For several long seconds the warm quiet in Chamber 301 remained. Lina stood there motionless under my touch, her breath shaking against my thumb and her amber eyes wide with a delicate combination of astonishment and relief.
Underneath her skin the ancient azure-gold energy belonging to her dragon bloodline had drawn itself tightly in, hiding there as a frightened animal would retreat into the deepest cave.
I dropped my hand so that my fingers passed lightly over her shoulder.
I told Lina to get some rest tonight. The last five crates of Blood Condensation Grass are yours and you'll be responsible for finishing them tomorrow. Don't begin tempering the bone marrow until your newly forged tendons have settled completely.
Lina nodded, her fingers nervously gripping the lapels of her uniform shirt. "Amar... are you going back to the estate?"
"I've got something to do in the city," I said smoothly, reached for my coat from the stone bench. "I just need to get a few administrative signatures from the central bank and attend to some logistics with Ronald. I'll sleep here tonight since the spirit wards on this vault are impervious to anyone of rank below a Martial King."
I faced the ironwood door and, before I crossed the threshold, looked over my shoulder with a sidelong glance.
"And Lina?"
She looked up, surprised. "Yes?"
Whatever you may hear about the Vance family in the next forty-eight hours, you should disregard it and concentrate solely on yourself.
On that basis I touched the exit rune and the heavy door hissed shut, safely enclosing her in the high-density spirit sanctum.
In the quiet chamber Lina sank back against the edge of the jade dais and breathed out slowly and irregularly.
Beneath her collar the dragon core pendant emitted a slight and restless azure glow.
"He knew," the Sovereign Dragon Empress's voice broke the silence, her suspicion no longer merely present but completely shaken. "At the very moment his fingers touched your cheek he wasn't just checking your physical body; that strange, bottomless void inside him spread out through the surrounding air like a cold blade and he felt me pull back."
Lina placed a shaking hand onto her cheek, the imaginary warmth of my palm still remaining there. 'Senior, if he really did have ill will towards you—或者 towards my dragon core—he could have used the wealth of his estate or his martial masters to take it a long time ago. Why on earth do you keep treating him like a monster?'
"Since you are too young and too blind to understand the difference between a beast and a calamity, you silly child!" the Empress snapped back, her voice sharp with royal disapproval. "A wolf shows its fangs; an old dragon obtains submission by means of raw, celestial power. But that boy? He moves among men without causing the slightest ripple in heaven or earth. His strength does not come from spiritual energy and it doesn't conform to the dao of this universe. He is an anomaly—an impossible parasite who wears the gentle smile of a youth in love. If you tie your fate to him... you are taking a path which not even the Nine Heavens can predict."
Lina kept quiet and looked down at the empty and broken crates of Blood Condensation Grass which were scattered over the stone floor—star coins in the millions having been spent on a girl that the whole city hated.
'Let the heavens be blind,' Lina whispered to herself, her determination settling down like bedrock. 'In this cold world he is the only one who didn't let me starve.'
Beyond the academy the night had become extremely cold.
As the armored limousine went around the edge of the wealthy Northern District, a strong wind blew across the tarmac, slicing through the shadows and heading towards the large commercial plaza of Lock Night City.
I was all by myself in the aft cabin, with my eyes shut and fully absorbed in the roar of the tiny ocean inside my body.
Plaintext
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SWARM STATUS PANEL
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[User]: Amar Roy
[Physical Realm]: Martial Apprentice (Stage 9 - Peak)
[Main Form]: Human
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[CLONE SWARM MATRIX]:
- Active Bacteriophage Clones: 171,840,000 / 1,000,000,000
- Colony Tier: Primary Swarm (Tier 1 - High Density)
- Integrated Pathogens:
* Terrestrial Streptococcus (Baseline)
* Necrotic Blood Rot (Stage 3 Rift Strain)
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[SWARM CELLULAR EVOLUTION]:
- Stage 2 Cellular Fusion: 98% Complete
- Estimated Time to Natural Breakthrough: 4 Hours
=====================================================
Seven十一 million clones.
A person's body when they had reached the stage of Martial Apprentice was basically an unrefined clay vessel, and in order to move on into the realm of Martial Adept, an ordinary practitioner had to remain in painful meditation for months, carefully condensing their crude martial qi into liquid strands so as to bore through their tenacious meridians.
There was no need for me to push my way through anything.
In every single second, my bacteriophages were functioning as hyper-specialized cellular masons by coiling themselves along my vascular walls, strengthening my cell membranes with microscopic protein lattices, passing through my muscular fibres, and eating up every microscopic impurity present in my lymphatic channels.
My body wasn't merely progressing; it was having itself completely rebuilt at the molecular level to become an indestructible biological fortification.
All of a sudden, another line of thought in my mind surged strongly.
Thump. Thump. Wheeze.
I turned a small part of my attention in the direction of the foreign outpost located across town.
Plaintext
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HOST PARASITE TELEMETRY (TARGET: ARTHUR VANCE)
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[Target Realm]: Martial Adept (Stage 3)
[Active Parasitic Clones]: 48,000 Units
[Colonization Site]: Bronchial Tree & Left Pulmonary Artery
[Host Condition]: Rapid Respiration / Severe Qi Agitation
[Target Location]: Vance Clan Martial Manor (Main Hall)
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Forty-eight thousand clones.
