The Glorious Evolution

Back to the Present...

Levi remained seated inside the Samsara Temple, doing nothing but recording whatever was discussed around Simon or thought of in relation to House Zen... He had to remain within a couple hundred kilometers of the parasite; otherwise, he wouldn’t receive any information.

That’s why he had sneaked inside House Zen’s territory with Brahmin’s permission, making sure to avoid alarming any hidden Targonian spies... It wasn’t difficult when he had access to the Illusion Aspect.

Right now, Silas and his people continued acting naturally, preparing for the final takedown while eliminating anything that could tie their actions back to them.

This process lasted for more than seven days, with every one of them carrying out their assigned tasks to perfection under Silas’s strict and meticulous supervision.

On the seventh day... Silas held another meeting inside the hidden room behind the bookshelf.

After another round of updates regarding the erasure of their transgressions, Silas was left satisfied... However, there was still one unresolved matter, and it kept pricking at the back of his mind.

Silas turned toward his son and asked coldly, ”How is it going with that problematic vermin? Any news yet?”

Everyone turned toward Simon, their expressions matching the solemnity of the family’s head... Simon gripped his pants tightly and responded in a dejected tone.

”My apologies... still nothing.”

No one dared to breathe too loudly... Not even the second son tried to use this opportunity to knock his brother down a peg.

He knew... no, they all knew.

Silas hated nothing more than excuses and apologies.

Simon had already failed once, and Silas had let it go... Twice in a row?

Not happening.

”Simon... do you at least know what’s going on?” Silas asked emotionlessly.

”Father, I reached out to him multiple times, and his response has been the same each time.” Simon shared, his agitation slipping into his voice. ”He says they’re still considering the offer and that it’s out of his hands... How is any of this on me? I’ve done my job. They’re the ones hesitating.”

Silas closed his eyes and remained quiet... The others lowered their heads, and even Simon immediately realized that he had spoken out of line.

Just as he tried to make amends, he found his mouth sewn shut... He didn’t feel a needle or anything of the sort.

It simply... happened.

His heartbeat spiked dangerously while his eyes filled with utter dread.

He froze in his chair, refusing to even send a thought in his father’s direction... for he knew that if he weren’t Silas’s blood son, his throat might have already been sliced open.

’Hesitation... why? Either they sign the contract, reach out to negotiate, or reject it... What’s taking them so long to decide? What am I missing?’

Silas tapped a finger against the table as that same feeling of wrongness intensified... His species’ instincts were on another level, and Silas had always trusted them blindly.

The moment the contract remained unsigned on the second day, his instincts had kicked in... but he suppressed them, having little reason to act on a mere feeling at the time.

But seven days of delay?

Silas’s instincts were no longer ringing alarm bells... They were screaming at him in silence that something was horribly wrong, and he had no idea what it was.

’I’ve been impeccably careful... Even if this idiot screwed up somehow, the entire mansion is built to maintain absolute privacy...’

Silas’s heartbeat continued accelerating on its own the more he tried to identify the source of danger and came up short... Silas had always hated this feeling.

It made his head buzz as though hundreds of knives were pointed at him from the darkness, and he could do nothing but wait for one of them to strike.

’What am I missing...’

Silas practiced a breathing technique to calm himself before retracing everything back to the first encounter with Mr. Problem...

Then, his pupils thinned as a chill coursed down his spine.

’The café meeting... He didn’t seem surprised by our approach... Did he expect us to follow him? Did he lure us to that café specifically for a ’meeting’?’

Silas instantly snapped his head toward his terrified son and opened all six of his eyes, each appearing angrier than the last.

”Did you make physical contact?”

Simon was scared shitless by his father’s expression, but still... he didn’t dare lie.

He nodded and sent a telepathic message.

’We shook hands to seal the deal unofficially.’

Hearing this, Silas’s heart sank to the bottom of his stomach... Without hesitation, he ran a full diagnosis across his son’s body and soul, skipping not a single corner.

But to his surprise...

Nothing.

’Huh... Was I wrong?’ Silas frowned.

Despite desperately wishing that he was... Silas had never doubted his instincts before.

He pulled out a creepy-looking, ashen-white gourd, startling everyone around the table.

”Father... you’re scaring me. What’s going on?” his daughter asked softly, breaking the silence.

The others shared the same sentiment but weren’t as bold... though they immediately recognized the Gourd as a Grade A spiritual artifact capable of containing a peculiar spiritual liquid that could temporarily enhance one’s spiritual prowess by three stages.

The duration depended on the user’s rank... In Silas’s case, the moment he took a full gulp, his spiritual prowess surged until it matched that of a Tier 6 Psychic Specialist at the Evolution Stage!

