Chapter : 665

Finally, she picked up her cleaning bucket, the simple prop that had granted her access to this inner sanctum. It was a symbol of her humble station, a station she had just leveraged to commit an act of monumental betrayal.

With one last, haunted look around the moonlit study, she turned and slipped out of the door, closing it softly behind her. The room was pristine, silent, just as she had found it. But it was not the same. It was now a crime scene, and she was the sole, guilty party. In the rafters above, a true ghost watched her depart, its own mission moving into its next, critical phase.

From his vantage point in the absolute darkness of the rafters, Ken Park processed the scene with the cold dispassionate logic. He registered the facts, stripping them of all emotional context. He then write on his notebook, in case something happen to him, and left it on the table of Ben.

Asset: Pia. Status: Confirmed traitor.

Methodology: Covert entry using forged key and cleaning duties as pretext.

Execution: Successful transcription of targeted intelligence onto a specialized micro-scroll.

Conclusion: Asset is an amateur, emotionally compromised, but equipped with professional-grade tools. This indicates she is a pawn, not a player.

He felt no anger, no pity, no sense of betrayal. These were emotions for his lord to feel. His own role was to be an unblinking eye, a recorder of truth. And the truth he had just witnessed was ugly but simple. The trust his lord had placed in his team had been violated.

As Pia slipped from the study, Ken began to move. He did not descend. He flowed through the high, dark spaces of the manufactory, a shadow moving through a web of beams and trusses. His movements were utterly silent, a form of kinetic grace that defied the laws of physics. He was a creature born of stealth and purpose, and his new purpose was to track the asset to the point of exchange. Identifying the traitor was only half the mission. Identifying her handler was the true prize.

He emerged from a high, louvered window in the factory’s west wing, dropping to the cobblestone alley below with the soundless impact of a falling leaf. The city at night was a different world, a labyrinth of stone and shadow. From a safe distance of over a hundred meters, he began to follow Pia.

She scurried through the streets, a small, dark figure hunched against the cold and her own guilt. Her movements were quick and furtive, the movements of someone who fears being watched. To Ken, she was as conspicuous as a bonfire. Her fear was a scent in the air, a palpable aura of distress that made her easy to track.

He did not walk the streets as she did. He moved across the rooftops, a far more efficient and secure path. He leaped across gaps between buildings with an easy, fluid power, his dark clothing making him one with the slate and tile. He was the predator, she the unwitting prey, and he shadowed her progress through the sleeping city with an effortless, almost bored, professionalism.

Her path was not random. It led away from the bustling, newer districts and into the ancient, decaying heart of the capital. This was a place of leaning tenements, of narrow, winding streets where the moonlight struggled to reach the ground. The air grew thick with the smell of damp rot and the ghosts of forgotten centuries.

Ken noted her destination long before she arrived. Her trajectory was direct, her course unwavering. She was heading towards the Fountain of the Forgotten King. He knew the place—a derelict and desolate square, a pocket of urban decay perfect for a clandestine exchange. It was an amateur’s choice for a dead drop, but an effective one.

He outpaced her easily, taking a more direct route across the rooftops to arrive at the square a full two minutes before she did. He surveyed the area with a quick, comprehensive scan, identifying the optimal points of observation. He dismissed a crumbling bell tower as too exposed and a darkened inn window as too unreliable. He settled on the flat roof of a three-story abandoned haberdashery, its facade covered in peeling paint and grime. A large, ornate chimney stack at the edge of the roof provided perfect, deep cover.

Chapter : 666

He melted into the shadows behind the chimney, his body becoming just another part of the urban landscape. From here, he had a clear, unobstructed view of the entire square and the pathetic, grimy fountain at its center. He watched as Pia entered the square, her small form looking vulnerable and lost in the empty space. He watched as she approached the fountain, her movements now mechanical, almost robotic. He watched as she knelt, found the loose brick, and deposited her stolen secrets.

He watched her turn and flee, her escape a frantic, desperate flight from the scene of her own damnation. He let her go. She was no longer the primary target. The bait was in the trap. Now, he had only to wait for the true enemy to come and claim it. And Ken Park was a man who could wait forever.

Pia did not run all the way back to her cramped apartment. Once she had put several winding streets between herself and the Fountain of the Forgotten King, her frantic pace slowed to a weary, shuffling walk. The adrenaline that had fueled her through the act of treason had burned away, leaving behind a cold, empty hollowness.

She felt scoured out, a vessel emptied of everything that had once defined her: her simple pride in her work, her loyalty to her friends, her respect for her lord. All of it was gone, traded away for a promise of safety that now felt like a cruel joke. The dead drop was complete, but she felt no sense of relief, no liberation. There was only a vast, silent abyss where her conscience used to be.

The city was beginning to stir around her. The first delivery carts rumbled over the cobblestones, their lanterns casting long, dancing shadows. The smell of baking bread from a nearby bakery filled the air, a scent of warmth and simple, honest labor that was now a torment to her. She was a creature of the shadows, a traitor who had no place in this waking world of decent, hardworking people.

She imagined the future. She would continue her work at the manufactory, smiling at Jasmin, nodding respectfully to Lord Ferrum, her face a carefully maintained mask of normalcy. She would live every day with the secret locked behind her teeth, a corrosive poison that would slowly eat away at her from the inside. Was this freedom? This life of perpetual, terrified deception? It felt more like a different kind of prison, one she had built for herself, brick by guilty brick.

She finally reached her home as the sky was beginning to pale in the east. She slipped inside, her heart aching as she looked at the sleeping forms of her younger brother and sister. Their innocent, untroubled faces were a testament to the terrible bargain she had made. They were safe, for now. She had paid the price. But looking at them, she felt a surge of despair so profound it almost buckled her knees. She had protected their bodies by sacrificing her own soul.

She retreated to her small cot, curling into a tight ball under her thin blanket. She closed her eyes, but she knew she would not sleep. She would simply wait for the sun to rise, for the new day of lies to begin.

Back in the desolate square, Ken Park remained a statue of patient vigilance. He had watched Pia flee, her departure as insignificant to him as a leaf falling from a tree. His focus was entirely on the fountain, on the loose brick that now held a world-altering secret.

The minutes ticked by, each one a slow, deliberate drop of water in the vast ocean of time. The square was a study in stillness. The shadows began to recede as the ambient light of dawn grew stronger, turning the world from stark black and white to shades of soft, muted grey. The tension in the air was a fine, invisible wire, pulled taut.

Ken’s senses, honed by years of training and a bond with a Transcended spirit, were a net cast over the entire area. He felt the shift before he saw it. A subtle disturbance in the ambient energy at the mouth of an alley to his left. It was not a sound, not a movement, but a change in the texture of the silence.

A figure emerged.

It was tall and wrapped in a heavy, dark cloak that concealed its form entirely. A deep cowl shadowed the face, rendering it a featureless void. The figure moved with a fluid, confident grace that was the polar opposite of Pia’s terrified scurrying. This was not a pawn. This was a player. A predator.