The bartender shrugged, straightening up and resuming his wiping.

"The usual big sects. Azure Dragon, obviously. Crimson Phoenix Sect from the south is sending their young mistress, they say she’s a prodigy. Storm Sword Valley always has a freak or two. But the talk this year..."

He glanced around, then leaned in again.

"The talk is about a dark horse. Some nobody from a fallen family in the western wastes. Kid named Kael. Shows up out of nowhere a few months back, wiping the floor with local geniuses. Word is he’s got a bloodline no one can identify. Eats techniques for breakfast."

’A dark horse.’ Damon filed the name away.

Kael.

"Interesting..."

"Interesting means dangerous in this business," the bartender said. He pocketed the spirit stone Damon had left.

"You seem like a kid who knows how to handle dangerous. But a word of free advice? The Reventons have eyes everywhere in this district. You’ve been in here five minutes. They already know."

Damon’s expression didn’t change, but his senses stretched outward, a subtle pulse of spiritual awareness filtered through his Incubus Celestial Eyes.

He didn’t scan aggressively, just let his enhanced sight take in the room.

In the far corner, partially obscured by a hanging tapestry, a man in plain grey robes was nursing a drink.

He wasn’t looking at Damon, but the angle of his shoulders was wrong, too deliberately casual.

And the spiritual signature around him, faintly concealed by an artifact.

’They already know.’

"Thanks for the drink," Damon said, standing up. He left another small spirit stone on the bar, a tip for the warning.

He walked out of the Silken Serpent, feeling the weight of the unseen gaze on his back.

The morning sun was higher now, the street fully crowded.

He didn’t look back, just melted into the flow of people, heading nowhere in particular.

’So Alistair is having me watched.’

It meant the man wasn’t going to charge in recklessly.

He was gathering information, just like Damon was.

Damon turned down a narrower alley, lined with closed-up workshops.

The sounds of the main street faded. He stopped, pretending to examine a display of forged daggers in a shuttered window.

His reflection in the glass showed the alley behind him. Empty.

But his Celestial Eyes, pushed just a bit further, saw the distortion in the air twenty paces back, near the alley’s entrance.

A high-grade cloaking talisman, bending light and muffling sound.

Someone was following him, and they were good.

’Let’s see how good they are.’

Damon straightened up and started walking again, deeper into the alley network.

He took random turns, his pace unhurried.

The distortion followed, maintaining a steady distance.

He needed to lose them, or confront them.

Losing them would be easier with Astral Steps, but that would reveal a movement technique beyond his displayed cultivation.

Confrontation had its own risks.

He rounded another corner into a dead-end courtyard filled with stacked crates and the smell of rotting vegetables.

He stopped in the center and turned around, facing the empty alley mouth.

"You can drop the talisman," he called out, his voice echoing off the stone walls.

"It’s a waste of energy. I know you’re there."

For a moment, nothing happened. Then the air in the alley entrance shimmered, like heat rising off a desert.

The cloaking effect dissolved, revealing the man in grey robes.

He was older than Damon expected, with a lean, weathered face and eyes the color of flint.

His cultivation was concealed, but Damon’s eyes pierced through the obscurement.

Earth Spirit Realm, Ninth Level.

A seasoned expert, not some lowly lackey.

The man didn’t look surprised. He stepped forward, his movements economical. "Perceptive," he said, his voice a dry rasp. "Young Master Alistair thought you might be."

"And he sent you to what?" Damon asked, his hands loose at his sides.

"Follow me? Report on where I buy my breakfast?"

"To assess," the man said. He stopped ten paces away, a safe distance.

"To see if you were worth the trouble you’ve caused. To see if you were connected to anyone... interesting."

"And what’s the verdict?"

The man’s flinty eyes scanned Damon, head to toe, lingering again on his golden eyes.

"You’re an anomaly. Your cultivation is weak, but you move like someone who isn’t. You spotted a Shadow-Walker talisman from the Night Blade Pavilion. That shouldn’t be possible for a True Spirit Realm cultivator."

He tilted his head. "Young Master Alistair does not like anomalies. They complicate his action."

"Life is complicated," Damon said.

A faint, grim smile touched the man’s lips.

"It is. He has a message for you."

"I’m listening."

"The tournament is a stage, What happens on that stage is watched by the entire continent. What happens in the shadows before the tournament... is a private matter."

"Reventon business isn’t concluded. He’ll settle accounts after you’ve glorified yourself—or been humiliated. Either outcome satisfies."

It was a threat wrapped in a promise of delayed vengeance. Alistair was telling him he wouldn’t sabotage him before the tournament, but he would come for him after.

"How generous of him," Damon said, his tone devoid of gratitude.

He produced a small black jade token and tossed it. It landed at Damon’s feet with a soft click.

"If you survive and wish to discuss reparation, that will find us. If you die, it’s junk."

He stepped back. The talisman flared, the air shimmered, and he was gone.

Damon looked down at the black jade token on the dirty cobblestones. He didn’t pick it up immediately.

Alistair Reventon was giving him a deadline. The length of the tournament, plus whatever time it took for the aftermath.

It changed nothing, really. Damon had already planned to get stronger, to win.

Now he just had a specific, powerful man waiting for him on the other side of that victory.

He bent down and picked up the token. It was cold, with a single character carved into its surface—a stylized ’R’. He slipped it into his robe.

He had the information he came for.

The Reventons were watching, but they were waiting.

There was a dark horse named Kael.

And the shadows of Solaris City were full of eyes.