Chapter 409: Beyond Words

"It was different, like it was on another level entirely. Something inside me was telling me you were in trouble."

Stan went very still. In the small private back of his head, the moment settled into place with the soft, clean precision of a puzzle piece finding its slot.

He asked her the exact time she started feeling like that and upon hearing her reply, his eyes widened in surprise...

The moment she started feeling this was back when he met the four werewolves. And that despicable Elder fang or whatever he is called, who had beaten him halfway across a stretch of glacial ice.

The face-drag, the broken ribs. The specific moment somewhere in the middle of it when he had, in the small honest back of his own head, understood that he was going to die on that ice if he did not do something impossible in the next several seconds.

That time, that exact moment. He had been trying so hard to forget all about this but it all just keeps coming back...

Taking a deep breath, his eyes narrowed slightly. ’The timing matches.’

He kept his voice level. "How long did it last?"

"Hours. Then it just... stopped."

That unsettled him more than the rest of it.

"Sophie."

"Yeah?"

"Did anything happen since? Anything smaller?"

"...No. Just that one night."

A small pause hit them both at that moment, before Sophie with a voice filled with uncertainty couldn’t help but ask...

"Did something happen over there, Stan?"

He hesitated, then carefully, he said in a calm voice: "Nothing you need to worry about."

A small tired exhale came from the other end.

"You always say that."

"Because it usually works."

"It doesn’t."

He almost laughed, but he caught it and let it out as a slow breath instead.

"I’ll tell you when I see you," he said gently. "Not on the phone."

"...Okay."

A quiet moment passed and then she said again,

"Just... be careful, okay?"

Stan’s expression softened, "I will, don’t worry."

"Good." They exchanged a few more words before Sophie finally said:

"Alright. I’ll let you go."

"Okay. Take care."

"You too."

The line clicked off. Stan lowered his phone. For several seconds, he simply stood there.

Camilla watched him. She didn’t ask immediately. She simply waited.

Finally, her calm voice broke the silence.

"That conversation troubled you."

Stan looked at her, "You noticed?"

"Yes."

A small smile appeared on his face.

"Of course you did."

Camilla didn’t respond. She gave him enough space to decide whether he wanted to explain.

Eventually, Stan sighed.

"Sophie said something strange."

He gave her the shape of it. Not every word, just the important parts. The middle-of-the-night waking. The racing heart. The certainty that he was hurt somewhere far away.

And the fact that the sensation had disappeared at thesame time he healed from near death...

Camilla’s expression grew noticeably more serious, "When?"

Stan met her eyes, "The time I fought Elder Fang."

Her red eyes narrowed. She said nothing for a small held moment. The significance did not require translation.

She could remember the intense craving that struck her when she saw Stan near dead with a gaping hole laying on the snow flow, Comparing the her of back then and the her of now, she seemed almost like a completely different person...

The comparison made her a bit flustered Then, in the measured tone of a woman working the problem out loud:

"Perhaps she simply sensed that something was wrong. Mortals often speak of such feelings without understanding them."

He shook his head, "She said it felt different from ordinary worry."

"And the timing was exact."

"Exact." A small silence followed.

Camilla’s gaze became more focused, "You believe your connection to her permitted her to sense your condition across a distance."

Stan did not answer immediately. His silence was enough. Camilla’s eyes narrowed slightly.

"That would’ve been possible with a Qi technique, but she’s a mere mortal..."

Camilla was about to continue, when she remembered who she was talking to, she also realised that she might actually be insulting Stan’s girls with her words...

She remembered last time when she called them mere insects and he told her in a time colder than he ever had that those he cared about are not insects...

Realising she might say something she would regret she fell silent and looked out through the window...

Stan was silent as well, he didn’t think much of Camilla words, what bothered him most was that the system didn’t tell him about this...

It told him, he could feel.their emotions and when they’re in danger but didn’t tell him that reverse was also the case.

It also made him wonder why his system won’t come clean and tell him all that it’s capable of..

He tried asking the system but all he got was silence...

Sighing, Stan walked farther into the room before sitting down on the couch.

He rested his forearms on his knees and let his hands hang loosely.

There was, quietly, a longer list forming in the back of his head than he wanted to admit.

Sacha. Her sudden ability to absorb Qi. Her unconscious resonance with Dao. The fact that she had begun awakening without even knowing the words for what was happening to her.

The system had revealed the truth only after he noticed it himself. And now Sophie.

Across thousands of kilometers, without cultivation, without spirit sense, without any obvious supernatural technique, she had awakened in the middle of the night because something inside her knew that he was being hurt.

Stan rubbed a slow hand down his face. ’First Sis begins absorbing Qi. Now Sophie can apparently sense when I’m hurt.’

His eyes narrowed. ’How many things has the system not told me?’

He wasn’t afraid. Not exactly. But he was beginning to realize something important.

The system might not be the source of every supernatural phenomenon occurring around him.

It might simply be giving him access to things that already existed.

As he was deep in thought, Camilla came to stand across from him, one pale hand resting lightly on the back of the accent chair.

She did not sit or question. Instead, her hand stiffly moved to his shoulder as she said softly, "You don’t need to understand it immediately."

He looked at her, he was not expecting this...

Camilla’s voice remained calm.

"Not everything reveals its nature the moment it appears. Some things only become clear after enough time has passed."