‘Interesting. Gives me a certain baseline to work from,’ Mikael thought as he moved through the city streets.
‘Still, it’s not enough. I need more data to see a pattern—something I can use to catch them without wasting time. Even if they’re cautious, chances are high there’s some kind of pattern, even if it’s unintentional. It’s worth pursuing.’
He made his way to a nearby map shop and used a few silver coins to purchase a detailed map of the surrounding region. Once it was in his hands, he took a moment to study it, letting his enhanced mind commit every inch of it to memory with perfect clarity.
Once done, he left the shop and began his quiet sweep through the city’s inns, one after another. At each stop, he listened, asked carefully worded questions, and blended into the noise. He never lingered, never gave the impression of someone digging for answers. A forgettable face. A passing presence.
Hours slipped by. Each inn added a sliver of insight—timelines, locations, and rumors warped by fear. The shape of the Demonic Cultivators’ movements began to form, uneven and incomplete, but better than nothing.
By morning, Mikael was already walking toward the city’s exit, the mental map he had memorized earlier resting sharply at the forefront of his mind.
‘If I cross-reference the cities that were attacked with nearby villages and towns—and match them with the dates and locations—I can build a preliminary pattern. That should narrow down the most likely targets in the next few days.’
His eyes lingered on the map within his thoughts, tracing invisible lines from one place to another. ‘Based on this pattern, their next move should be either Mirepost Village, Cricketfen Town, Willowbank Town, or Grayfog City.’
‘It has to be one of thos… but which? That’s the problem. I can’t be sure. Still, logically, Grayfog makes the most sense—it’s a city, and that means more people to blood refine.’
With that in mind, Mikael—still under disguise—quietly exited Briarshade City. Once he was far enough to avoid any curious eyes, he took flight and veered toward Grayfog City.
Upon nearing his chosen target, he assumed the appearance of a humble peasant selling wares. The act worked well enough, allowing him to enter the city without attracting any attention.
Inside, he quietly rented a room at a modest inn, then settled in and waited.
That was all he could do now—wait, and hope the Demonic Cultivators would strike the location he had chosen.
One day passed in this fashion without incident. Wanting to stay informed, Mikael made a trip back to Briarshade City under the same disguise, stopping by various inns to gather rumors and news of recent activity.
Fortunately—or unfortunately, depending on one’s perspective—no location had been attacked by the cult during that time.
With nothing gained, Mikael left Briarshade City once again and made his way back toward Grayfog City. Just as the city appeared on the horizon and he prepared to stop flying and resume his disguise, a sharp and incredulous—
“Are you kidding me?” escaped him.
A heartbeat later, he burst forward in a flash of Weightless Wind-Explosive Style, slicing through the sky with unnatural speed. In moment, he was above Grayfog, but the city below had changed.
The most obvious sign? Silence. Absolute silence.
The streets were vacant. Doors ajar. Stalls deserted. There wasn’t a single soul in sight. It wasn’t destroyed, but something was off. Minor signs of conflict marked the roads—burned stone, cracked walls, a toppled cart. Faint, but unmistakable.
Instantly, Mikael understood what had happened. Without wasting a single second, his eyes wandered all around in search of any sign of the Demonic Cultivators.
He didn’t bother spreading his Divine Sense—its range was too short to be of use. But his eyes were a different matter. Flying through the air at high speed, he swept across the landscape, scanning every corner for any trace of their presence.
Sadly, after more than an entire incense stick's worth of searching, he had to accept the obvious—they were already gone.
“Seriously, what’s with my luck? They decided to blood refine the city I was in, which normally would’ve been nice since I could’ve caught them. But no, these fuckers had to attack during the short hour I was gone!”
“This is even more frustrating than if they’d hit some other settlement. At least then I wouldn’t feel like I missed them by a hair’s breadth. This is really fucking annoying. Lucky bastards.”
He clicked his tongue in irritation. With one last annoyed glance toward the empty, hollowed-out Grayfog City, he turned around and returned to Briarshade City.
As he walked through the streets, his earlier frustration faded into the background. The coincidence that had saved the Demonic Cultivators was aggravating, but not worth lingering on.
His mind was already back to work, focusing on the mental map he had of the surrounding region. ‘Logically, if Grayfog City was hit, then Mirepost Village is probably not their next target. That leaves three potential target—Cricketfen Town, Willowbank Town, and Dustpeak Town.’
‘The only problem is which of the three it’ll be? Since they’re all towns, there aren’t any indicators that could help me...’
He thought about it for a moment before inwardly shaking his head.
‘There’s truly no indicator. I can only rely on luck and hope they come to where I am. In this situation, I have a 33% chance of catching them, so if I keep doing this enough times, I’ll undoubtedly find them eventually. The time spent will just depend on my luck.’
With that mindset, Mikael left Briarshade and moved to Dustpeak Town. There, he repeated the same pattern he had followed with Grayfog City.
Then came the news—Willowbank Town had been attacked.
Mikael exhaled through his nose. He’d know this was a possibility and had already come to terms with it. His plan wasn’t perfect but it was the best he had. He just needed to be patient.
Without hesitation, he revised his plan and set off once again—toward another settlement with a high chance of becoming the next target.
In this way, he was confident it wouldn’t be long before he finally intercepted the Demonic Cultivators. After all, he couldn’t be that unlucky, right?
