As Kaelan sips his tea, the princess enters the garden, following behind Chen Qi and her maid.
She walks with quiet grace, the faint rustle of her silk dress brushing the grass.
Without waiting for an invitation, she sits across from him.
"Where were you the past two days?" she asks, her tone firm, her gaze sharp.
Even her maid frowns, mirroring her mistress's displeasure.
Kaelan doesn't answer. Instead, he asks calmly, "Did you need me for something?"
Li Niyue's eyes narrow.
She exhales, leaning back slightly. "My father invited you. And we need to prepare for the wedding."
Kaelan lifts his cup again. "I thought you'd handle everything since you were the one who asked for the marriage."
Li Niyue lets out a small, exasperated sigh. "Yes, I asked for it—but that doesn't mean you can just sit and do nothing."
"What do I need to do?" Kaelan asks.
"Prepare your house," she says. "And make arrangements for the feast after I move here on the wedding day."
"Alright," Kaelan replies evenly. "I'll handle my part before the wedding."
He looks at her. "Is there anything else I should do? Best to mention it now."
Li Niyue crosses her arms. "My father wants to meet you."
Kaelan nods. "I can't today. What about tomorrow?"
The princess studies him carefully, her voice soft but firm. "You seem free enough now. So why not today?"
Kaelan pauses, considering whether to reveal his injuries.
She isn't a Transcendent—just an ordinary person—and her maid, still in the True Qi Refining Realm, won't sense much.
He slowly rolls up his sleeves.
Li Niyue blinks, her tone wary. "What are you doing?"
Kaelan pulls the sleeve past his shoulder, revealing a deep scar—a wound carved by Lareth's Sun and Moon Sword imbued with destructive magic.
The princess's composure falters, her eyes widening. "You're injured. What happened?"
Kaelan's voice remains calm. "It's nothing serious. I'll be fully healed by tomorrow. Then I'll go with you to meet your father."
Li Niyue frowns, hesitates for a moment, and finally nods.
A few minutes later, she sits inside her carriage with Meilin beside her.
The city streets hum softly as the carriage begins to roll.
Meilin glances at her mistress. "Princess, why didn't you ask who the woman was who went with him?"
Li Niyue gazes out the window, her voice quiet. "Because he wouldn't have answered. Didn't you notice? He avoids every question that might reveal more about himself."
Meilin's brows knit as she remembers his calm expression and steady tone.
But one question lingers in her mind. "Then why did he show you his injury?"
Li Niyue's eyes soften, her voice almost a whisper. "I don't know the full reason, but I think he wanted me to trust him. To show he isn't avoiding me… just wounded."
The carriage continues through the fading light, its wheels echoing softly down the quiet street.
After the princess leaves, Kaelan returns to his room and sits on his bed, the jade box resting in his hands.
He opens it, takes out the Night Blood Grass, and sets the box aside.
The leaf feels cool and smooth, pulsing faintly with an ancient rhythm.
He closes his eyes and begins to absorb its energy.
The dark essence flows through his meridians, heavy yet pure, carrying the faint pulse of a divine law.
He guides it carefully toward his wounds.
Slowly, he senses the foreign traces—the remnants of Lareth, Heiyu, and their protectors—dissolving one by one.
Time passes in stillness.
When the last trace fades, Kaelan stops the energy's flow, preventing it from healing his wounds.
His body, already in the second stage of transformation, can mend itself naturally.
Using the Night Blood Grass for mere recovery would be a waste.
Even using it to remove those traces was already extravagant—but necessary.
At the wedding, he'll face countless eyes.
If anyone senses even a hint of demon aura, it could bring disaster.
Now that the foreign energies are gone, he turns to a different purpose.
He begins to comprehend the law hidden within the Night Blood Grass itself.
Channelling its essence into his spirit world, he lets his holy fetus receive it directly.
Instantly, the fetus trembles as a strange, ancient power flows through it—soft like moonlight, yet vast as the night sky.
The law within the Night Blood Grass originates from the Night God himself.
A drop of that god's blood once fell upon a spiritual grass, giving birth to this rare herb.
But a single drop cannot contain the full law of a deity.
Much of it was lost—first, when it fused with the spiritual grass's own essence, and later, as time eroded its purity.
This particular grass must have lived for over a thousand years, before the era when the Night God was yet unsealed and his body not scattered across the world.
Only his soul had escaped.
The Night Blood Grass carries fragments of the Laws of Darkness, Wood, Life, Light, Lunar, Yin, and Cold.
Kaelan focuses on the Law of Darkness, letting his holy fetus work on the Law of Wood.
To advance further, he must complete the basic visualisation map of the wood element.
He continues his comprehension deep into the night.
When midnight arrives, he finally stops—not because the Night Blood Grass is exhausted, but because his understanding has reached a threshold.
The grass, damaged long ago, is now half a rank lower—only a half-divine spiritual plant, equal to a half–stage-three spiritual grass.
Even so, half its energy still remains.
He pauses because his comprehension of the wood element has reached the level where he can construct a basic visualisation map.
In his mind, he sees it clearly—an image of grass formed by luminous points connected by thin, flowing lines.
Each point holds a fragment of wood law, and the connecting lines shape them into the foundation of the element's law.
Driven by the urgency to bring that image into reality, he rises from his bed and leaves his room.
The corridors of his house lie silent, dimly lit by the fading moonlight.
His steps echo softly as he walks toward his office.
When he opens the door, darkness greets him like an old friend.
He waves his hand, releasing a wisp of mana that kindles into a small flame, floating midair and casting a faint glow over the room.
