Chapter 382 - Chapter 389: The First Hunt After Awakening (Part 1)

For two days after the strange symbol appeared on his wall, Aether found himself caught in a quiet, persistent temptation. The urge to follow the temporal signal that had left it there pulled at him constantly, a low and insistent hum at the back of his thoughts that refused to fully quiet no matter how deliberately he tried to focus on his training instead. He would be in the middle of a breathing exercise, or halfway through a passage of ancient text, and his mind would drift, unbidden, back to the memory of that frozen candle flame, that whispered voice, that silver clock turning somewhere far beyond his reach.