Ilya gestured with a slight motion of her hand, beckoning Lucien over.
"Since you're both here," she said, her voice calm, "I'll make it simple."
She glanced between them.
"Lucien."
Then toward Hero.
"Hero."
No titles. No background. Just names.
A surface-level introduction.
The two stepped closer.
For a brief moment, neither spoke.
Their eyes met.
Hero's smile didn't change, but his fingers, resting at his side, stilled.
Lucien remained quiet beneath his hood, his gaze fixed.
They assessed each other in silence.
—
Strange…
Lucien's thoughts stirred faintly as he looked at the man in front of him.
There was something off.
Nothing obvious, no overwhelming aura, no visible fluctuation.
Yet the more he looked, the more it felt… misplaced.
Like something hidden just beneath the surface.
A normal cultivator shouldn't feel like this.
He didn't show it, but a trace of doubt settled in his mind.
—
Hero, on the other hand, felt something far less subtle.
A faint chill crept up his spine.
His eyes narrowed slightly, the smile on his lips turning faint.
What is this…?
The man in front of him.
He couldn't read him.
Not properly.
There was a sense of familiarity, something that felt almost recognizable…
And yet at the same time, completely wrong.
Like looking at something that shouldn't exist.
A quiet sense of unease settled in his chest.
This person…
Before his thoughts could settle, a voice cut in.
"Boy… do you feel that?"
The old man's voice echoed in his mind, low and strained in a way Hero had never heard before.
Hero didn't answer immediately, his gaze still locked on Lucien.
"…Yeah."
There was a brief pause.
Then.
"That aura… it's not possible."
The old man's tone grew heavier.
"He's still in the Qi Spiritual Realm… but he's already stepped into Foundation Building."
Hero's eyes flickered.
"…What?"
"Not fully," the old man continued, his voice carrying a rare hint of disbelief. "Half-step."
A beat passed.
"Half-step into Foundation Building… while still remaining in the Qi Realm."
Hero's breath slowed, though his expression didn't change.
That's…
Absurd.
Even for him, it sounded wrong.
"That kind of state shouldn't exist," the old man muttered. "Even I've never seen something like this…"
For once, there was no certainty in his voice.
Only astonishment.
Hero's gaze deepened, the earlier unease settling into something heavier.
Dread.
And doubt.
As he looked at Lucien, that strange, familiar feeling only grew stronger.
"Well…"
Lucien broke the silence first.
Ilya, standing to the side, had already sensed something off the moment the two faced each other. Her gaze shifted slightly, flicking toward the guards behind her, a quiet signal.
If anything happens, stop it.
The guards didn't move, but their attention sharpened.
Nothing happened.
At least, not on the surface.
"I feel like we've met before, haven't we?"
Lucien's hand emerged from beneath his cloak, extending forward.
The shadow beneath him stretched along the ground, touched by the faint moonlight spilling in from the entrance.
Around them, workers continued moving back and forth, carts rolling past, crates being carried toward the ships outside.
The noise of work never stopped.
Hero's eyes narrowed for the briefest moment.
It was subtle. No one seemed to notice.
On the surface, his gaze remained steady as always.
He closed his eyes for a second, then opened them again, a faint smile settling naturally on his face.
"Have we?" he said, his tone light. "Then I must've forgotten."
He met Lucien's gaze, expression calm.
"How could I forget someone with such a… distinct presence?"
Lucien didn't respond immediately.
"A brief encounter is easy to overlook," he said after a moment.
"Indeed."
Hero's fingers lifted, meeting Lucien's hand. Their handshake was brief, firm, and measured.
Neither lingered.
A few more words passed between them, nothing of weight, nothing that stood out.
Then Lucien withdrew his hand.
Without another pause, he turned and walked away.
Calm. Unhurried.
Ilya watched him go, something unreadable in her eyes. Beside her, Hero remained where he stood, that same faint smile still in place.
Lucien's figure grew smaller, fading into the distance beyond the entrance until he was nothing more than a dot.
Only then did Ilya turn her head.
Her gaze settled on Hero, a mix of curiosity and doubt.
"That was a bad lie."
Hero let out a quiet breath and shrugged.
"And he knew it," he said. "So did I. So do you."
He turned, giving her his back as he started toward the entrance.
"Well… I've already handed the goods to one of your clerks. I'll be on my way."
His footsteps echoed softly against the ground as he walked off, unhurried.
Ilya remained where she was, watching him leave, her expression lingering somewhere between thought and suspicion.
"I hope you won't do anything stupid…"
Her voice came from behind him, low, almost casual.
Hero didn't react.
He stepped past the entrance and left the Pavilion behind, making his way toward the outer circle of the city.
The crowd that night was livelier than usual.
Hawkers lined both sides of the street, their voices overlapping as they called out to passing customers.
Lantern light flickered across rows of makeshift stalls, their frames packed close together like bamboo shoots after rain.
The air carried a mix of heat, smoke, and the scent of cooked food, with no sign of the activity slowing anytime soon.
Hero walked through it all at an unhurried pace, hands resting loosely by his sides.
As he passed, bits of conversation slipped into his hearing.
Near a food stall, a middle-aged man in rough robes leaned against a wooden counter, waving a skewer in his hand as he spoke.
"We're lucky that senior chose to establish his force here," he said, shaking his head. "Otherwise, our connection to other cities would've been cut off."
The stall owner, a woman busy turning meat over a small flame, gave a short nod without looking up.
"Exactly. My relatives managed to move here because of those flying ship routes from the Purple Cloud Pavilion." She paused to brush sweat from her temple with the back of her wrist. "Honestly, the red tide doesn't feel as bad as before."
A younger man standing nearby shifted the sack on his shoulder, glancing toward the distant field where the ships were docked.
"Not just that… more people are coming in," he added. "I heard many are boarding ships from other cities just to settle here."
"The stronger the place, the more it attracts people." The first man let out a quiet chuckle, tapping the skewer lightly against the counter. "Good for business too…"
Hero passed them without slowing, his gaze forward, though every word settled clearly in his mind.
A little further down, the tone of the conversation shifted.
Two men stood close together near the edge of the road, their voices lower this time. One of them glanced around before speaking, his hand half-raised as if to block the sound from carrying.
"By the way… have you noticed?" he muttered. "The City Lord's mansion has been quiet these past few weeks."
The other man frowned, folding his arms as he leaned back slightly.
"If I were them, I'd stay quiet too," he replied. "Let the Pavilion handle things and just watch the city grow."
He paused, then added, voice dropping further.
"Their influence is still there… but it doesn't feel the same anymore."
The first man shifted his weight, unease creeping into his expression.
"Especially now… when we don't even know if the City Lord is still alive."
"Hush." The second man immediately cut him off, his eyes darting around before he reached out and nudged his companion's arm. "Don't say things like that."
They fell silent after that, the earlier ease gone from their posture.
Hero walked past them, his steps steady.
The noise of the street carried on behind him, voices blending back into the hum of the night, but the words he had heard lingered quietly in his mind.
After several turns through narrowing streets, Hero made his way toward the most remote part of the city.
The surroundings changed gradually. The lanterns grew fewer, the noise faded, and the paved roads gave way to uneven ground.
What lay ahead was a barren stretch of land.
Broken houses stood in silence, some half-collapsed, others reduced to scattered debris. Walls leaned at odd angles, roofs caved in, and empty doorways faced the dark like hollow eyes.
A few figures lingered in the area, beggars and the homeless, wrapped in worn cloth, sitting against cracked walls or lying still in corners. None of them paid him any attention.
No one chose to be here unless they had no other place to go.