Eight days crawled by, unremarkable to most. Another week of quiet horror as more settlements were blood-refined by the Demonic Cultivators.
What should’ve been cause for panic had become routine. The human capacity to adapt was terrifying—given enough time, even atrocities became background noise.
News of entire villages, towns, even cities being wiped out sparked little more than tired shrugs. To the people of Briarshade, it was just nameless people dying somewhere else.
But while that was the sentiment shared by most inhabitants of Briarshade City, Mikael was different.
Sitting in the shadowed corner of an inn, he quietly sipped his ale, half-listening to the conversations around him.
“...Blackforest City was destroyed…”
He didn’t bother catching the rest.
‘Fuck, again? These fuckers always hit the one place I’m not. They’ve got to be the luckiest bastards alive. This is beyond ridiculous.’
His gaze lowered, eyes fixed on the swirling surface of his drink.
‘With Blackforest City, that makes eight settlements wiped out since I started this hunt. Every single time, I had between a twenty-five to fifty percent chance of catching them… and every single time, they hit somewhere else.’
‘Statistically, I should have caught them by now. Especially when I consider the Grayfog City attack—that one happened during the one damn hour I stepped away. This level of luck is just too absurd.’
Mikael sipped again, letting the cool bitterness dull the rising frustration. On the outside, his expression remained calm, unreadable. He briefly scanned the room, eyes brushing past the other patrons before settling back on his cup. The reflection on the surface stared back at him.
And then it struck him.
‘What if this isn’t a coincidence?’
The thought thundered in his mind.
‘What if it’s not luck at all? What if they actually know where I am? That would explain everything—their uncanny ability to avoid me no matter the odds, and even the attack on Grayfog City during the brief window when I was gone. That wasn’t some random stroke of luck—it was calculated. They knew I wasn’t there.’
Under normal circumstances, such a realization would’ve been troubling. If true, it meant that no matter how long he waited, he would never catch them. Yet despite this, Mikael didn’t fall into despair or discouragement.
On the contrary, a faint smile tugged at his lips. This realization offered him a new path forward. No longer would he be limited to waiting and hoping the Demonic Cultivators appeared wherever he happened to be. This insight gave him reason to act—and the freedom to try something else.
Mikael’s fingers tapped rhythmically against the wooden table. ‘If I go from the principle that they always know where I am, then I’ll never catch them… but the question is how? How do they know my location and manage to evade me?’
He tried to cross-reference the situation with his own understanding of cultivation—specifically, any Cultivation Techniques that could allow for such an ability.
But even with his relatively broad foundation, nothing came to mind. He hadn’t studied techniques focused on this kind of tracking or evasion in detail, and even if he had, the possibilities were too vast to narrow things down with any confidence.
‘The best I can do is give my absolute utmost to minimize my presence and try to evade whatever method they’re using to detect me.’
With that decision made, Mikael rose from his seat and exited the inn. Not long after, he left the city altogether.
Once he’d walked far enough to vanish from sight, he didn’t take to the skies as he usually did. Instead, he remained still in the wilderness, drawing a slow breath as he began tightening his control over his energy.
He compressed his presence down to its lowest possible limit. Then, he invoked his strongest stealth ability: a 5th circle shadow spell.
Once the spell activated, Mikael merged into the shadows—and only then did he begin moving, rushing at extreme speed toward the settlement.
Even though he was now a shadow and couldn’t fly or use Weightless Wind-Explosive Style, his sheer velocity still surpassed the speed of sound, allowing him to reach his destination rapidly.
Upon arrival, he didn’t take the main gate like before. This time, he slipped into the settlement unseen, weaving through the outer defenses in complete silence.
With his current capabilities, infiltration was effortless. Mortal senses stood no chance against his presence suppression coupled with his shadow magic. Securing a hidden vantage point within the city took neither effort nor time—no one noticed a thing.
As he waited within the shadows, Mikael kept his focus sharp. He continued pushing the limits of his suppression, restraining every strand of energy with meticulous precision.
At a glance, the exercise seemed simple—and in some ways, it was. But the more Mikael minimized his presence, the more the difficulty climbed. His energies began to resist, coiling and thrashing like serpents straining against their leash, demanding increasingly refined control to remain subdued.
So, while awaiting the Demonic Cultivators’ next move, he steadily pushed himself, lowering his presence inch by inch.
In the process, he uncovered an unexpected benefit.
The deeper and longer he suppressed his presence, the more his control over his energies improved. Not just in concealment—but in pure mastery. Minute adjustments, subtle shifts, microscopic precision… it was training in its most distilled form.
And for Mikael, that refinement was vital. Someday, he intended to fuse all his energies into a single unified force. Without total control, that feat would remain out of reach.
‘Leaving the sect was definitely the right decision. It’s been what, two weeks? Maybe less—and I’ve already made massive progress across the board.’
‘My Sword Dao has advanced to the point where I can sense the threshold of Sword Intent. My body tempering is nearing its second transformation… and more importantly, I’ve discovered that pushing myself into controlled life-and-death battles dramatically accelerates my growth in swordsmanship—and maybe in other paths too.’
‘Now this… this new training method could refine my control over every type of energy I possess. That’ll be critical once it’s time for Core Formation.’ The thought filled him with quiet exhilaration, and for the first time in a while, a genuine sense of giddiness surged through him.
But that brief lapse in focus nearly cost him.
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