The raw, metallic tang of a profound antiseptic salve violently pricked Jai's nostrils as he finally dragged his consciousness back to the waking world.
He lay completely still, his blue eyes fixed coldly on the stucco ceiling. He listened to the soft, rhythmic scrape of his maid's medicinal cloth against his bare skin.
The maid, a highly nervous young woman named Aanya, was carefully, terrifiedly tending to his back. His pale skin was completely unblemished, save for the massive, catastrophic damage—a literal, bloody roadmap of his father's relentless, aristocratic instruction. It was a terrifying tapestry of fading blues, sickly greens, and deep, necrotic purple bruises.
Since absolute childhood, Jai's father had violently trained him in combat with a brutal, single-minded strictness. His physical vessel, barely seventeen years old, looked exactly as if it had endured a dozen minor, apocalyptic wars.
"That is enough, Aanya," Jai commanded, his voice completely flat and devoid of emotion. "Leave the room immediately. I want absolute time alone. And send a direct message to my mother, Mable. Explicitly tell her not to enter."
Aanya violently scrambled to pack her medicinal supplies, loudly murmuring an absolute apology before quickly slipping out the heavy oak door.
Jai slowly rose, gritting his teeth against the searing pain in his muscles, and crossed the opulent room to the stone balcony. He leaned heavily against the railing, his cold eyes drawn directly to the massive estate's private garden.
The sun was violently dipping below the horizon, painting the sky in tranquil, profound hues of burning orange and soft, bruised violet. A rare, absolute sense of peace slowly settled over his chaotic soul.
I feel completely peaceful here, he thought, his sharp gaze sweeping over the vibrant blooms. Perhaps because every single, profound flower in that garden... I violently planted myself.
Suddenly, an unwanted presence entirely shattered the quiet.
"Jai," his mother's voice pleaded softly from the heavy doorway.
He violently spun around. The calm was instantly gone, entirely replaced by a cutting, aristocratic frustration.
"Mother! I explicitly told the maid that absolutely no one was to enter my sanctuary. Why the fuck are you in my room?"
Mable's face was a complex portrait of conflicting, profound emotions—absolute fear and a stubborn, heavy sadness. "I am your mother," she replied, her chin trembling slightly, her Gnosis aura suppressing her fear. "I have the absolute right to enter my son's room."
Jai's violent anger receded slightly, completely replaced by a weary, hollow resignation. He forcefully calmed his racing meridians. "Fine. What is the absolute reason? Why are you here?"
"I was deeply worried," she admitted, stepping closer to the balcony. "You collapsed suddenly and violently in the worship place this morning. You seized on the floor."
Jai waved a highly dismissive hand. "It is absolutely nothing. I already told you, I am simply a bit more anxious than usual about the impending Awakening Ceremony. I am completely fine. Do not worry."
She completely ignored his cold denial, placing a heavy silver platter on a nearby low table. On it sat a bowl of rich, amber Suna-Seed and a steaming, incredibly fragrant plate of Glimmerhoof meat curry.
The profound scent was astonishingly delicious—a rich, heavy, savory aroma with a hint of toasted, spiritual sweetness. It was his absolute favorite meal.
But Jai felt absolutely zero hunger. He coldly looked at the feast, then violently turned his head back toward the balcony, collapsing heavily onto a chair at the small table and closing his tired eyes.
SCCHHHHK.
A faint, spatial scraping sound violently pierced through his exhaustion.
Jai's eyes violently snapped open. He was instantly, entirely awake. The ambient temperature completely dropped.
He frantically scanned the dark perimeter.
There!
A solitary figure, entirely cloaked in a midnight-black garment from head to toe, was casually running atop the colossal Black Stone Wall that completely encircled the aristocratic castle.
The wall itself was a terrifying feat of forgotten, ancient engineering; its massive obsidian surface continuously radiated a unique, heaven-defying energy field. It was so incredibly potent that any mage or cultivator below Tier 4 (Ascendant) would instantly feel their very core magic violently weaken and collapse upon physical contact.
That person... they must absolutely be more powerful than a Tier 4, Jai realized, his blood running completely cold. But who the fuck is arrogant enough to attack the Chenwongo estate?!
He didn't hesitate for a single microsecond. His hand violently shot out, smashing a small, profound crimson button deeply embedded in his stone railing.
A high-pitched, apocalyptic alarm shrieked briefly, violently followed by Jai's strained, commanding voice booming over the estate's emergency comms:
"INTRUDER! North side of the absolute wall! A person is physically running on the black stone!"
The aristocratic family members who heard his broadcast were instantly, violently shocked—not merely by the intrusion, but by the terrifying fact that absolutely anyone could casually touch that forbidden wall, much less confidently run upon it.
They violently scrambled from their opulent rooms, drawing profound weapons, and aggressively rushed to the North Towers.
The night's full moon was an incredible, massive disc of blinding white light, entirely illuminating the area with an unearthly, profound glow. The stark light struck the runner's pitch-black cloak, giving the terrifying figure an eerie, almost spectral, demonic quality.
Jai's father, Edward—a man whose absolute sternness was only matched by his immense, terrifying power—arrived and immediately cast a supreme spatial spell.
