The Church never deployed enforcers to the Outer District unless something mishappened.
That was the thing about the glass badge on the dead man in the chest which was so damned peculiar.
Lucen was kneeling on the body. There was light rain beating on the skylight above, broken, and the drops fell louder than they ought. The coat of the enforcer was still smoking... was smouldered through. Soulprint backlash.
Cause of death: Internal rupture. Soulprint burn-out.
Soulprint Signature: Shattered - forced detachment suspected.
Lucen's gaze darkened. This wasn't just death.
This was violence refined into precision. This was a message.
Someone had ripped the soulprint from the enforcer while he was still alive. It wasn't desperation. It was control. Calculated cruelty.
And that meant whoever did this wasn't just skilled.
They were confident.
.........
Tracker's Pulse stirred in the back of Lucen's mind.
Two faint trails. Soulprint signatures. Recent. Leading northwest.
He didn't move right away.
Instead, he let his eyes follow the destruction - the burn lines trailing up the walls, the soot pattern scattered like broken intent, the carved gouge in the floor where something more than strength had been unleashed.
No blood frenzy. No beastly rampage.
This was deliberate. Surgical.
Then he saw it.
Etched into the metal by the exit. Subtle. Easy to miss.
"Kieron."
Lucen went still.
That name didn't belong here.
That name came from halls echoing with ambition, where top-ranked duelists didn't bleed, they performed.
Kieron had been one of the best.
A dropout.
A ghost.
A name that shouldn't have surfaced... and now it had.
.........
He stood slowly. Rain pattered on his shoulders.
His breath was calm, but behind his eyes, memories sharpened like blades.
So he was here too.
The system murmured in the silence.
[New Threat Marker Added: Unknown Soulprint Duelist – "Kieron"]
Risk Assessment: Moderate to High
Status: Active
Soulprint Type: Unknown (Suspected Tier III)
Lucen's fingers curled into a fist.
Not because he feared the name.
But because it came too early. Before he was ready.
Before he wanted to be ready.
.........
After two hours he sat in the remote corner of a disreputable diner, steam hissing out of a chipped mug like ghost-breath in the cold.
Out of doors it was raining like claws on the windows.
The silence was pounding in his ears like a heart beat.
.........
Lucen Vale – Soul Ledger v2.0
HP: 96 / 132
Unspent Soul Points: 6
New Entry:
• "Kieron" – Possible rival soulprint user
• Signature: Unknown
• Combat Style: Not yet confirmed
• Knownfor: Precision duels, fear-based counterpressure
.........
Lucen remembered little about him. Just that his name lingered beside his own in the top exam lists, always one line above or below.
Kieron didn't win with raw power. He won by making you doubt, by pressing until your certainty cracked.
Lucen didn't crack.
.........
Hostile ping detected – 14 meters. Cloaked.
.........
Lucen blinked.
Slow.
Measured.
He rose from the booth without a sound, slid the mug aside, and walked toward the back hallway like a man who already knew how this would end.
The corridor was pitch black.
The city whispered through the gaps in broken windows.
Then, a flicker. A figure. A sliver of shadow at the alley's mouth.
Lucen made no pursuit.
He watched.
Waited.
The character paused - and was gone as smoke in the wind.
Yet not as fast as it were needed.
Lucen's breath caught sharp in his throat. The feeling wasn't fear.
It was anticipation.
He activated Tracker's Pulse.
Soulprint Path Marked: Tier I suppression active – weak trace left behind.
He switched on the Pulse of Tracker.
So they were watching him.
Probably feeling him out.
Possibly by attempting to gauge his advantage before making a judgment as to whether or not to blunt it.
They had estimated something wrong, however.
Lucen smiled, slow and cold.
For someone with glass teeth, they should've known better–
He knows how to shatter glass.
.........