Zen walked away from the cracked walls of the hallway, carrying the heavy, black biometric lockbox.

He stepped into the modern, dimly lit kitchen and carelessly dropped the impossibly expensive package directly onto the marble counter. It landed with a dull, heavy thud.

Valeria followed right on his heels. Her S-Rank aura was still sparking violently, leaving tiny scorch marks on the hardwood floor with every step she took.

"Put that box outside," Valeria demanded, glaring at the golden imperial crest stamped on the lid.

"I am not leaving a billion-credit bespoke suit sitting on your front porch," Zen said, leaning his lower back against the counter and crossing his arms.

"Then let me burn it," she hissed, taking a step toward the counter. "It is not a gift, Zen. It is a collar. Aurelia is trying to mark you as her property before you even step foot in the Crown Domain."

"I am perfectly aware of what she is doing," Zen replied calmly. "But right now, Aurelia is a problem for next week... two weeks in fact. We have a much more immediate threat breathing down our necks."

Valeria stopped, her hands balling into tight fists. "Nyx. The Spymaster. You still haven’t explained how she found you. I have S-Rank suppression wards layered over this entire property. I monitor every localized data stream in the district. How did she pinpoint your exact location without me sensing the breach?"

Zen looked at her. He didn’t soften his gaze or try to coddle her fragile ego.

"She found me because you locked the door," Zen said flatly.

Valeria blinked, her violent energy faltering for a second. "What?"

"I booted up my encrypted terminal in the bedroom to check the bounty boards," Zen explained. "Nyx didn’t hack the house, Valeria. She hacked the burner drone sitting right next to me on the bed. She overrode the motherboard, locked the camera onto my face, and projected herself into the room."

"And you didn’t call for me?" Valeria asked, her voice rising in defensive panic. "I was right down the hall!"

"You were sitting in the dark, in the corner of my room, using your Aegis magic to lock my bedroom door from the inside so I couldn’t leave," Zen corrected sharply. "You were so busy playing warden, so focused on keeping me trapped inside a cage, that you completely ignored the digital infiltration happening two feet away from you. My terminal is currently a melted puddle of plastic and fried circuits on your nightstand."

Valeria flinched. She literally took a half-step backward as the reprimand hit her.

The crimson glow in her eyes flickered out, replaced by a sudden, sickening realization. Her obsession hadn’t protected him; it had blinded her to a peripheral threat.

"I... I didn’t know," she whispered, looking down at the floor.

"I know you didn’t," Zen sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

The dull ache in his shattered ribs was throbbing again. "But this is exactly why you cannot act on blind jealousy."

Valeria looked up at him, her expression hardening with renewed, disciplined focus. "It won’t happen again. What is the board, Zen? Tell me the plan."

Zen turned around, grabbed a glass from the cabinet, and poured himself some water from the tap. He needed to lay out the parameters clearly.

"We are running against three separate clocks," Zen said, taking a sip. "Clock number one is Nyx. She gave me a twenty-four-hour timer right before you confronted me. That leaves us with about twenty-three hours. She wants me to cross the border into the Omni Domain."

"And if we don’t?"

"She broadcasts my unmasked face, my GPS coordinates, and my true identity to the global Vanguard feeds," Zen stated. "But she doesn’t want me dead. She wants me present. If I cross her border, she gets her leverage, and she keeps my secret. So, we are going to the Omni Domain."

"I am coming with you," Valeria stated. It wasn’t a request.

"Obviously," Zen replied, not bothering to argue the point. "Clock number two is Aurelia. She gave me fourteen days to attend her Zenith Gala in the Crown Domain. The biometric lock on that box didn’t scan my fingerprints, Valeria. It scanned for my pre-Singularity Imperial resonance."

Valeria’s breath hitched. "That is impossible. No modern technology can read a soul frequency that deep."

"Aurelia found a way," Zen said grimly. "Which means she has been actively hunting that specific frequency for centuries. She is waiting for me. Omni Domain first, then the Crown Domain."

"And what about the academy?" Valeria asked, stepping closer to the counter.

Zen turned to look at her.

"That stupid Inquisitor keeps pokenosing. He won’t stop digging for the S-Rank anomaly. I am the Goddess of War and Ruler of this domain, Zen. I can order Vanguard High Command to dissolve his unit right now. Or better yet, I can just walk over to his office and cut his head off. Just give me the word."

"Absolutely not," Zen said, setting his glass down. "You are thinking like a soldier, not a ruler."

"But..."

"If you pull your rank and forcefully dissolve his unit," Zen killed her attempt to protest, "it creates a massive administrative paper trail. Nyx monitors the network. She will see your intervention instantly, and she will know exactly why you did it."

Valeria frowned, her fingers twitching as if she were itching to draw her sword anyway. "And if I kill him quietly?" she asked with a manic smile.

"A dead Inquisitor draws an entire Vanguard battalion to the city to investigate," Zen corrected. "So no, we let him keep chasing ghosts."

Valeria’s jaw clenched, hating that she couldn’t just kill the threat. "Then what do we do?"

"That is clock number three," Zen said calmly. "The Inquisitor, and his little investigation. But we have a blind spot we can use. The midterm break starts in exactly two days."

Valeria’s eyes widened slightly in realization.

"Half the academy is going home, traveling, or leaving the city," Zen continued. "We are going to skip the final day of classes and leave tomorrow night. By the time the academy administration flags my absence, it’s already holiday period. The Vanguard does not launch military investigations into missing F-Rank students during a scheduled holiday."

"It’s a narrow window," Valeria noted.

"It’s the only window we have," Zen countered. "But I have a major problem. I cannot walk into Nyx’s surveillance state as a High F-Rank. If she decides to test me, or if she tries to separate us, I need to be able to defend myself without relying entirely on your S-Rank aura. I need to break into E-Rank before we cross her border."

"That requires absorbing a massive amount of Heart-Stones," Valeria said. "I have thousands in my armory. I can have a crate delivered here in ten minutes."

"No," Zen rejected instantly. "Vanguard Heart-Stones are artificially refined for safe use. They are scrubbed clean of all their wild impurities."

"Which is exactly why you should use them," Valeria argued, her brow furrowing. "Your core is fragile, Zen."

"My core is running on ancient Imperial resonance, Valeria. If I absorb processed stones, it will dilute my mana and clog my pathways," Zen explained. "I need raw, unrefined Heart-Stones pulled straight from the throat of a monster. Plus, sitting in a velvet chair eating safe mana is not who I am, and you know that."

"Then how do you plan to get them?"

"By clearing a fresh fracture zone," Zen said.