After the breakthrough, Lin Yu did not seal the Death Energy heart within his flesh; instead, he let it hover into the waiting hollows of his shadow, hiding the small, rhythmic pulse in the darkness like a secret kept beneath the floorboards.

He rose from the chair, smoothed his coat, and stepped out into the lobby, where Mary was filing papers, asking her in a quiet tone for the location of the extraordinary market.

When she told him, he only nodded and said, “I will not be returning today,” then moved out into the street and summoned a carriage with a single gesture.

The carriage rolled through the city and deposited him before an unmarked stone stair that led down into an underground complex — the extraordinary market — where banners of black ink hung over iron doors and the air tasted faintly of incense and old bargains.

Inside the market, he walked among stalls that smelled of bone and dust and storm, trading coin and secrecy for the bones of Tier-One extraordinary beasts, great white rib bones and cracked skull plates that thrummed with residual essence.

With the purchases wrapped and tied, he called another carriage and rode back to the modest house he rented in a shadowed lane near the harbour.

But he did not move directly to the workbench to fashion a vessel; instead, he sank onto the living-room sofa, the evening light plying itself across the floor, and spoke a single word: “Report.”

From the corners of the room, from the seams of the light where shadows pooled, eight figures uncoiled and stepped forward until they sat in a semicircle before him — captains of the Shadow Guards he had dispatched long ago to trail Isolde.

They did not kneel in recognition of a lord; they sat as soldiers before a commander, unaware that the man before them was the Shadow Duke himself, believing only that he was the officer who led this particular operation.

Lin Yu’s voice was quiet and absolute as he gave the orders: find everything about the youngest daughter of the Francis family—the one who had not been present at the massacre—and place her under constant surveillance.

Keep her alive, Lin Yu continued, and do not let any inquiry trace back to us; acquire the Francis estate through third parties and shell companies so the purchase leaves no direct connection to the Shadow Dukedom.

Build an intelligence network in the Blue Whale Kingdom from that estate as a seed: informants, safe houses, coded posts, and a whisper-web that funnels every scrap of rumour or movement back to us.

The captains nodded without hesitation, their faces set, and one by one they melted back into the shadows to execute his will.

When the room emptied, Lin Yu crossed to the darker corner of the house and reached into the shadow at his feet, drawing out the bundles purchased in the market—the cracked skulls, rib arches, and fossil plates of Tier-One extraordinary beasts.

His shadow had long since become a pocket of space; what had once been a cramped two-meter cube when he first mastered Tier Seven had swollen with his ascent, and now at the cusp of Tier Nine, it yawned into a ten-by-ten-by-ten meter void that smelled faintly of ink and night.

He set the bones on the low table and watched them hum with residual essence, each fragment a small cache of beastly will that might anchor a vessel.

The image of a pocket watch steadies in Lin Yu’s mind—a vessel of precision, of ticking death wrapped in order.

He decides.

The Death Energy heart rises from his shadow, a pale orb pulsing faintly between darkness and ash, hovering above the table.

Lin Yu murmurs an incantation under his breath, each word a thread of intent that tugs at the latent essence inside the beast's bones.

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Faint light seeps from the marrow, coiling like smoke, then pours toward the hovering heart in thin, shivering streams.

The bones crack softly as their essence is drawn out; the heart drinks them in, its surface folding inward until it condenses smaller and smaller, its pulse aligning to the rhythm of a clock’s beat.

Before Lin Yu’s eyes, faint gears begin to form inside the shrinking heart—bone essence, shaping into cogs, rings, and plates that click and settle into a perfect circular frame.

The last wisp of white dust fades, leaving a gleaming pocket watch suspended in the air, white as polished ivory, its hands ticking in silence though no key winds it.

Lin Yu extends his hand, and the watch drifts down, landing neatly on his palm.

Information blooms within his mind—its name, its purpose, its will.

*Dead Sense

*—the watch perceives death as a pulse in the air, sensing the passing of ordinary people, Tier Zero, and Tier One extraordinaries within its reach.

