Chapter 110: Evendur Redwyn (4)

Evendur’s face returned to its passive, wooden state as Orel’s questions settled into the core of his mind. He couldn’t deny it; he deeply wanted the answers to both—the the location of his son and state of mind, but he knew Orel too well. There was no way the man would offer such forbidden knowledge without demanding something in return.

“There is no need, Orel. My spies will tell me what I want to hear soon enough,” he replied with practiced unconcern.

Orel merely chuckled, the sound light but carrying a weight that made the air in the room feel thin. He rose to his feet, smoothing out his robes.

“I don’t ask for favors every time I offer a gift, Evendur. I’m sure you remember that. But then again,” he sighed, offering a nonchalant shrug as he turned toward the window. “If your spies are capable of telling you that your son now cultivates two distinct energies simultaneously… then I suppose you really don’t need my help.”

Evendur’s fists clenched, his knuckles turning white as the roar of curiosity nearly drowned out his restraint. He felt the impulse to lung forward, to demand the truth, but he didn’t give in. He remained a statue, even as his mind began to spiral at the impossibility Orel had just whispered into existence.

Two energies? It was a death sentence for any cultivator, a feat that should have caused Daren’s meridians to shatter into obsidian dust the moment he attempted to understand their diverse cultivation paths.

But he had no time to voice his disbelief.

Because in the next moment, the air in the room grew impossibly heavy. A shadow, vast and ancient, swept over the manor, momentarily blotting out the sun and plunging the office into an artificial eclipse. Then came the sound—not a chirp or a flutter, but a rhythmic, thundering beat that rattled the very foundations of the city.

“Ah, right on time,” Orel sighed, looking toward the window with the bored expression of a man waiting for a delayed carriage.

Evendur stepped toward the balcony, his instincts screaming in a way he hadn’t felt in centuries. High above, circling the spires of the estate, were the birds Orel had mentioned.

Three High-Ascendant Dragons, their scales shimmering like liquid gold against the darkening sky, their wingspans wide enough to drape entire districts in shadow.

To the rest of the world, they were gods of destruction, harbingers of the Patriarch’s absolute will. To Orel, they were merely a nuisance sent to collect him.

“They’re getting impatient, Eve,” Orel said, stepping onto the ledge of the balcony. The wind whipped his robes, but his feet remained anchored by a weight that defied gravity. “Don’t spend too much time clenching your fists. If you want to catch a ghost, you’ll need to stop acting like a corpse.”

With a casual step into the open air, Orel vanished. Not into the sky, but into a ripple of distorted space, leaving the three gold-scaled titans to let out a collective, earth-shaking roar before they banked toward the horizon, following a trail only they could see.

Evendur stared at the sky long after the golden trail of the dragons had faded into the horizon. His eyes flashed with fractured thoughts, a silent storm raging behind his pupils. He tried to consciously restrict his mind, attempting to wall off the implications and the brutal consequences his estranged son would face on a dual-cultivation path.

But no matter how high he built his mental fortifications, one absolute truth pierced through:

Daren was cultivating the Void.

It was the same entropy his mother had sacrificed her life to seal—the same ravenous energy that had twisted Daren’s personality into something unappealing during his youth.

Evendur felt the weight of his newly formed decision like a shroud. He knew it deep within his marrow, a certainty as fixed as the stars: if Daren ever returned to the kingdom, if he ever stepped foot back in his home, he would have to kill him. Not out of hatred, but as a final, mercy-less act of containment.

****

“Did you feel that?” Aden whispered as he moved through streets transformed by a sudden surge of commerce; newly erected stalls lined each side, their colorful awnings shielding merchants who shouted advertisements in a chaotic blend of languages.

Puddles still clung to the dips in the cobblestone, reflecting the gray sky above, but the dampness couldn’t dampen the energy of the city. The subtle improvements like the smell of fresh cedar from the new stalls and the rhythmic clatter of more frequent trade—spoke of an unseen hand subtly improving the impoverished land.

’Feel what?’ the Entity asked, its voice a quiet, resonant hum that vibrated only within the marrow of Aden’s bones.

“…Everything,” Aden replied.

He turned left into a narrow alleyway, the sounds of the main thoroughfare instantly muffled by the heavy, rhythmic thud of dwarven hammers. A crew of dwarves was systematically demolishing a skeletal old building, their stone-shaping tools turning ancient mortar into fine, gray mist.

The urban reformation had happened a few weeks ago, precisely four months since Elara had left Grey-Rock after she failed in capturing him and satiating her toxic curiosity. He couldn’t be sure, but he had a feeling that she had something to do with it.

The rare materials, the veteran dwarven stonemasons, and the high-grade reinforcements all arrived in crates stamped with the same emblem: a Griffon with wings like blades.

Aden had some sort of understanding about the king. Her father wouldn’t spare a single copper for a border town while the Capital’s spires could be taller. He was equally certain his eldest brother, Kaelen, wouldn’t have ordered this, not after the humiliating memories Aden had branded into his mind during their last encounter. Kaelen would sooner see Grey-Rock burn than see it thrive.

That left only Elara.

As he watched a dwarven foreman direct the placement of a massive, spirit-treated support beam, Aden looked for the snare. He waited for the Entity to hiss about a tracking array or a hidden Resonance tether woven into the masonry.

But there was only the steady, honest hum of construction.

Aden’s gaze softened as he looked at a group of children playing near a fountain that hadn’t worked in decades, now gushing with clear, magically purified water. This wasn’t a scheme to cage him or a breadcrumb trail to find him. It was an apology.

’Does she think this will change anything?,’ he remarked, though his voice lacked that characteristic cold edge.

’At least you still remember the reason she’s doing this,’ the Entity cut in. ’Though it would have been best if a more useful memory would have taken its place.’

Aden didn’t answer. He stepped over a fresh puddle, his boots clicking softly on the new cobblestones. He reached out and ran a hand over a wall marked with the bladed-griffon seal. The stone was cool, solid, and held no malice.

“It’s just stone,” Aden muttered, pulling his hood lower. “But at least the people won’t freeze this winter because of a girl’s whim.”

“Since when did you care for anything that doesn’t benefit you?” the Entity asked, its voice vibrating with a low, amused thrum in the back of his mind.

Aden shrugged, his gaze lingering on a newly mended storefront. “Maybe refraining from using my Void energy will slow it down. Maybe it’ll even return me to my old self.”

“Child,” the Entity replied, the amusement vanishing into a cold, clinical weight. “There is no ’old self’ to return to. You can only delay the transformation but there is absolutely no way you canreverse the erasure.”

The Entity’s words shoved the jagged edge of reality directly into his face. The Void didn’t just change a person; it unmade them, link by link, until only the Abyss remained.

“I have a lot to say, but I will not be having this conversation,” Aden muttered, his voice tightening as he quickened his pace. “At least, not today.”

The Entity didn’t care to push further. After all, it had already planted the seed of doubt, and that was enough. It had spent every waking moment ensuring Aden never grew too comfortable, never allowed his focus to soften into the complacency of a normal life. Without the constant, agonizing refinement of his body and mind, Aden wouldn’t just lose his edge, he would be consumed by the very power he sought to delay.

The Entity had ensured Aden cultivated his Resonance energy with brutal efficiency. Due to those relentless efforts, Aden had finally broken through to the first stage of the Harmonic Realm. Yet, despite the Entity pushing him to test the limits of his new rank, Aden refused. He held back with a stubbornness even the ancient presence within him couldn’t fully fathom.

The silence that followed was heavy, a reminder that even when the Entity wasn’t speaking, it was watching, measuring the strength of the vessel it called home.

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