Velmora's skyline glowed in the twilight, and the air smelled of fresh rain and jasmine, a scent that lingered on the cobblestones. As Tre Sorelle Velmora's grand opening ended and the last nobles, guild leaders, and wine-soaked aristocrats left, crickets hummed softly.
The city was full of praise. By all accounts, the event was a huge success.
But Lady Micah Sorelle didn't care.
She was beyond livid.
No, livid was too soft a word.
She was a one-woman battalion marching back to the Lotus Isles Hotel like she was about to personally declare war on a continent.
Her heels struck the polished tiles with a sharp, steady rhythm.
The staff quickly moved aside. Smart move.
Behind her, Borris and Rob stood rooted to the cobblestones like ornamental statues— trading helpless glances like two soldiers who'd just watched their commander get possessed by a vengeance spirit.
They came with visible sweat and the unmistakable aura of "We've seen some shit."
Micah had just marched off like a divine tempest in heels, and neither of them was brave or stupid enough to follow.
Rob leaned slightly toward Borris, his voice hushed, as if he were reporting from a war zone. "I vote we do not go after her."
"Seconded," Borris grunted, not blinking. "She's got that 'I will personally castrate the next person who breathes wrong' look."
"She's gonna blast that 'Do Not Disturb' sign," Rob added. "With eye contact."
There was a long pause.
"Should we alert Lord Charlemagne?" Rob asked.
Borris gave him a side glance. "He's either dead, unconscious, or wishing he was both."
They stood still, then slowly stepped backward.
One step, then another. Just enough to keep themselves safe.
Rob nodded solemnly. "Tactical withdrawal. Very elite."
Borris grunted again. "Smart move number two."
Rob crossed his arms. "She's got that 'Heads will roll' look."
They didn't know exactly what was going to happen behind that penthouse door.
But one thing was certain.
They sure as hell weren't going to be witnesses.
Micah didn't take the elevator.
She stormed up all twelve flights of stairs to the penthouse. Rage burned more calories than cardio ever would.
Yet with each step, a flicker of doubt tried to find space amidst her anger. What if this wasn't the grand betrayal it felt like? What if she was overreacting, letting the shadows of past partnerships gone wrong cloud her judgment? But as quickly as they came, she crushed these doubts under the weight of determination.
Charles had crossed a line, and she needed answers.
"I am NOT just a pretty ribbon on your franchise," she hissed aloud. "I'm not your secretary. Not your pawn. And I am sure as hell not your doormat."
By the time she reached Charles's floor, she was panting—but the fury kept her upright.
She knocked.
No answer.
She pounded.
Still nothing.
A few feet away, Alina, the service manager of the Lotus Isles of Vermillion Grace Hotel, stood frozen. Only the porcelain tray of lotus blossom tea in her hands showed any movement, trembling as steam curled into the air.
She had seen some dramatic clients in her years working at this elite establishment. Nobles, rogue alchemists, even one time a traveling opera diva who demanded every room be tuned to her vocal resonance.
But nothing had prepared her for the force of nature that was Lady Micah Sorelle.
"Lady Micah," Alina said, her voice carefully diplomatic, trying not to spook the beast, "Lord Charlemagne left very specific instructions. He's... not to be disturbed. He hasn't emerged from the suite in over forty-eight hours. He, uh, mentioned... training purposes."
Micah turned.
That single pivot of her heel could've split the marble floor.
Her eyes narrowed with focus. Her emerald eyes seemed to turn steely with anger.
Alina instinctively took a half-step back, clutching the tray like a shield. "...Would you like the tea?"
"I need the spare key," Micah said, voice dangerously calm.
Alina blinked. "I...I'm not sure I'm authorized—"
Micah took one step forward.
That was all.
Just one.
But her qi flared—cool, composed, but charged with enough storm-force pressure to make Alina's kneecaps consider early retirement.
"Do you think," Micah said softly, "I'm going to stand here, smiling like a decorative elf statue, while my business partner ghosts the grand opening of the most important launch of my life?"
Alina gulped audibly.
To be fair, it did look a bit like a lovers' quarrel: the furrowed brow, the calm anger, and the faint smear of glitter eyeliner. All the usual signs were there.
