The story of the Blackwood Forest patrol did not spread like a wildfire; it detonated. Within hours, a single, explosive rumor dominated every conversation in the Azure Peak Sect, from the humblest kitchens to the most secluded courtyards: Irelion Vance, the failure, the ghost, had commanded Aurelia Frostbane and saved them all.
In the Outer Sect mess hall, the air was thick with it.
"…and then he threw these bombs he'd made himself, blew the trees down right on top of the demon portal!" a disciple recounted with breathless awe, his audience hanging on every word. "Li Wei told my cousin that Vance looked the Felguard in the eye and didn't even flinch!"
At a nearby table, Jin slammed his bowl of congee down, the slop splashing onto the rough-hewn wood. "Lies," he spat, his face a mask of furious disbelief. "It's impossible. That trash couldn't strategize his way out of a wet paper bag. Aurelia must have done all the work, and he's just taking the credit somehow."
One of his cronies, a boy who had witnessed Irelion's warning in the training yard, looked nervous. "But Jin… remember what he said to you? About your stance? He saw it in a single glance. Maybe he's not…"
"He's nothing!" Jin roared, shoving himself to his feet. His hand was clenched into a fist, but a slight, betraying tremor ran through it. He remembered the dead, ancient calm in Vance's eyes. He remembered the chillingly accurate prediction of his own weakness. The rumor wasn't just a story; it was a personal humiliation, a public testament to his own poor judgment. The boy he had branded a loser was now being hailed as a hero, and the irony was a bitter, choking poison.
In a quieter corner of the sect, Elder Brother Kai stood overlooking the training grounds. He listened to the whispers with a cold, calculating stillness. He recalled his confrontation with Vance in the pre-dawn gloom, the boy's sudden, unnerving authority. He had suspected Vance was hiding a treasure. A fool's guess. He had completely misjudged the situation. Vance hadn't found an object of power; he was the power. Kai had seen a weak disciple to be extorted and had missed the sleeping tiger. A dangerous, potentially fatal miscalculation.
The ripples eventually washed against the doors of the First Elder's study. He sat in silence, a formal report from Li Wei and Zhang Min laid out on the table before him. The two boys' testimony was identical, a breathless, terrified account that painted Irelion Vance as a calm, decisive commander who had turned a massacre into a miracle. The Elder's finger rested on a single, damning line from Li Wei's statement: "Senior Sister Aurelia was prepared to fight it head-on, but Disciple Vance countermanded her order and implemented his own strategy. His plan is the only reason we are alive."
The Elder's fingers drummed a slow, thoughtful rhythm on the polished wood. An outer disciple countermanding the sect's number one prodigy, and being right. It was a breach of protocol. It was an act of incredible arrogance. It was, undeniably, the mark of a leader. This boy was an anomaly. And anomalies, in the Elder's long experience, were dangerous.
"Summon Aurelia," he said to the empty room, his voice heavy. "It is time we had a talk."
Aurelia had not left the infirmary for three days. She sat by Irelion's bedside, a silent, unmoving sentinel, ignoring all summons, her world shrunk to the four walls of this small, quiet room.
Elder Mei entered, her footsteps soft. "His recovery is… unnatural," the old physician said, her voice a mixture of awe and suspicion. "The healing draught stabilized him, but his body is knitting itself back together at a prodigious rate. Bones that should take a month to mend are already fused. His meridians are not just healing; they are reinforcing themselves. I have never seen a constitution like it."
Aurelia just nodded, her eyes never leaving Irelion.
"The First Elder has summoned you," Elder Mei added gently. "You cannot ignore him forever, child."
"I will go when I am certain he is out of danger," Aurelia replied, her jaw tight.
As if on cue, the boy on the bed stirred. A low groan escaped his lips. His eyelids, bruised and heavy, fluttered open. The cloudiness of delirium was gone. His eyes were clear, and they focused, with a slow, dawning awareness, on her face.
He tried to speak, his throat a desert. She moved instantly, lifting his head and bringing a cup of water to his lips. He drank, then sank back against the pillow, his strength spent.
"You're awake," she stated, her voice carefully neutral.
"How long?" he managed to ask, his own voice a stranger's whisper.
"Three days," she replied. "You… were severely injured."
He looked at her, at the dark circles under her eyes. "You stayed?"
"I am the team leader," she said, the words a shield of formality. "I am responsible for my team members." A lie, and they both knew it.
"The others?" he rasped. "Li Wei? Zhang Min?"
"They are alive," she confirmed. "Because of you." She leaned forward slightly, her intensity a palpable force. "The elders want to speak to me. To all of us. They want to know what happened. They want to know how a failed outer disciple knew how to kill a Spirit Realm demon."
Her eyes bored into his, demanding, pleading. "They are going to ask me who you are, Irelion Vance. And for the first time in my life, I will not have an answer."
The question hung in the air between them, sharp and heavy as a guillotine's blade. Her trap in the forest had failed, but it had created a new one, a cage of questions and consequences that had now closed around them both.