From dozens of microscopic viewpoints embedded in Arthur's respiratory mucosa, a dull, roaring wave of sound was picked up by my secondary consciousness.
Grandfather! You have to kill him! You have to tear that bastard to pieces!
Arthur's voice was hoarse, rough, and filled with hysterical rage. I could detect the violent surge of his crude, fire-type qi as it rushed erratically through the vessels in his chest, heating the surrounding tissue to dangerous degrees. The fever that was localized in his bronchial lining was enjoyable since the thermal surge caused the Streptococcus microbes nearby to divide more rapidly, giving my dormant clones even more host material to take over and reproduce.
"Silence!"
A voice comparable to boulders crashing shook the air in the far-off hall so violently that the several thousand clones in Arthur's chest had to fix their tail fibres firmly into his cartilage in order not to be dislodged.
"That is a shame for the Vance family," rumbled the old, hoarse voice with a terrifying and suffocating sense of weight. "To have been brought low by an orphan who is only sixteen in an open tribunal, to have been humiliated in front of the whole academy, and now you are coming to me like a beaten dog just because your training halls have lost the grass?"
"Grandfather, you just don't get it!" Arthur managed to choke out, coughing violently as a sudden and sharp dryness seized his throat—something subtle that came from my multiplying swarm. "He didn't merely cut off our supply! He actually gave twelve full crates over to Lina! The traitor's daughter broke through into the Martial Adept realm this afternoon! She's now sitting on the resources that were intended for our disciples!"
A long pause fell across the Vance clan hall.
—"Elder Vance," interjected a smooth and venomous female voice—Vice Principal Rosette. "It is impossible to bring the boy's behaviour under control by means of the normal academy regulations. The Roy family has too much commercial influence with the logistics board. Even should we ask the Ministry of Education, the legal struggle will continue for months and by that time Arthur's foundation will have stagnated."
Elder Vance said there was no need for any petitions, his voice filled with the cold, unyielding cruelty typical of a Stage 2 Martial master who had for decades slaughtered rift beasts on the southern border. The boy believes that simply having a heap of star coins will make him an emperor in Lock Night City, forgetting that gold is of no use if the person holding it is cut off.
"Grandfather... you mean...?" Arthur's voice filled with fierce excitement.
"The Black Crag Trial Realm," Elder Vance said in a chilling tone. "Two weeks from now the spatial gate will open. Although the academy rules ban external masters from entering, there is no rule which stops our clan from providing you with our family's sacred artifact—the Sun-Devouring Core. In that lawless wasteland, with no cameras and with no board trustees to protect him..."
The old man's voice dropped down to become a savage sneer.
You will break Amar Roy's limbs individually, take the dragon core out of the girl, and before the trial is over you will feed both of their bodies to the Stage 3 rift basilisks.
"Yes! Yes! Thank you, Grandfather!" Arthur laughed manically and coughed violently as he took another deep, ragged breath.
As I sat in the limousine gliding smoothly along the neon-lit streets, a slow, pitch-black smile formed on my face.
The Sun-Devouring Core?
Can a Stage 2 Martial master be planning an assassination against an Apprentice?
"How incredibly generous of you, Elder Vance," I whispered into the silent darkness of the cabin.
Arthur Vance never realized that all the great schemes, all the wicked oaths, and all the secret moves that his family had arranged had been directly transmitted into the mind of the very person they had intended to hunt.
"Master?" Ronald looked in the rearview mirror and noticed the icy amusement on my face. "Did you say something?"
"Nothing of consequence, Ronald," I replied smoothly, looking out the tinted window as the limousine pulled up before the towering glass spires of the Roy Conglomerate Headquarters.
Inside my chest, the cellular restructuring finally crossed the threshold.
Crack.
A soundless, microscopic explosion rippled from my heart through every vein, capillary, and muscle group in my body. The viral lattice integrated seamlessly into my flesh, and a surge of profound, cold vitality washed away the final limits of the apprentice stage.
Plaintext
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STATUS UPDATE: HOST BREAKTHROUGH
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[User]: Amar Roy
[Physical Realm Promoted]: Martial Adept (Stage 1)
[Cellular Density]: Equivalent to Stage 4 Adept
[Bio-Shield Capacity]: Absorbs 50% Kinetic / 100% Toxin
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[SWARM PROGRESSION]:
- Target: Arthur Vance (65,000 Clones Incubating)
- Next Rift Harvest: Scheduled at Apex Lab (48 Hours)
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Martial Adept Stage 1.
Achieved without touching a single spirit stone, without swallowing a single pill, and without breaking a drop of sweat.
I stepped out of the limousine into the crisp night air, adjusting the lapels of my coat as the guards at the corporate tower dropped to their knees in unison.
"Let them scheme," I whispered softly against the wind, my dark eyes gleaming like an abyss under the city lights. "Two weeks from now... the Black Crag will not be their hunting ground. It will be their tomb."