She straightened. "R-right. Of course. Lovers' quarrel. Got it."
Micah blinked. "What—? No, wait—"
But Alina was already fumbling for the drawer behind the concierge station, muttering, "I mean, we've all been there. He forgets your anniversary; you forget to tell him you're secretly building an empire. Tension builds. Boom. You break in and rescue your emotionally constipated soulmate from his own poor decisions."
She handed over the spare key like she was offering a sword to a knight.
"Good luck, Lady Micah. Go get your man."
Micah stared at her.
Wrong.
So very, very wrong.
But...
But close enough.
She took the key anyway. "Thanks," Micah said flatly.
Alina beamed, already imagining the steamy reconciliation. "Try not to break too many things. Or do! Whatever works."
Micah walked toward the suite, muttering, "I'm going to murder him. Then maybe revive him, just to yell at him again."
Behind her, Alina sighed with romantic delight.
"Love really is war," she whispered.
The suite door clicked open.
Micah didn't hesitate. Her storm-colored dress flared behind her like a battle banner.
And then she stopped.
Just inside the suite, a massive dragon lay curled, Nimbus, reduced to a more manageable quarter-size, like a wyrm trying not to wreck the furniture. Still, even at that size, the beast took up most of the entryway.
Nimbus's eye flickered open, her deep blue gaze full of secrets she had shared only with Charles, hinting at a bond that went beyond the visible and known. She withheld key knowledge, adding an undercurrent of tension to the room.
Micah met it without flinching.
Then she saw the sign stuck to the inner chamber's massive steel door.
DO NOT DISTURB. Or Else.
"Oh, fuck right off with this." She tore it off, crumpled it, and threw it to the ground.
Nimbus moved back.
Not because she was afraid.
But because some primal, draconic instinct whispered: Best not to get between a furious woman and the idiot man she's about to murder or marry. Or probably both.
Heh, Nimbus thought internally. This girl's about to see more than she bargained for.
Micah slammed her palm against the chamber seal, flooding her qi into it in full battle mode.
BOOM!
The sound reverberated through the chamber, a thunderclap that seemed to shake the very foundation. As the sound faded, a lingering echo and subtle vibration thrummed in the air, like the aftershock of an earthquaking roar.
Dust motes danced in the residual energy, spinning in lazy spirals before settling like quiet sentinels bearing witness to the storm that had just been unleashed.
The reinforced door shuddered and gave way.
"CHARLES!"
She stepped inside.
And the fury turned to ice.
Because there, sprawled across the obsidian training floor, was Charlemagne Ziglar.
Motionless.
What Micah saw wasn't a man.
It was a massacre frozen mid-breath.
Charles lay crumpled at the heart of the training chamber. His limbs twisted at grotesque angles, as if his body had been mangled by some ancient beast or warped by the trial of a mad god. His chest rose in shallow, ragged tremors, but everything else… everything else screamed death.
Blood...so much blood.
It had dried in violent streaks across his bare torso, painted like the aftermath of ritual slaughter. One shoulder was dislocated, jutting out sharply, bones misaligned in a way no healer would call survivable.
His left arm curled beneath him unnaturally, elbow caved inward, fractured and swollen, as if it had been shattered and left to rot mid-battle.
And his back…
Qi tears carved through it in deep, jagged grooves, like claws dipped in soulfire had raked from shoulder to hip. Each gash followed the path of his meridians, not just cutting flesh, but severing cultivation.
As Micah's eyes traced the raw muscle peeking through ruptured skin, an icy dread coiled in her stomach. Some wounds were deep enough to reveal the slick sheen of exposed vertebrae, and with each glimpse, a sob choked her breath, turning panic into a mounting, breathless agony.
Blood had pooled beneath him, soaked into the floor in a halo of dried crimson and ash, sticky in places, brittle in others. Micah's heart raced, each beat a drum of rising terror that drowned out any hope of composure.
His spine looked peeled open.
His face—what remained visible beneath bruises and grime—was slack, lips cracked and bled dry. Eyes half-lidded, lashes clumped with sweat and dried blood, he looked less like a sleeping cultivator and more like a corpse waiting to be buried.
