Lin Ye left the imperial city behind without looking back—not because he didn't care, but because he had learned something essential since Khaelor: staring at a place for too long was a way of anchoring it, and he could no longer afford unnecessary anchors.
The Empire had "granted him freedom," a word that, in Zhao Wen's mouth, sounded exactly like test, exactly like bait. Still, Lin Ye accepted it. Because if the board had expanded to a continental scale, hiding was not a strategy—it was merely postponing capture.
The road led him east, along less-traveled routes, through villages and waystations where imperial authority felt more like a shadow than a hand. His gray plaque was not a magical talisman that disarmed enemies or opened portals; it was an administrative seal. But in a world where doors closed out of suspicion and guards asked about bloodlines before names, an administrative seal could save your life without anyone noticing.
The first days were quiet. There was no visible pursuit. No messengers arrived. No troops appeared. From experience, Lin Ye knew that this kind of calm was the most deceptive. He walked with his ear tuned to the rhythm of the world, searching for the kind of error that never appears on a map: a bird repeating the same turn twice, a shadow falling the wrong way, a conversation that spoke of the future in the past tense.
It was on the fourth day that the vibration of the fragmented clock changed. It didn't grow stronger—only more… precise. As if the mechanism, accustomed to the dissonance of Khaelor, were now distinguishing between ordinary noise and a specific melody.
Lin Ye stopped atop a low rise from which he could see a medium-sized walled city, with watchtowers and banners bearing no direct imperial emblems. It was a transit city, built at the crossroads of trade routes linking three minor domains. It wasn't under direct imperial control, but it lay firmly within its influence—the kind of place where taxes were negotiated, clans competed in silence, and hidden factions recruited through gambling halls and tea houses.
The fragmented clock pulsed once, softly, almost cordially.
Lin Ye descended.
At the gate, a guard stopped him, raising a hand.
"Identification."
Lin Ye produced the gray plaque and showed it without exaggeration. The guard examined it; his expression shifted slightly, and he immediately looked away.
"You may pass."
"You don't ask for my name?" Lin Ye asked—not out of curiosity, but to gauge the atmosphere.
The guard hesitated.
"With that plaque, I am not supposed to ask questions."
Lin Ye entered the city.
The bustle was ordinary: vendors shouting prices, carts creaking, children running. Yet beneath the noise there was a tense pulse, as if the entire city were breathing carefully. In a nearby market, a man argued with a merchant because the weight of the coins seemed to change depending on who held them. On a corner, an old woman repeated the same sentence to a different passerby each time, swearing she had already seen him, that they had already had that conversation.
Lin Ye walked slowly, letting himself be carried by the flow of people like any ordinary traveler. But his mind was elsewhere, measuring fissures.
The fragmented clock did not open. It only pointed—like a trained hound scenting a trail.
The trail led him to a narrow side street, lined with old stone houses and wooden balconies. A door stood ajar there, and voices could be heard inside.
Lin Ye stopped in front of the entrance, pretending to adjust his belt. The conversation was low, but clear.
"…they say the 'error' is moving freely. That the Empire let it go."
"And who says that?"
"The Black Ink Channel. They're never wrong. If they released it, it's because they want to see what it breaks… or who it drags down."
"Then we'll capture it first."
"Don't be an idiot. If you capture it, the Empire tears your head off."
"Not if it disappears. Not if we sell it to whoever is really looking for it."
A heavy silence settled.
"The House of Ashes?" the second voice whispered.
"Shh."
The fragmented clock pulsed once, sharp as a needle sinking in.
Lin Ye stepped away from the door and continued walking calmly, as if he had heard nothing. His heart, however, beat faster. The House of Ashes was not a name he had ever heard on the Southern Front. That made it worse—because it meant there were factions so old or so hidden that even the imperial camp did not name them.
He walked two more streets and entered a crowded tea house—not out of hunger or thirst, but out of necessity. He ordered a bitter infusion and sat at a side table from which he could see the entrance and the reflection of the patrons in a stained mirror.
Minutes later, three men entered. They didn't look like a military unit or a band of thieves. They wore traveler's clothing with no insignia and carried discreet weapons. They moved with coordination, without looking at one another too much, like people trained to act ordinary.
Lin Ye didn't move a muscle. The Silent Thunder within him did not react—that was a good sign. They weren't attacking yet. They were confirming.
One of the men sat at a nearby table, pretending to order tea. Another leaned against the wall by the entrance. The third walked to the counter, asked the owner a question, then turned his head slightly… toward Lin Ye.
He didn't look at him directly. He merely measured.
Lin Ye held his cup without trembling. He had learned in Khaelor that fear altered internal rhythm—and internal rhythm, for him, was a beacon.
The fragmented clock vibrated silently.
Lin Ye felt a faint irregularity behind his ear, like a whisper that wasn't sound. It was spatial memory recognizing a possible path: a route to the kitchen, a narrow corridor, a back door.
The perception was new—and dangerous. He couldn't use it as a portal. He could only sense which path space itself "remembered" as easiest.
The man at the counter returned to his table. The three of them remained still, as if waiting for a signal.
Then the signal arrived.
A young man entered the tea house, dressed in clothes too clean for the street, holding a fan. An emblem was embroidered on his chest: a circle divided by a diagonal line—the symbol of a mid-ranking local merchant clan. He walked with casual arrogance, accustomed to people stepping aside. As he passed Lin Ye, his fan opened, and for an instant Lin Ye saw the inside: a tiny rune, etched in metallic ink.
