Kiaria looked at Yin Song for a long moment before speaking again, as though weighing whether curiosity deserved mercy. When he finally spoke, his voice was unhurried, carrying neither judgment nor ridicule–only certainty.
"I like curious minds," Kiaria said calmly.
"So I'll end yours quickly."
He turned slightly, the sword still embedded in stone behind Yin Song, untouched, waiting.
"Song," Kiaria continued, "your first mistake was not your ambition. It was your talent."
Every formation you laid carried a flaw so small that no ordinary cultivator would ever notice it. Within each structure–buried beneath complexity–you left a trace. A signature."
Yin Song frowned.
"A name," Kiaria said. "Your name."
"For common folk, the formations themselves were invisible. For cultivators, the markings were dismissed as stylistic residue–irrelevant compared to the difficulty of dismantling the array. You understood this. You relied on it."
Kiaria's gaze sharpened.