Although the enhancement was brief, Silas’s six eyes instantly noticed a fading spiritual trail stretching from Simon’s palm all the way to his brain... or, more precisely, into his Subconscious Barrier.

Silas’s spiritual vision pierced through it and focused on Simon’s soul suspended within...

Unlike Levi’s, his soul was a pale humanoid thing with eight limbs folded neatly against its spine, sleeping silently.

And there...

Sitting upon the curve of its shoulder like something perched on a windowsill... Was a grain of light.

It was so small that it shouldn’t have been visible to anyone without the necessary spiritual vision to capture it.

Yet... multiple colors flowed across its surface in slow-moving bands.

Rose slipped into pale gold... Gold bled into green. A strangely beautiful little thing... And that wasn’t even the biggest surprise.

It had a face.

A cute one at that... like a tiny worm wearing a toothless smile.

For one full second, the heart of the Soul Weaver of House Targon stopped beating.

Then, against every instinct that had kept him alive for forty years, against the chill already climbing his spine, and against the part of his mind screaming at him to destroy the thing before it could reveal anything more... Another thought surfaced.

’Oh... how beautiful.’

The admiration came unexpectedly, but sincerely... because Silas Targon had spent decades studying souls and dissecting spiritual constructs designed specifically to evade detection.

Through study, failure, and painful experience, he knew exactly how difficult it was to make something truly invisible.

Concealment was a losing craft.

Everyone who worked with souls learned that eventually...

You could silence a construct until it emitted almost nothing... You could bury it beneath layer after layer of spiritual concealment... but concealment was still concealment. Given enough time and skill, someone would eventually notice what was trying so desperately not to be noticed.

But this tiny, almost comically cheerful parasite emitted absolutely nothing.

If Silas wasn’t staring directly at it with his own spiritual eyes, he honestly would have doubted his vision.

Yet, before he could finish admiring it, his spiritual eyes caught something else...

A tiny, hexagonal tattoo engraved across its surface.

It was so small that he wouldn’t have noticed it if the parasite’s color hadn’t shifted completely white.

’Is that an... Array? Impossible!!’

Now... Silas was genuinely freaked out.

He could admire and understand the existence of the parasite, but an Array engraved upon its microscopic surface?

The skill required was simply beyond his comprehension...

And Silas himself was quite the Array hobbyist.

Despite his eyes beginning to bleed from pushing the spiritual enhancement beyond its limits, Silas used everything he had to zoom in on the Array... He needed to know its Grade.

He just had to.

The instant he saw the millions of layered inscriptions packed into something microscopic, his mind simply short-circuited.

His face slammed against the table.

Blood streamed from his overstrained eyes, yet Silas did not attempt to stop it... Instead, a low chuckle escaped his lips, steadily growing into the unhinged laughter of a man who had just realized how completely he had been outplayed.

”A Microscopic Grand Array...”

He lifted his bloodied face, his eyes trembling with disbelief.

”Hahaha... A Microscopic Grand Array embedded into a parasite born from frequencies and spiritual matter... That’s how they bypassed the Spider Ward Array and my detection!”

His expression twisted between horror and maddened admiration.

”What kind of monstrous background did that bastard goat hire to save him?!”

His crazed laughter grew louder, making everyone around him deeply uncomfortable, but mostly...

Scared.

Never in their lives had they seen the head of their Noble House lose his composure like this... Even when he had nearly died during his last Nocturnal Game, his expression had remained emotionless.

Now...

”Hahaha... everything has been recorded! For a whole week!! A WHOLE WEEK!!”

Silas continued laughing, uncaring about anyone’s reaction or what they thought of him... for he had already accepted the despairing truth.

”We are all going to prison... hahaha... for a long, long time.”

As those horrific words left his lips, a sudden notification manifested before every single person seated around the table.

A notification so dreaded, so universally feared, that if you asked any noble across the entire Boundless Expanse which message they would least want to receive, the answer would be unanimous.

They would rather see a Deportation Notification appear before their eyes...

Than this.

//- THE ARGENT ASSIZE OF NOCTURN’S ADMINISTRATION -- SEAL OF THE CRICETII CLAN, EIGHTH SKY SUPREME COURT -

In the matter of an Order for Full Administration Audit, granted upon the petition of HOUSE ZEN of the Eighth Sky Province, the following are summoned to attend and shall not decline:

SILAS TARGON, Patriarch, House Targon.

SIMON TARGON, First Son, House Targon.

MONORA OF THE VHAAL MARSH, Retained Officer, House Targon.

ALDOUS TARGON, Second Son, House Targon.

CASSIAN TARGON, Third Daughter, House Targon.

You are directed to present yourselves at the gates within the hour.

Your borders are closed.

Your ledgers and accounts are sealed until further notice.

You may hire an advocate. You may bring nothing else.

Signed and noted under Justice Ombric.//