasure. It is a re-ordering. You will see the tapestry of your life. The threads of joy, of pain, of choice and consequence. Do not cling to them. Observe them as patterns in the weave. You will have visions. Keep an open mind. The mind that judges is the mind that suffers
Chapter 206: The sanctuary of stillness
They passed through corridors Ethan vaguely remembered, places of instruction and meditation. But the Grand Physician led him deeper than he had ever gone before, to a part of the compound that felt less like a building and more like a natural cave system that had been gently shaped. The air grew cooler, the scent of stone and damp earth replacing the incense.Finally, they entered a circular chamber. The ceiling was a natural dome of rock, with a single shaft of muted light falling from a hidden opening far above, illuminating the center of the room. In that pool of light was a simple mat of woven reeds. Around the perimeter, in deep shadow, stood nine smooth stone pillars, each carved with a single, complex symbol that seemed to shift in the low light.This was the Sanctuary of Stillness. The air itself felt thick, heavy with intention, as if sound went to die here.The Grand Physician gestured to the mat. "The place of unraveling."Ethan moved toward it, the gravity of the room pre
Chapter 205: The ‘Quieting’ Ritual
As Ethan drove to the Grand Physician’s the following morning, his hands tight on the wheel, his mind was a million miles away—or rather, decades.He wasn't navigating by GPS, but by muscle memory of a journey taken in a different life. The towering pines blurred into a green-grey wall, and with them, the present dissolved.“The focus is not to feel nothing, Ethan. That is the crude aim of a brute. The aim is to feel everything… and choose which sensation becomes action. The rest, you relegate to a silent room and lock the door.”The Grand Physician’s voice, dry as ancient parchment, echoed in his mind. He could see the austere training hall, the smell of sandalwood and cold stone. He’d been young, arrogant, flush with the early successes of the skills he’d already learned. The ‘Quieting’ had been presented as the final masterwork, the capstone. Not a new weapon, but the forging of an impregnable armory for the mind itself.And he’d walked away just before he could even get to underst
Chapter 204: Back To The Grand Physician
Ethan didn’t answer for a long moment. He pushed back from the desk, the chair rolling soundlessly on the thick rug. He walked to the floor-to-ceiling window, his back to the room, his silhouette tense against the glittering, indifferent cityscape.“I know my brother,” Ethan said, his voice hollow, stripped of all its usual command. “I know that Elizabeth Robbins would swallow broken glass before calling me for help. The fact that she did…” He bowed his head, a hand coming up to press against the cold glass. “It means she has exhausted every other option.”Ethan gave a single, jerky nod. The weight of it—the dual loss, the compounded violation—seemed to press him physically into the floor. “My brother understands currency. He understands leverage. He has just acquired the only two things in this universe I would trade the crown for. Not that I would ever be given the choice.”He strode back to the desk, not with purpose, but with a frantic, caged energy. He picked up the dead phone, s
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