Chapter 211: Listen Before You Exist

Damon nodded silently.

Not because he was confident—far from it—but because, for the first time since that feeling of being watched had begun to haunt him, he understood where the problem lay.

It wasn’t a lack of strength.

It wasn’t a lack of technique.

It was a lack of perception.

Esther stepped back a few paces, planting the spear in the ground with a calm movement.

“Let’s increase the difficulty,” she said. “Feeling still is easy. The world doesn’t give you that luxury.”

She made a brief gesture with her hand.

“Walk.”

Damon took a deep breath and took the first step.

Immediately, everything became more confusing.

The simple act of moving his body caused his Qi to fluctuate. His attention was fragmented between maintaining balance, observing the uneven terrain, controlling his breathing… and yet, trying to feel something that had no form or sound.

The presences that had previously seemed like stable blurs now blurred, intersected, disappeared, and reappeared.

He frowned.

“It’s… fading,” he murmured.

“Because you’re trying to hold back the Qi,” Esther replied. “You walk as if you’re carrying something fragile. Don’t carry it. Wear it.”

Damon slowed his pace.

Wear it.

The word echoed in his mind.

He let the Qi flow not outward, but around—like a second skin, thin, almost imperceptible. It wasn’t aggressive expansion. It was acceptance.

The effect was immediate.

The presences became defined again, albeit blurred. He stumbled on a root, but didn’t fall. Before he even saw it, his body had reacted.

Lily, sitting on a low branch, watched with genuine interest now, her legs dangling slowly.

“He’s learning too fast,” she commented. “It makes me uncomfortable.”

“He’s making mistakes too quickly,” Ester corrected. “This is different.”

Damon moved a few more meters forward.

A faint presence moved quickly to the right—a small animal, perhaps a rodent. Another, more steady, was above, in the branches. A bird, too still.

Then…

Something changed.

It wasn’t a new presence.

It was an absence.

Damon stopped.

His heart raced.

“Ester,” he said softly. “Something… is wrong.”

She didn’t answer.

That in itself was an answer.

Damon closed his eyes, trying not to force it, just to feel.

The space ahead seemed… too empty. Like a hole in the tangle of auras. It wasn’t a lack of life—it was something erasing its own presence.

Cold sweat trickled down his neck.

“That,” said Esther, suddenly appearing beside him, her voice almost touching his ear, “is someone trained.”

Damon jumped involuntarily.

“Damn it—!”

She stepped back before he could react.

“You felt the absence,” she continued. “Not the presence. That’s advanced.”

Lily leaped from the branch, landing on the ground with a sharp smile.

“So I’m not the only one who can do that,” she remarked. “What a disappointment.”

Esther gave him a brief look.

“You exaggerate.”

“It’s my charm.”

Damon breathed heavily.

“That… that was you?” he asked.

“It was,” Esther confirmed. “And it was on purpose.”

She positioned herself a few feet away.

“Now you know what to look for. Most people die because they look too hard.”

She took a step forward.

“Close your eyes again.”

Damon hesitated, but obeyed.

“I won’t attack you,” she said. “Not yet.”

That didn’t help.

Damon’s world was reduced to sensations again. The Qi around him. The familiar presences. The uneven flow of the forest.

Then Ester began to move.

There was no sound.

No aura “shouted” her position.

But Damon felt it.

Not a fixed point—a displacement. As if space were being pressed, slightly, as she approached.

He turned his body at the right moment.

Ester was there, two steps away, the spear stopped inches from his shoulder.

She didn’t advance any further.

“Good,” she said.

Damon opened his eyes, his heart almost leaping out of his chest.

“That… that was different,” he murmured. “I didn’t see it. I… followed it.”

“Exactly,” Ester replied. “You don’t react to the attack. You react to the intention.”

She lowered her spear.

“Now let’s complicate things.”

Lily grinned widely.

“Oh, yes.”

Ester gave her a warning look.

“Don’t overdo it.”

“I promise nothing.”

Damon felt their Qi shift before he could even hear anything.

Lily disappeared first.

