Who is he…?

The thought arrived before Wang Chen could stop it — instinctive, unbidden, the kind of question the mind asks before the conscious self has given it permission. One look. That was all it had taken. Just one look at the white-bearded elder standing behind Nong Li, and something deep in Wang Chen's perception had reacted the way a small flame reacts to the proximity of something vast — not extinguished, but suddenly, acutely aware of its own smallness.

His thoughts had very nearly frozen entirely.

The sensation was not fear in any form he had previously experienced. It was more fundamental than that — the involuntary recognition of a presence so far above his current position that the mind struggled to process the distance between them. His gaze refused to move away from the elder's face, held there by something that had nothing to do with choice.

Across from him, the Peak Master returned his attention with mild, unhurried interest — the gaze of someone examining a puzzle that had presented itself at an unexpected moment, not urgently, but with the particular attention reserved for things that genuinely warrant it.

It is on very rare occasions that I am unable to read the fate of others.

The old man's thoughts moved with the calm deliberation of someone accustomed to operating at the boundary of what is knowable. Either that individual's cultivation surpasses mine, or he exists under the direct protection of someone whose cultivation does. He turned the two possibilities over with equal consideration. Either this young man has reached the Supremacy Realm himself — which, given his apparent age, would be...

The thought trailed into genuine contemplation.

...or he stands beneath the shadow of one who has.

Inside Wang Chen's mind, a voice broke through the surface of his paralysis.

Hmm.

Eternal Dream's tone was not her usual measured calm. There was something uncharacteristic in it — something that sat at the edge of genuine unease, an almost imperceptible elevation in the quality of her attention. This old man. He is at least at the Consecutive Severing Immortal Realm. One step below Supremacy — perhaps close enough to feel the edge of it from where he stands.

The recognition carried weight. An existence of that caliber noticing Wang Chen, examining him at close range, directing the full attention of an authority refined over an incomprehensible span of cultivation — the implications of that began to assemble themselves in Eternal Dream's awareness with the uncomfortable speed of someone calculating a risk they hadn't previously accounted for.

If he detects even a single strand of my aura—

The worry had barely taken shape before something dissolved it entirely. 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

She remembered who Wang Chen was.

Or more precisely — she remembered whose protection Wang Chen moved under. The old monster whose cultivation made an existence like the Peak Master relevant only as a reference point. The one who had not merely faced the dragon race at the height of its power, but had dared to challenge it. Had dared to break it.

Eternal Dream's thoughts settled.

No need to worry. The words formed in her mind with the quiet finality of a door closing on an unnecessary concern. I shelter under the protection of something that even he would think twice before approaching.

And indeed — as the Peak Master's gaze moved across Wang Chen's figure with the thoroughness of someone who had spent an enormous amount of time learning how to look at things properly — he found nothing. Not a trace. Not a residual impression. Not even the faint atmospheric disturbance that the presence of a powerful entity typically left on the people it touched regularly, the way perfume clings to fabric long after the bottle has been put away.

Eternal Dream's aura was simply not there to be found.

Whether the Absolute Concealment Formation had swallowed it entirely, or whether the Tower of Infinite Enlightenment had done something more fundamental to the concealment — neither of them could have said with certainty. Perhaps both. Perhaps something else entirely, operating at a level that made the question of mechanism beside the point.

For Eternal Dream, the outcome only deepened the impression she already carried of Wang Chen's mysterious backer. An old monster who could conceal themselves so completely that even a Consecutive Severing Immortal at near-Supremacy threshold could find no trace of their presence on someone they routinely inhabited.

Formidable was not a sufficient word. She filed it away and moved on.

Wang Chen, for his part, had no access to the conversation Eternal Dream was having with herself. What reached him was only the simple, brief explanation she offered aloud — enough to interrupt the paralysis, enough to give his mind something concrete to hold onto while the rest of his awareness recalibrated.

He came out of the daze in stages.

First the awareness that he had been staring. Then the awareness of why — the sheer, sun-bright magnitude of the existence standing several feet in front of him, against which he registered as something considerably less than a firefly registers against noon. The chill that moved down his spine when he fully processed the gap between them was not dramatic. It was quiet and cold and honest.

He was a firefly.

The elder in front of him was the sun.

And the sun, apparently, had come to visit him personally.

He composed himself with the particular, practiced efficiency of someone who has learned that composure in the presence of overwhelming force is one of the few advantages available to those without it. His expression settled into something open and appropriate — a smile that conveyed neither false confidence nor the deference that would advertise his understanding of exactly how large the gap between them was.

"How can I help you two distinguished individuals?"

The words came out cleanly. Naturally. As if he were greeting guests who had arrived at a reasonable time, for a reasonable purpose, and whose presence was not causing every instinct he possessed to quietly suggest he choose his next several sentences very carefully.

Nong Li responded before the Peak Master could.

He stepped forward slightly, his expression carrying the composed professional energy of someone who had been doing an excellent job of containing his reaction to recent events and was ready to direct it somewhere useful.

"We are here to examine your pill."

My pill.