Kael did not look back at Gateway Exchange.
The building vanished behind him as easily as it had accepted him, it didn't seem like the guards followed, there were no eyes lingered too long, no sign of hostile intent pricked at his senses. From the outside the exchange was just another block of reinforced concrete tucked between warehouses and semi-legitimate offices. A place where money moved, secrets shifted hands, and people pretended not to notice the weight of certain doors closing behind them.
Kael blended into the street.
Evening traffic had begun to thicken. Office workers poured out in uneven waves, faces slack with exhaustion or lit with the fragile relief of being done for the day. Vendors shouted over one another. Engines idled. A distant siren wailed then faded into the city's endless noise.
Kael walked.
He didn't summon the system. Didn't open a status window. Didn't check his balance, even though a sum large enough to change several lives now sat in an account that technically did not exist.
Money was a tool.
Right now, he was interested in observation the world and his powers.
This world felt… thin.
In the tower danger pressed down constantly. The air itself carried intent. Every step demanded calculation. Every mistake demanded blood. Here the city flowed without understanding how close it stood to things it could not fight.
Kael exhaled slowly. His senses stretched.
He did not push them outward like before. That drew attention, even if the source remained unclear. Instead, he let them sink inward then spread sideways slipping between layers of sound and motion, reading patterns rather than people.
The city had rhythms. And right now, one of them was wrong.
He noticed it three blocks later. A gap or alley.
It was an empty space, but if you watch everyone around is avoiding that alley. Some pedestrians unconsciously shifting routes, taxis refusing to slow, shopkeepers watching the street with stiff posture while pretending not to look. The kind of reaction people had when something bad had happened recently and no one wanted to be the next participant.
Kael slowed.
He didn't turn toward the disturbance immediately. Instead, he crossed the street stopped at a convenience stall and pretended to study bottled drinks while his awareness slid outward.
There inside an alley. It was too Narrow. Dim. Too quiet.
Three heartbeats clustered near the entrance. One deeper inside. One more faint, irregular, suppressed by pain.
Kael paid for a bottle he didn't open and walked past the alley without looking.
Two steps beyond the entrance he stopped. And then turned.
Inside the air was stale heavy with damp concrete and old garbage. Light from the street barely reached the far end where shadows piled atop one another like stacked corpses.
The men froze when they saw him.
They hadn't expected interruption. That much was clear from the way one of them flinched shoulders jerking upward as if already preparing for flight. Another tightened his grip on a metal pipe knuckles whitening.
Kael counted again.
Five.
The person on the ground was a woman this time. Mid-twenties. Office clothes torn at the shoulder. Blood trickled from a cut above her eyebrow matting her hair. Her eyes were open but unfocused glassy with shock.
Kael felt something twist in his chest.
Not just anger but also feeling of recognition.
He had seen this look before on people who understood they were powerless but not yet resigned enough to stop hoping.
"Hey" one of the men said forcing bravado into his voice. "This doesn't concern you."
Kael tilted his head slightly.
"It does now."
The words came out calm. Flat. But very threatening.
That made it worse.
One of them laughed nervously. "You some kinda hero or something?"
Kael stepped forward.
The alley seemed to narrow.
No visible force acted on the space, but perception shifted. Distances shortened. Walls felt closer. Sound dampened as if the city itself had decided not to listen.
"Leave" Kael said.
Two of them hesitated. One didn't.
He rushed forward, pipe swinging.
Kael moved.
To anyone watching it would have looked like a blur but that wasn't accurate. Kael didn't move fast. He moved precisely. A half-step sideways. A raised hand. Fingers brushing the man's wrist with barely any pressure at all.
The pipe fell.
The man screamed.
Not because anything was broken but because something fundamental had been disrupted. His body screamed error signals his brain could not interpret.
Kael released him. The man collapsed and sobbing.
The others backed away.
"Get her" Kael said quietly.
They didn't need clarification.
One of them scrambled to lift the woman, nearly dropping her in his haste. They fled down the alley tripping over trash bags and each other, fear driving them faster than logic ever could.
Kael knelt beside the woman.
She was conscious now. Barely.
"You're safe," Kael said.
Her lips trembled. "I... I didn't see…"
"I know and you can forget about it"
He didn't touch her beyond that. Instead, he stood, stepped back and waved down a passing patrol car before slipping away into the crowd.
He was gone before the sirens even started.
That night three separate incidents appeared in police logs.
They didn't connect them.
One alley assault interrupted by an unknown civilian.
One construction-site disturbance where five men reported "pressure hallucinations."
One unexplained collapse of a street gang's hideout after members fled claiming "something invisible was watching."
Different districts. Different times.
Same night.
Kael returned to his apartment after midnight.
He locked the door. Removed his shoes. Sat on the edge of the bed without turning on the lights.
His heartbeat was steady. Too steady.
He realized something then.
The tower had conditioned him.
Not into a monster—but into completely different personalities as a person.
In the tower mercy was inefficient. Violence was currency. Survival required escalation. Here escalation created ripples he could not fully predict.
Kael leaned back and stared at the ceiling.
The system flickered.
It was not a quest or any system awards
It was the message from Shen Yao his master.
Your Power in this world is phenomenal
But there is some Clarification in this Unregulated Environment
And considering the threat level its insufficient for you to grow here, your place is the tower.
Kael exhaled through his nose.
"So, you're watching Master" he murmured.
Yes, your world is beautiful place and very dark like the places you have visited some time ago.
Kael nodded agreeing with his Master.
Across the city conversations began.
Not about Kael about something else.
A hunter forum thread popped up anonymously.
Anyone else feeling weird pressure lately? It did not feel like mana or some curse energy.
Replies trickled in.
-Thought it was just me. -
-My junior collapsed mid-meditation. -
-Guild sensors didn't detect anything. -
Another post appeared on a private guild board.
-Security footage glitching in certain areas. No visible interference. -
A third more cautious message followed.
--Could be an unregistered awakened. --
That one got attention.
At a mid-tier guild office, a woman with sharp eyes and an old scar across her cheek frowned at her monitor.
"Run it again" she said.
Her assistant swallowed. "Ma'am we already did. There's no mana spike. No resonance. Nothing."
"Then why did five men drop like they were crushed?" she asked.
Silence.
She leaned back slowly.
"Flag it" she said. "Quietly."
Kael dreamed that night.
Not of the tower but the city.
In the dream streets folded inward like pages closing around him. Buildings leaned too close. Faces blurred together, mouths moving without sound. Above it all something vast shifted attention without eyes.
He woke before dawn. The dream was gone.
By morning rumours had spread further.
There was nothing concrete evidence and nothing can be provable.
Just enough to unsettle the people who knew what to look for.
Kael stood at his window, watching the city wake.
He felt it then.
His own presence. Not only near here or there but all over city of Genova.
"Not enough, I need more strength".
Someone somewhere had noticed the ripples that was Shen Yao his master.
And they were staring at the tower.
Kael smiled faintly.
"Let's get into the business of fighting" he said.
Tonight, he would return to the tower.
But the world had already changed.
Not because it had seen him but because it had felt him and failed to understand.
"Lets head back to the tower"