Micah couldn't even scream.
The air was thick with the stench of burnt qi, copper, and something darker—charred meridian smoke, the scent of overdrawn life essence.
His abdomen bore deep purples and yellows, evidence of ruptured vessels, while bruises clustered along his ribs like rot. His chest had a faint indentation as if someone—or something—had caved it in mid-blow.
It wasn't just an injury.
It was devastation.
A body that had fought beyond human limits and been torn apart for it. A man who had flung himself into madness and dragged his soul back, bloodied and screaming.
He hadn't passed out.
He had collapsed at the end of a war.
And somehow, impossibly—his heartbeat still thudded. Faint. Reluctant. But alive.
Micah staggered back a half-step, hand over her mouth. Her knees nearly gave out.
It was no longer a question of why Charles hadn't come to the grand opening. The question now was how he was even still breathing. And what the hell had he just survived?
"Gods," she whispered, knees buckling as she ran to him. "Charles...Charles..."
She pressed two fingers to his neck.
A thready pulse. Weak. Erratic.
But it is still there.
Tears flooded her vision before she could command them otherwise. She shook him, gently. "What did you do to yourself, you stupid, arrogant bastard..."
Then something shimmered behind her.
Micah turned.
The Epoch Sphere floated a foot off the floor, pulsing faintly. Its core flickered like a heartbeat.
It called to her. Hypnotic. Cold. Demanding.
She reached out.
Her fingers brushed the surface.
And the world shattered.
Darkness. Blood. Screams.
Then, she became him.
Not in the way dreams pretend. Not like memory.
This was real.
Micah's breath halted—not from fear, but because it was no longer hers to control.
His lungs fought for air, and hers burned with each gasping pull.
His ribs splintered beneath a brutal strike, and she folded in pain.
His blade cleaved through shadow, and her arms throbbed with the weight of it.
His grief howled through bone and marrow, and her soul tore at the seams.
The Epoch Sphere had done more than show Charles's trial. It had made her live it.
No border separated their flesh or feelings. His agony wasn't observed—it was inhabited.
Micah was gone. Unstitched. Rewritten. Every heartbeat she had ever known surrendered to his.
Erratic. Shattered. Hollow.
The first vision shattered her like glass.
- Level 1: Crimson Hollow
Red mist clung to the air like rot. Stone was slick with blood and something darker—thicker. The ground reeked of iron and death.
The hounds came. Dozens. Hundreds.
Jaws split wide, too wide—exposing bone, not teeth. Their tongues weren't flesh, but writhing coils of black ichor, twitching with need.
They didn't bark. They shrieked.
Charles—no. She was standing there. Micah. Her bones screamed with fatigue that wasn't hers. Her spine bent, lungs dragging air like fire. Every inch of her body cried for rest, but the swarm didn't stop.
They surrounded her.
And then it hit her—like a match tossed into gasoline.
Rage.
Pure, primal, volcanic rage.
"You little shits want pain? Take it!"
The words ripped from his throat—her throat—raw, scorched from battle cries and blood.
Raijin's Emberfang responded like it was alive. Lightning crackled along the blade's edge, fire chasing it in jagged bolts. It didn't swing. It executed.
One of the hounds lunged, skull-maw wide—
SPLASH.
An explosion of flame.
The beast didn't fall. It disintegrated mid-air, flesh to ash, black smoke coiling upward like a funeral pyre.
Micah felt everything.
The weight of the sword as it split bone. The sticky pull of flesh tearing from flesh. The heat of blood—his blood, their blood, someone's blood—on her face.
Her hands wouldn't stop shaking. Her breath came too fast, caught between panic and fury.
But the trial didn't care.
Level One. Her scream came raw and instinctive. She wasn't ready.
Level Two. Pain shot through her limbs as her body moved—not by her will, but by instinct. By his reflexes.
Level Three. The blade flew again. A head rolled. Claws scraped her leg. She didn't fall. She couldn't.
Her parched lips parted to beg, to breathe, to escape. But she was trapped in the trial inside him.
The levels kept coming. She was totally mortified.