Not literally—she just moved away too quickly for the eyes to follow, her aura fragmenting into multiple unstable points, as if she were in several places at once.

Ester followed the opposite path.

Her presence became even more compact, almost a moving void.

Damon swallowed hard.

“You two are cruel,” he said.

“Learning hurts,” Ester replied.

Then they both moved.

Damon’s world turned to chaos.

Presences crossing paths, disappearing, reappearing. His Qi almost completely disorganized, but he forced himself not to try to control it. Just feel it.

Something came from the left—fast, erratic. Lily.

He turned to the right side, but not fast enough. Something tugged at his collar, making him spin.

“Slow,” Lily sang, amused.

Before he could respond, something heavy came from the front.

Ester.

Damon instinctively recoiled, feeling the pressure in the air before the spear passed where his torso had been a moment before.

He stumbled, rolled on the ground, and stood up in an awkward movement.

It wasn’t pretty.

But he was alive.

“You’re thinking again,” Ester said.

“It’s hard not to think when two people are trying to kill me!” Damon retorted.

“No one’s trying to kill you,” Lily corrected. “Yet.”

Damon growled.

He took a deep breath, ignoring the pain in his body, ignoring the frustration.

Feel.

Don’t control.

Wear the Qi.

He let the tension go.

The effect was almost immediate.

The chaos didn’t disappear—but it began to make sense.

Lily was unpredictable, but her Qi always “jumped” before changing direction. Ester was silent, but the space adjusted around her.

Patterns.

He moved before he thought.

He dodged Lily instinctively.

He ducked when he felt Ester’s pressure.

He rolled, stood up, almost fell—but didn’t.

The training lasted minutes that felt like hours.

When Ester finally raised her hand, signaling the end, Damon fell to the floor, panting, his whole body trembling.

“That’s enough for today,” she said.

Lily sat down beside him, surprisingly serious.

“You’re going to feel pain in places you didn’t know existed,” she commented. “Congratulations.”

Damon laughed, breathless.

“I can’t wait.”

Esther watched him silently.

“You learn fast,” she said again. “But don’t fool yourself.”

She crouched in front of him.

“This here,” she lightly touched his chest, “isn’t a trick. It’s survival. If you relax, you die.”

Damon nodded.

“I know.”

She stood up.

“Tomorrow,” she continued, “we’ll do this while you fight.”

Damon groaned.

“Of course we will.”

Lily smiled.

“I’ll bring popcorn.”

The sun was already higher when the training ended. The forest seemed… different now.

Fuller. More alive.

More dangerous.

Damon walked back to the mansion with slow steps, but his perception didn’t switch off. Every presence, every variation in the air, every small imbalance now caught his attention.

And, for the first time…

The feeling of being watched wasn’t just fear.

It was information.

The next day dawned differently.

Not in the sky—which followed the same pale pattern, with thin clouds slowly dissipating—but in Damon.

He woke up even before the first sound of the mansion emerged. Before the servants’ footsteps, before the distant creaking of doors, before any routine tried to impose itself. His body ached in a strange way, not like after a regular workout, but as if forgotten muscles had been forcibly awakened.

The worst part wasn’t the pain.

It was the feeling of continuity.

Even with his eyes open, even conscious, there was something… extended. A residue of perception that hadn’t completely switched off during sleep. It wasn’t focus—it was like a constant background noise, a murmur of presences that didn’t demand active attention.

This unsettled him.

Damon sat up in bed and ran a hand over his face, taking a deep breath.

“Great,” he murmured. “I’ll break the record for functional insanity.”

When he reached the forest, Esther was already there.

As always.

She stood motionless near the same clearing, her spear resting vertically on the ground, both hands resting on the top of the shaft. Her eyes were half-closed, not in meditation, but in passive vigilance—like someone who never truly “switches off.”

Lily appeared shortly after, chewing on something undefined.

“Good morning to everyone except whoever decided to wake me up early,” she said. “Which, in this case, was you, Esther.”

“You woke up on your own,” Esther replied, without looking. “Your Qi changes when you’re bored.”