With a pulse of his energy, the door closes behind him.
He moves through the space, lighting the oil lamps one by one until the office fills with a warm, steady light.
When the last lamp flickers to life, he withdraws his mana, and the hovering flame dissolves into nothing.
He looks around the room and mutters, "Now, where's a board for drawing?"
His eyes scan the shelves and corners until he finds everything he needs for painting.
He arranges the brushes, paper, and ink in order, his movements precise and quiet.
When everything is ready, he sits down and begins to paint.
He had learned the basics of painting while secretly observing Lin Zian, never imagining it would one day serve this purpose.
The first painting he finishes resembles the image of the wood visualisation map he holds in his mind.
But it is nothing more than a painting—ordinary, lifeless, without spiritual resonance.
He tears the page from the board and throws it aside.
Then he starts again.
Second. Third. Fourth.
The pages pile up beside him—seventh, ninth, twelfth, sixteenth—until he stops counting altogether.
Each time, the brush strokes become more fluid, more natural, more alive.
And finally, as he finishes another drawing, the paper trembles and bursts apart, scattering to ash.
A faint smile crosses his lips.
That single burst means success.
Ordinary paper could not contain the law his visualisation carried.
He leans back, thoughtful, considering his next step.
If he wants to preserve the visualisation map, he must carve it onto something that can withstand the spiritual pressure of a law.
He searches his memory for the right material.
Then it comes to him—white crystal.
A material without attribute or resonance, often ground into powder to neutralise elements in pills or spirit tools.
Useless to most, but in its raw form, its purity and balance make it perfect for engraving a visualisation map.
Kaelan's eyes narrow slightly, the idea taking shape like a plan being drawn in the air itself.
The 'Wood Element Visualisation Map' will be carved upon white crystal.
He waves his hand, and a cool breeze sweeps through the room, snuffing out every lamp until only the pale light of dawn seeps through the cracks.
Kaelan leaves the office.
Outside, the sound of movement greets him—voices, footsteps, the clatter of tools. The decoration of his house has already begun.
He walks down the corridor, passing servants who bow respectfully as he moves past them.
In one of the gardens, he spots Chen Wei directing the workers.
"Chen Wei," Kaelan calls.
Chen Wei turns and bows. "Lord."
"Buy a few white crystal slabs and proper carving tools. Send them to the main garden—the one with the training field."
Chen Wei nods and leaves at once.
Kaelan returns to his room, sliding open the door to face the morning garden.
While waiting for the materials, he opens a jade box from his desk and takes out a molten coal, its surface pulsing with faint crimson light.
He studies it quietly until, hours later, he senses movement outside.
The sound of light footsteps follows—the princess and her maid walking through the corridor.
When they reach the main garden, they find Kaelan—under his false identity of Kong Wuya—carving intricate lines into a slab of white crystal.
Around him lie shattered fragments of failed attempts, each etched with half-formed images of grass.
Li Xueyao pauses, watching him as another slab cracks under his hand, the design glowing faintly before collapsing into dust.
"I didn't know you had a hobby of carving," she says, a trace of surprise in her tone.
Kaelan stops, wiping the fine dust from his hands, and stands.
"The time has come to see His Majesty," he says, turning toward her.
Then, after a pause, he adds evenly, "Wait for me here. I'll change and return."
Minutes later, Kaelan rides with the princess and her maid toward the royal palace.
The streets grow quieter as the carriage rolls deeper into the inner city, sunlight glinting faintly off tiled roofs.
Halfway there, the road empties—too suddenly, too cleanly.
A sharp twang cuts through the silence.
"Princess, get down!" the maid screams, shoving Li Xueyao toward Kaelan.
Kaelan reacts instantly.
Dark mana surges from his body, forming wings that curl inward like a cocoon around the carriage.
The arrows strike a heartbeat later, thudding harmlessly against the black shell.
The carriage jerks to a stop.
Kaelan narrows his eyes, and with a flick of his will, the dark feathers unravel into thousands of blades.
They scatter like a storm, each one finding a mark.
A chorus of screams and dull thuds follows as the ambushers fall from the rooftops, blood splattering the stones below.
The driver stares wide-eyed, frozen in shock.
"Move," Kaelan commands, his voice cutting through the chaos.
The driver jolts, grips the reins, and snaps them hard.
The horses surge forward, and the carriage speeds through the blood-slicked street, vanishing into the haze beyond.
From the roof of the Demon Hunting Association tower, two middle-aged men in white and sky-blue robes watch the ambush unfold.
The white-robed man is Tang Luyan of the Tang family, one of the Association's controllers and the eldest son of his house.
Beside him stands Tian Rongsheng, elder brother of Tian Ruyang and now head of the Tian family after their patriarch died a few days ago from lingering Night Serpent venom contracted during a hunt ten years earlier.
Tian Rongsheng frowns and says, "Kong Wuya's method looks more like a Qi refiner's technique than a martial artist's."
Tang Luyan answers, "Yet his aura carries the domineering stamp of a martial artist—an energy that breaks obstacles in its path."
Tian Rongsheng asks, "So what shall we do with him—follow the elders' counsel and kill him?"
Tang Luyan shakes his head. "He invented a whole new martial realm; that is not the sign of a fool. He must be confident when he rejects us."
Tian Rongsheng nods. "You are right—killing him would be dangerous and likely unprofitable; the wisest move is to seek alliance."
Tang Luyan agrees, "Yes—if he refuses, we wait for his next move, listen to his words, and decide our stance afterwards."
They watch until the carriage disappears into the palace gates, and then the two men melt back into shadow on the rooftop.