Chapter 108: I Refuse

Adam froze.

Dickson was petrified.

Stone had claimed him completely, skin, clothes, expression, all locked in a frozen moment of terror. Adam had been inside the cyclone, focused entirely on his martial spirit. He hadn’t noticed when it happened.

In the next instant, Adam vanished.

The air rippled, and he reappeared beside Abigail and her group, right where Dickson was being guarded. The sudden shift made several of them tense, but no one spoke. They only stared at him, awe slipping through their discipline.

Philip’s eyes flicked between Adam and the battlefield behind him.

One man ended a tide on his own… and he’s still an apprentice.

The thought felt unreal. If anyone who wasn’t here heard him say it out loud, they’d lock him in an asylum for insanity.

Adam stood in front of Dickson, studying the stone surface with a sharp, clinical gaze.

“How long has he been like this?” he asked. Abigail answered immediately. “Fifteen minutes.” Adam remained quiet for a moment. “Is there a way to turn him back?”

“We don’t know yet,” Abigail said after a brief pause. “When we return to the clan, I plan to meet the elders. They might know how to revert him.”

Adam nodded, but his thoughts were already elsewhere.

She’s being hopeful.

If Dickson stayed like this too long, he wouldn’t survive. Petrification wasn’t a status you could ignore, it was a countdown.

Adam straightened and looked up.

The barrier was still active, shimmering faintly above them. He didn’t know how long it would take to dissipate, but he knew one thing.

It won’t be fast enough.

Before he could speak again, footsteps approached.

The manager walked over, posture composed despite the earlier chaos, eyes locked onto Adam.

“Mr. Adam,” she said evenly, “may I speak with you for a moment?”

Adam, after looking at Dickson one last time, turned away from Abigail’s group and approached her. Behind the manager, the acolytes watched him openly now, with their admiration unhidden and reverent.

She didn’t waste time.

“I’ll be blunt, Mr. Adam,” the manager said. “I want you to move into our sector.”

Adam stopped.

“What?”

****

The manager had stopped holding back.

I have to do whatever it takes to make him stay.

Vanessa could admit it now, there was no point denying reality. Adam was the singular reason they had held out this long. All their preparation, all their layered battle plans, would’ve collapsed the moment the sirens reached critical mass.

She knew it.

Every acolyte behind her knew it too.

Without Adam, the tide would’ve swallowed them whole.

And yet it went further than that.

He hadn’t just made survival possible, he had ended the tide. Alone, cleanly and effortlessly. He didn’t even look winded.

Vanessa had always known Adam was strong. She had seen his feats with her own eyes.

But this?

This was the kind of strength that became legend. The kind that people exaggerated decades later and still failed to capture properly.

Someone like him…

Going back to his sector would only hold him back.

Adam looked at her, expression calm, already detached.

“Sorry,” he said evenly. “I can’t take your offer.”

Vanessa wasn’t surprised.

Of course it wouldn’t be easy.

She inhaled once, then spoke without hesitation. “Two years full discount on all our sector’s martial market items.” She paused deliberately. “And ten million dollars upfront.”

Silence fell.

Abigail stiffened, her unswollen eye widening. Her group exchanged sharp looks. Even seasoned heirs didn’t get offers like that.

Behind Vanessa, the acolytes stared at their manager in disbelief, then slowly turned to Adam, searching his face, wondering what kind of expression a man wore when faced with something like that.

But Adam didn’t react, his face was completely expressionless.

He met her gaze and spoke softly.

“Vanessa.”

Using her name made her chest tighten.

“My decision is made,” he continued calmly. “And it won’t change.”

Vanessa held his eyes for a long moment.

Then she nodded.

“I understand,” she said simply. “You’ll be welcome here whenever you wish.”

She turned and walked away, posture steady.

Adam’s refusal had nothing to do with money. It came down to one simple reason.

Freedom.

He had only just come to that realization yesterday when he was discussing with the manager. Being tied to a sector meant obligations, priorities and expectations. Vanessa’s offer wasn’t charity; it was a leash, even if it was wrapped in gold.

She wanted him to put her sector first.

Adam didn’t want that.

He didn’t want to be bound to anything.

The world is too large for that.

Settling in one place, no matter how comfortable, would only slow him down. Hold him back. Turn momentum into stagnation.

His thoughts drifted to that quiet moment on the train, when he’d stared out the window as his home sector faded behind him.

Seems like that time is sooner than I thought.

As for the promises Vanessa had made…

Adam had just stopped fucking a tide.

The rewards from the Mission Hall alone would rival, no, surpass, her offer. And that didn’t even count the monster corpses littering the battlement. If he sold them, he’d have more than enough capital to start his own clan from scratch.

Vanessa knew that.

She hadn’t been naive, just hopeful.

Trying her luck.

Unfortunately for her, Adam wasn’t that gullible.

His gaze shifted back to Dickson’s stone silent and petrified form.

I’m running out of time.

In the next instant, Adam vanished from the spot.

****

Adam reappeared beside the shattered corpse of a gargoyle.

Stone wings lay broken against the battlement, cracks running through its hardened flesh where wind blades had cut too deep. Adam didn’t waste time. To help Dickson, there was only one viable path.

I need a petrification talent.

Not just any gargoyle would do.

Adam moved swiftly, eyes scanning the field of corpses as his senses filtered targets. Mob gargoyles only possessed G rank petrification. Only elite gargoyles carried a proper F-rank Petrification talent.

Adam didn’t know whether Dickson had been petrified by an elite or a mob.

So he chose certainty.

F-rank is the safest option.

Anything lower was unreliable. Anything higher didn’t exist among gargoyles. And he absolutely wasn’t about to sully his slots with a G-rank special talent.

The irony wasn’t lost on him.

Coming from someone who awakened a G-rank cultivation talent… and a rankless special talent.

He found one soon enough.

An elite gargoyle lay half-embedded in the stone, its chest split open, its core shattered cleanly. Adam crouched beside it, hand hovering just above the corpse as his panel flickered faintly in his vision.

Now came the real problem.

Slot space.

Adam’s gaze dropped to his SOUL slots, mentally listing them out.

Rapid E

Poison F

Cultivation D

Freeze F

Mind Control E

His expression tightened.

Which one do I drop?

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