Lily made an indignant sound. “That’s energetic slander.”

Damon stopped a few feet from them.

“I didn’t switch off,” he said without preamble.

Ester opened her eyes.

“Explain.”

“The perception,” he continued. “Not completely. I slept, I dreamed… but it was like something was… switched on in the background.”

Lily blinked, intrigued.

“Oh. That’s quick.”

Ester studied Damon’s face for a few seconds.

“It’s not common,” she said. “But it’s not wrong either.”

She took a step forward.

“The mistake would be trying to keep it on purpose,” she added. “Your body did it on its own. Good sign.”

“Why?”

“Because it means you’re not forcing it,” she replied. “Forcing it breaks people. Consistency shapes survivors.”

She turned and began walking into the woods.

“Today, we’re going to complicate things.”

Damon sighed.

“Of course we are.”

The forest seemed noisier that day. Or perhaps he was just more attentive.

Each step sinking slightly into the damp ground, the distant sound of wings, the almost imperceptible movement of small animals among the leaves. Everything had been there before—but now there was a connection between things. Cause and effect. Movement and response.

Ester stopped suddenly.

“How many presences?”

Damon closed his eyes for a moment.

He didn’t spread his Qi like the day before.

He just… listened.

“Many,” he said. “But… two are wrong.”

Lily raised an eyebrow.

“Wrong how?”

“They’re… too quiet,” Damon replied slowly. “Not like you. Not like Ester. It’s… emptiness trying to appear solid.”

Lily’s smile vanished.

Ester nodded once.

“Good definition.”

She raised her hand.

Immediately, the forest seemed to hold its breath.

“Today,” Esther said, “you won’t passively feel.”

She pointed at Damon.

“You will move. And you will maintain perception.”

Damon swallowed hard.

“Walk?”

“Run,” she corrected.

Before he could answer, Esther threw a small pebble to the right.

The sound was faint.

But the Qi… wasn’t.

Damon moved instinctively, dodging backward, his heart racing.

Something passed where he had been.

Quickly.

Silently.

Lily clapped her hands, excited.

“Ahhh, that was elegant.”

Damon turned, spear already in hand.

“That wasn’t part of the deal!”

“It was,” Esther replied calmly. “You just didn’t read the fine print.”

She moved.

Damon felt it.

Don’t attack him.

The intention before it existed.

He ducked, rolling on the ground, feeling the blade of wind created by Esther’s spear cut through the air above his head.

He didn’t react thinking.

He reacted beforehand.

When he stood up, he was panting.

“You…” he began.

“You’re alive,” Esther finished. “Good progress.”

She took a few steps back.

“Now, maintain this while you attack.”

Damon blinked.

“Attack you?”

“Yes.”

“I like her,” Lily commented. “But not that much.”

Damon advanced.

Not fast.

Not strong.

Present.

He felt the weight of his own body, the air resistance, the slight shift in Esther’s Qi before each micro-adjustment. His spear didn’t find its target—but it wasn’t completely ignored either.

Esther blocked.

She took a half-step back. That was enough for Damon to realize.

“You felt it,” he said, surprised.

“Yes,” Ester replied. “For the first time.”

She lowered her weapon.

“And that’s all for today.”

Damon almost fell to his knees.

“That was… just that?”

“Your system is still adjusting,” she explained. “If we push it, you’ll confuse perception with paranoia.”

Lily approached and nudged his shoulder.

“You did better than I expected.”

“You expected me to die?” Damon asked, exhausted.

“I expected you to scream more.”

Ester turned to leave.

“Tomorrow,” she said, “we’ll work under distraction.”

Damon groaned.

“Can I at least know what that means?”

She glanced over her shoulder.

“It means the world won’t stop for you to feel danger.”

She disappeared among the trees.

Lily followed soon after, humming.

Damon stood alone in the clearing for a few seconds, breathing deeply.

He closed his eyes.

He felt it.

The world was no longer silent.

But, for the first time, it didn’t feel overwhelming.

It felt… legible.

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