*Dead Trace*—the watch glimpses a few seconds before the moment of death, showing echoes of the final breath and the unseen hand that caused it.

The watch will grow stronger as his realm advances, awakening new powers as Death bends closer to his command.

Lin Yu closes his fingers around the watch, its ticking faint against his pulse.

He leaves the room, the house quiet except for that rhythm, and enters his bedroom.

Without undressing, he lies down, eyes closing at once.

The sound of the watch follows him into sleep—steady, patient, eternal.

Morning comes pale and still. Lin Yu dresses in his usual black coat and walks through the early bustle of the capital toward the Extraordinary Guard Division.

As soon as he steps into the medical department’s lobby, a clerk hurries toward him. “Dr Yu Lin, the chiefs have called a meeting. It starts in five minutes—they requested your presence.”

He nods once and heads straight to the meeting room.

Inside, the air hums with low conversation. Robert and Chief Tory are already seated, along with Abel, the head of the Administrative Department. Benjamin, chief of Investigation, leans back in his chair, arms folded. Lin Yu is the last to arrive.

Chief Tory gestures toward an empty seat beside him. “Dr Yu Lin, please.”

Lin Yu takes the chair silently. Tory introduces him formally to the others, though they all already know his name from the previous day’s report.

Once introductions finish, Abel clears his throat, his tone sharp and deliberate.

“Let’s begin. Yesterday, Robert’s team solved the murder of MP Wenton’s daughter—with the help of Dr Yu Lin.” His gaze flicks toward Lin Yu briefly, acknowledging him before turning back to the others. “But it seems what they uncovered wasn’t the end. It led to something far larger.”

He gestures toward Robert. “Robert, continue.”

Robert straightens, the lines around his eyes deepening. “After Dr Yu Lin left the restaurant, we continued investigating. Once we understood the cause of death was a curse, we started tracing everyone connected to the victim and MP Wenton.”

He pauses, his voice lowering slightly. “One of the girls’ closest friends was found in a hospital. At first, we assumed she might also be cursed, so we only went to question her. But we noticed a faint curse energy around her body—not strong, but distinct.”

Mary, seated by the wall, leans forward, listening closely.

Robert continues, “She was nervous when we approached, trembling. Cecilia used her extraordinary ability to hypnotise her, and under that state, the truth came out. She had bought a doll from a vendor in the extraordinary market—a cursed doll that could kill a chosen target.”

A ripple of shock passes through the room.

“She tied a strand of the victim’s hair to the doll and fed it her own vitality for over a month. Yesterday, the curse was completed. The victim’s heart and organs failed instantly.”

Robert looks at Abel and then to Benjamin, who narrows his eyes.

Abel exhales through his nose. “Now, you might all be thinking—the culprit’s caught, the case is closed.”

Abel lets the silence linger, his gaze sweeping the table before he continues.

He lays out a list of names—young men and women from various districts—each sharing the same age group as MP Arthur’s daughter, each dead by identical means.

He taps a finger against the paper.

“At first, we dismissed these deaths,” he says. “They weren’t nobles or officials’ children. We assumed natural causes. But last night’s follow-up revealed the same curse doll involved in every case.”

A murmur runs through the room. “Our next mission,” Abel says, voice hardening, “is to locate the old woman who sold the dolls.”

When the meeting ends, chairs scrape, and papers rustle as the investigators disperse. Lin Yu steps into the corridor beside Tory, the two walking toward the medical department together.

“It’ll be difficult,” Tory says quietly. “We don’t even know how many are cursed already—or how many died before anyone noticed. You and the police's medical division are going to drown in work.”

Lin Yu nods, his eyes distant. “Maybe,” he murmurs.

His mind drifts to the steady rhythm of the white pocket watch ticking in his pocket.

A thought begins to take shape—if he can design a spell to distinguish deaths from organ failure, to sense those whose bodies are collapsing before their time.

The idea lingers, cold and sharp, as they step through the glass doors into the lobby’s pale light.