’He is concealing far more than he allows others to see,’ Camilla thought as she looked at him.
After all, even she had been deceived. Not by a lie. Not by an illusion. But by the simple assumption that Stan was what he appeared to be.
A New Age human could not possess resources of this caliber. That much was obvious.
The infrastructure required to obtain treasures like these no longer existed on Earth. Entire sects had once gone to war over resources of lesser value.
Yet Stan kept producing them. Again and again. As though such things were ordinary.
Her eyes narrowed slightly. ’No. He cannot be a genuine mortal of this era.’
That explanation creates more questions than answers. The possibilities continued to unfold.
’New Terra? An undiscovered inheritance holder? The hidden disciple of some surviving ancient faction? Someone carrying the legacy of a force that escaped the Night of Vanishing?’
None of the theories fit perfectly. Yet each of them made more sense than the idea that Stan Harrison was simply what he appeared to be.
Her thoughts shifted toward his spatial artifact. The thing disturbed her most.
She had never sensed it activate. Never sensed spatial fluctuations. Never sensed Qi expenditure. Items appeared. Items vanished. Entire volumes of condensed Qi moved from one location to another.
And yet there was nothing. No trace. No signature. No mechanism she could identify.
’Even Royal Blood clans possess spatial artifacts with detectable fluctuations. So what exactly is that thing?’
The question lingered. Then another realization surfaced.
’He also allowed me to place him beneath a blood pact.’
A truly dangerous thought.
’If he were simply a greedy mortal, he would have lied at some point. If he were a fool, he would have revealed something he should not. Yet every answer he has given has survived scrutiny. Every answer has been technically truthful.’
The pieces began to align. Not perfectly. But enough. His strange techniques. His unfamiliar tools. His impossible wealth. His undetectable artifact. His lack of fear. His willingness to hand over treasures without concealment.
Taken individually, each could be dismissed. Taken together, they formed a pattern. The theory settled into her mind with uncomfortable elegance. Not as certainty. But a possibility.
A possibility dangerous enough that it could not be ignored.
’He is hiding something profound.’
Whether it was cultivation, lineage, an inheritance, or something else entirely, she could not yet determine.
But she was no longer willing to assume that Stan was merely an unusually fortunate human.
Her perspective shifted. Until now, she had viewed him with the faintly indulgent amusement of a Royal Blood entertaining an interesting mortal.
That framework quietly collapsed. In its place remained caution. Curiosity.
And a growing sense that she was standing in front of a mystery far larger than she had initially believed.
Stan’s words echoed in her thoughts. ’I look forward to our partnership.’
Camilla met his eyes again. This time with genuine attention. Not as one might regard a mortal. Not as one might regard a curiosity. But as one evaluates an unknown variable whose limits have yet to be discovered.
Then she nodded. A genuine nod. The kind one offered a potential equal.
"Yes," she said quietly. "I look forward to it as well."
Stan noticed the shift. He caught it in her posture, in the subtle sharpening of her attention, and in the specific quality of her nod. Somewhere during the last minute, Camilla had reassessed him. Whatever assumptions she had previously been operating under had been quietly discarded and replaced with something else.
Something that now ranked him considerably higher in her internal evaluation. He wasn’t entirely sure why.
At the moment, he didn’t particularly care. He was a busy man with a broken werewolf to deal with.
Stan filed the observation away for later and turned his attention back to the pack leader sprawled across the polar ice.
The werewolf was still conscious. Still watching them. Still glaring at both of them with the burning hatred of a predator that had finally realized exactly what it had walked into and had yet to accept the lesson.
A familiar chime echoed through Stan’s mind. ’The system.’
[Spending on Camilla Dragomir confirmed.]
[Favorability Tier: 80-89 (8× Rebate).]
[Note: Rebate tier locked at spending initiation.]
[Rebate issued: 683,008 liters of condensed liquid Qi.]
[Deposited into Host Inventory.]
Stan barely reacted. The notification informed him that over six hundred and eighty thousand liters of condensed liquid Qi had just been deposited into his inventory, eight times the amount he had given Camilla.
A treasure vast enough to send ancient sects into open warfare. He dismissed the thought almost immediately.
The Qi wasn’t going anywhere. The werewolf was.
And right now, the werewolf had his full attention.
Stan walked over to the broken pack leader and crouched beside him.
The werewolf remained trapped in his transformed form. The shift-lock Camilla had placed on him earlier was still active, forcing him to remain in the lupine body she had spent the last several minutes creatively dismantling.
His condition was, in every meaningful sense, catastrophic.
Every long bone in his body was fractured. His tail was gone. His Qi reserves had been drained to nearly nothing. His breathing came in shallow, uneven rasps. His physical strength remained formidable. His ability to use it had been completely destroyed.
Stan crouched until they were at eye level. Then he smiled.
"So, dog." His voice carried the quiet satisfaction of a man who had spent several hours looking forward to this exact conversation. "What do you think of the payback?"
The werewolf’s eyes burned with cold fury. Its body could no longer obey it. Its Qi was exhausted. Its bones were shattered. But its hatred remained intact.
Blood dripped from the corner of its mouth as it forced its jaw to move.
"Royal Vampire." The words emerged as a low, ragged growl. "Why are you doing this?"
Its gaze shifted toward Camilla.
"Do you truly believe my race will allow this?"
Camilla remained silent. The werewolf pressed on.
"You suppress me because your bloodline is superior."
A harsh cough interrupted him. Dark blood splattered onto the ice.
"But what about Alpha Bloods?" Its lips peeled back. "Can you treat them the same way?"
Its gaze sharpened as it added coldly; "What will your precious vampire race think when they learn that a Royal Blood has chosen the side of the livestock?"
The polar wind howled across the ice. For a moment, nobody spoke. Then Camilla’s expression cooled. Not dramatically. Not visibly, to most people. But just enough. Enough for Stan to notice. Enough for the werewolf to notice that he had crossed the line.
Camilla looked at him as one might look at something unpleasant stuck to the bottom of a shoe.
"Noisy."
She raised a hand and waved.
A thin line appeared across the werewolf’s throat. For a brief second, nothing happened. Then the line widened. The head slid from the neck.
It struck the ice with a dull thud and rolled several meters before coming to a stop and then silence returned.
Dark blood spread slowly across the white ice, steaming faintly in the Antarctic air.
Camilla lowered her hand; "He was becoming irritating."