Rain rolled softly across the rooftops of House Valerius while the manor slept beneath the weight of midnight silence.
The storm had swallowed the estate hours ago. Wind moved through the outer gardens in low whispers, rattling branches against stone walls while distant thunder grumbled somewhere beyond the mountains.
Inside Kael’s chambers, the fireplace had gone cold.
Only pale moonlight remained.
Kael sat cross-legged on the floor near the center of the room with his eyes closed and his breathing slow. The curtains had been drawn shut. The doors locked.
Every servant was dismissed hours earlier.
The Murim master stood nearby with unusual stillness. No mockery. No sarcasm. No complaints about modern swordsmanship. For the first time since Kael met him, the old ghost looked entirely serious.
“Once we begin,” the old man said quietly, “we cannot stop.”
Kael kept his eyes closed.
“I’ll do my best to experience spiritual collapse professionally.”
“This is not a joke.”
The sharpness in the old master’s voice erased the humor immediately.
Silence settled across the room.
Then the ghost stepped closer.
“Close your eyes. Slow your breathing. Do not force anything yet.”
Kael obeyed.
Inside the palace of his mind, the garden pathways fell silent.
The library doors closed.
The armory darkened.
Everything focused inward.
“Listen to the room,” the old master instructed.
Rain.
Wind.
Old wood creaking beneath distant pressure.
Then—
movement.
Not physical.
Kael’s breathing slowed further as he sensed the mana drifting invisibly through the room. Calm. Passive. Stable.
“Now look deeper.”
Kael focused harder.
Nothing happened.
Several seconds passed.
Still nothing.
Kael frowned slightly.
“I’m trying,” he muttered quietly. “Nothing is happ–”
Then, abruptly—
Everything happened, all at once.
The calm surface of ambient mana split apart violently.
Pain detonated through Kael’s skull as something beneath the stable currents surged into his awareness like a screaming flood hidden beneath still water.
The room twisted sideways.
His body convulsed violently.
Agony exploded through his chest as freezing heat flooded through his veins. His heartbeat stumbled while static erupted behind his eyes hard enough to blur his vision instantly.
The mana did not flow naturally.
It clawed.
The unstable energy slammed into him with violent pressure while every instinct screamed at him to reject it.
His lungs spasmed painfully.
His vision darkened.
The energy felt alive.
Not conscious—
but reactive.
Wild.
“Hold steady!” the old master barked sharply.
Kael nearly lost concentration immediately.
The pressure intensified.
Inside his mind, the palace—
The library shook violently.
Books crashed from shelves.
Corridors twisted.
The unstable energy surged through his thoughts like floodwater smashing through walls.
Then the screaming memories rose with it.
Fragments.
Nightmares.
Ghost voices buried deep within the palace clawed upward beneath the pressure.
Kael’s concentration shattered further.
Kael screamed in his mind, STOP. He knew if the system intervened, all his hardwork would amount to nothing.
Luckily, as the energy surged harder—
—Suddenly, the palace reacted.
The shelves were reorganized.
The corridors shifted.
The screaming fragments were dragged violently into rooms and sealed behind reinforced doors.
Categorized.
Contained.
Ordered.
The raw energy hesitated.
The Murim master froze.
For the first time since Kael had met him, genuine shock crossed the old monster’s face. The unstable current surged again, trying to spread chaotically through Kael’s consciousness, and the palace redirected it automatically.
Then the processed energy began settling in his dantian.
Kael gasped sharply.
The pain lessened.
Not gone but now manageable.
The old master stared.
“…Impossible.”
Kael barely heard him.
The energy still burned through his body like molten ice, but now it moved according to imposed patterns rather than chaos.
The old master’s voice had gone quiet.
The unstable current continued circulating.
Kael suddenly coughed violently, and blood splattered across the floorboards.
The energy surged harder. Pain ripped through his chest while his pulse became dangerously erratic.
“Too much,” the old master snapped immediately. “Release the excess!”
Kael tried, but the energy resisted.
It had latched onto the circulation pattern forming within the palace itself. The pressure continued compressing violently toward the center of his body.
His vision blurred.
The room tilted sideways.
Then suddenly—
Everything went dark.