An identification seal.
Lin Ye understood immediately. The young man wasn't the hunter.
He was the marker.
The rune on the fan was designed to fix an anomalous presence and allow others to follow it.
The fragmented clock vibrated sharply.
Lin Ye stood up, calm.
"Are you finished?" the tea house owner asked with automatic politeness.
"Yes," Lin Ye replied. "Thank you."
He paid the exact amount—no more, no less—and walked toward the exit as if he were in no hurry.
The three men moved.
They didn't attack inside the tea house. That confirmed the rumor: they feared the Empire. They wanted to capture him outside, where a disappearance could look like an accident or a common brawl.
Lin Ye stepped outside and felt the cool air. He took ten steps. Then twenty. He reached a narrow alley connecting to a secondary street. The crowd there was thinner—perfect for a quick abduction.
The fragmented clock pulsed.
Lin Ye stopped.
Footsteps behind him.
"Friend," said a friendly voice that was not friendly, "are you lost?"
Lin Ye didn't turn around.
"No," he replied. "But I think you are."
The three men appeared at the end of the alley. The one from the counter smiled.
"We just want to talk. There are people interested in someone like you."
"There are always people interested," Lin Ye said.
The man raised his hands, feigning peace.
"We won't hurt you if you cooperate."
Lin Ye studied the details: posture, breathing, micro-tension. One was a low-level Internal Pulse cultivator. Another, perhaps mid-level. The third… the third was different. His aura was concealed, but not absent. He was someone accustomed to hiding even from detection systems.
Lin Ye felt the Silent Thunder tighten within him, as if sensing an intent to restrain.
He didn't move.
"Who sent you?" Lin Ye asked.
"A house that appreciates curiosities," the leader said. "The House of Ashes."
The words fell with weight.
Lin Ye exhaled.
"I see."
The leader took a step forward.
"Then come with us."
Lin Ye closed his eyes.
For an instant, he did not try to steal time. He did not try to freeze anything. What he did was more dangerous—and slower: he searched the memory of space for the most remembered path out of the alley. He found it—a faint line connecting a point to his right with the edge of the secondary street, as if many people had turned there before.
It wasn't a portal.
It was an impulse.
Lin Ye opened his eyes and stepped to the right.
Space shortened the distance.
It didn't teleport him. It simply allowed his body to traverse that span with less resistance, like sliding down an invisible slope. To anyone watching, it would have looked like a quick movement—an impossibly efficient step.
The men reacted too late.
"Now!" one shouted.
A spiritual cord shot out, aiming to wrap around Lin Ye's torso. The moment the cord touched his aura—or the absence of it—the Silent Thunder intervened.
There was no lightning.
No thunderclap.
Only a cut.
The cord lost coherence and fell to the ground like dead thread. The cultivator who had cast it shuddered, as if struck by a shock without electricity.
Lin Ye ran.
Not because he was faster—but because he had created a minimal delay. Enough.
The leader growled and extended his hand. A blocking technique tried to seal Lin Ye's path from ahead. The air hardened, as if the alley itself were closing.
Lin Ye felt the fragmented clock react. A minor dead instant formed at the edge of the blockade—a microsecond discarded by reality as it tried to correct the technique.
Lin Ye didn't take it.
He didn't steal it.
He only touched it with his intent, like brushing the edge of a blade without gripping it. The Still Fire, passive, dampened the collapse. The blockade weakened for a heartbeat—just enough for Lin Ye to slip through.
He burst onto the secondary street.
People screamed when they saw him running, thinking he was a thief or an ordinary fugitive. The hunters emerged after him, shoving passersby aside, but it was too late—the city was a living labyrinth.
Lin Ye didn't run toward the main gate. That would have been predictable. Instead, he followed a route the space suggested through faint echoes: alleys where passage felt easier, corners where distance seemed compressed, remembered trajectories.
It wasn't speed.
It was efficiency.
In less than a minute, he reached a warehouse district at the city's edge. People were scarce there. Lin Ye stopped behind a stone wall and took a deep breath.
The fragmented clock vibrated strongly, and for an instant he felt his vision wanting to unfold into layers—but he restrained it. He couldn't afford more.
He heard footsteps approaching.
"We lost him," one of the hunters said, frustrated.
"We didn't lose him," the leader replied coldly. "We marked him."
Lin Ye brought a hand to his chest.
He remembered the young man with the fan.
The marker.
If he was marked, running was only temporary. The House of Ashes didn't need to chase him now; it could let him exhaust himself and capture him when he let his guard down.
Lin Ye looked at the gray plaque beneath his tunic.
The Empire said it had "freed" him.
But if a faction dared to mark him in a city under imperial influence, it meant they did not fully fear the Empire—or that they had ways to move around its authority.
In that moment, Lin Ye understood something that chilled him more than any temporal distortion.
The enemy was not only the collapse of the world.
It was those who wanted to own that collapse.
The fragmented clock beat once.
As if in approval.
Lin Ye straightened, calming his breathing.
He wasn't going to run forever.
Nor was he going to crawl back to the Empire asking for rescue.
If he was marked, then he would do the only thing he had learned since the beginning: make a small, silent, irreversible decision—one that would change the board.
Lin Ye stepped out of hiding and walked deeper into the warehouse district with steady steps.
If they were following him, then he would lead them.
Not into a trap of power.
But into a place where the world was already cracked… and where a house of hunters would learn too late that not everything you capture survives intact.