The air violently shimmered. A tight, massive crystalline barrier instantly snapped into existence entirely around the gathered family members. Inside the absolute perimeter, time itself violently shuddered to a complete stop.
Only those entirely within the barrier—the bloodline family—could physically move. Even the air currents and the falling dust motes were completely frozen in place by the absolute temporal law.
Everyone stared out at the intruder in the distance, deeply relieved that the terrifying figure was now completely suspended in mid-stride by the time-stop.
Then, Jai's blue eyes violently widened in absolute, unadulterated horror.
He saw a terrifying flicker of movement outside the barrier. The black-cloaked person's hand was still slowly, deliberately inching forward.
They are defying the absolute law of time!
Before Jai could even attempt to shout a desperate warning, the intruder's moving hand violently produced a small, glowing spherical object—a highly compressed profound bomb—and casually hurled it directly toward the center of the stopped family group.
The massive explosion violently tore through the Tier 3 time-stop field exactly as if it were pathetic, wet tissue paper.
BOOOOOOM!
The entire north side of the ancient wall violently shuddered and partially collapsed into dust. The aristocratic family violently scattered, physically propelled away from the lethal blast zone by the sheer, catastrophic force of the kinetic shockwave.
A collective, entirely terrified realization violently hit the elders as they hit the dirt: Jai's father's spell was Tier 3. Absolutely nothing less than a magic user of the subsequent, supreme rank could possibly move within its temporal influence.
"Tier Two," someone whispered in the dust, the forbidden words hanging heavily with absolute, apocalyptic dread. "An Eclipse-Borne."
While the arrogant family violently recoiled in sheer shock, coughing up dust, the black-cloaked figure smoothly, casually removed the thick cloth covering their face.
The absolute shock heavily intensified. The terrifying intruder was a beautiful woman.
"I, Meilin Yue, Supreme Commander of the secret Organization completely known as The Ninth Whisper," her voice rang out like heaven-shattering thunder over the burning ruin, "have come to casually give you a small, explosive gift from my leader."
She violently scattered exactly one hundred small, highly unstable anti-magic explosives directly at their feet. Before absolutely anyone could react to the imminent devastation, the commander completely disappeared into the spatial void.
It was Beatrice, Jai's terrifying Tier 2 grandmother, who ultimately saved their pathetic lives.
Using her supreme spatial spell, Hearing Way, she instantly located their physical coordinates and violently teleported the entire aristocratic group completely across the estate, depositing them heavily on the south side of the castle, directly beside Rena's isolated room.
BOOOOOOM! The north side of the estate was entirely vaporized.
Rena, Jai's powerless aunt, violently bolted upright in her pathetic bed, entirely roused by the distant, catastrophic explosion and the sudden cacophony of panicked, screaming family voices appearing outside her door.
As the heavily shaken elders slowly began to process the sheer, terrifying audacity and absolute power of the attack, Jai's mind began to violently race.
Meilin Yue must be absolutely ancient, at least seven hundred years old to successfully reach Tier 2, he thought, recalling the harsh, unforgiving laws of their profound magic system. Advancing from Tier 10 to Tier 3 took most elite practitioners exactly three centuries of non-stop, bloody slaughter.
His own arrogant father had only miraculously achieved Tier 3 in ninety years solely because their family lineage—his grandfather was the Head of the Family's brother—granted them absolute access to powerful, heaven-defying artifacts and stolen resources.
Both his father and mother looked perpetually, unnaturally young entirely because of these exact same stolen boons.
But Tier 2 was absolutely different. It wasn't about relying on pathetic artifacts; it was about a complete, bodily and spiritual rebirth. It was the absolute, true beginning of godhood. It required not just immense willpower and bodily refinement, but total, undisputed mastery of all profound elemental powers.
His grandmother, Beatrice, was one of the incredibly rare few who had completely done this, though she rarely displayed the full, terrifying spectrum of her destructive abilities.
Then, a completely cold, terrifying sweat violently broke out on Jai's pale forehead.
Meilin Yue had violently attacked the North Wall.
But she had spatially come from the South—exactly where Beatrice had just deposited them, near Rena's isolated rooms. The only legitimate, heavily guarded entrance to the massive palace was on the East side.
Did that absolute, black-cloaked Tier 2 commander truly come all this way, risking open war with a sovereign aristocratic family, just to deliver a pathetic, explosive message?
Or... did she originally infiltrate the South side to secretly meet Aunt Rena?
He felt a terrible, absolute chill run entirely down his spine. The chilling realization of a persistent, heavily forbidden family rumor violently hit him.
Did the rumors completely lie?
Jai stared intently at his Aunt Rena through her doorway. She was an eternal, pathetic fixture of submissive warmth and calm, entirely powerless. Yet, she was now suddenly the absolute epicenter of a world-shattering, Tier 2 threat.
His heart violently hammered against his ribs. The brutal combat training, the strict aristocratic rules, the ancient, arrogant lineage—it all meant absolutely nothing if the true, apocalyptic threat was already sleeping inside the castle walls.
He hadn't been genuinely worried about an outsider breaking in; he should have been completely terrified about the absolute monster his own family had been keeping hidden in the dark.
If the absolute rumors were true… Jai thought, his blue eyes narrowing with sociopathic realization. Then the real, heaven-shattering threat had never been outside the walls at all.