Wei quietly wiped the tears from his face with his sleeve, but his vision remained blurred. The corners of his eyes burned, heat welling up no matter how hard he tried to stop it.
He didn't know whether it was worry for his father or the side effects of his strange ability. He only knew that, at some point, he had started crying again. When the wind brushed his face, it felt painfully cold.
"Wei… we're going to be okay, right?"
Chun's voice came softly from behind him.
"We will," he said."I can get us back to the main path even with my eyes closed."
Chun stumbled over the uneven ground. Trees and brush still surrounded them on all sides. She couldn't help it.
"I—I mean… why haven't we reached the main path yet?"
Wei glanced around. Darkness pressed in from every direction, thick and shapeless. He looked up at the sky—jagged branches clawed overhead, like the talons of countless monsters reaching down.
"It's fine. Almost there," he answered, his voice low and stubborn.
"…Okay," Chun said, and didn't speak again, lowering her head as she hurried on.
The deeper they went, the more clearly Wei felt the change in his palm.
At first, it had been wet—clammy, unsettling. But at some point, without him noticing when, that slick dampness faded. In its place came a belated sense of warmth. Not true warmth, but the feeling of still being there. Still alive.
His mind, at last, seemed to steady—just a little.
At that moment—
Wei stopped short.
Not because of the wind.
Not because a branch had snapped.
It was a sound—
faint, brief.
The recoil of metal.
Muffled by soil and dead leaves,
yet it still reached his ears.
He knew that sound too well.
There was only one thing it could be.
A trap.
Triggered.
Fully closed.
A beast had stepped into it.
No—
something had stepped into it.
But there was no howl.
Wei did not look back.
He didn't dare waste even a heartbeat.
"Move."
The word was low,
pressed flat,
leaving no room for hesitation.
Chun opened her mouth, then closed it again.
She followed.
Their footsteps quickened in the dark.
Not a run—
but a tightly restrained urgency.
As if afraid to disturb something.
As if afraid that slowing down, even slightly,
would make it too late.
Behind an old tree,
shadows stood in silence.
One tall.
One shorter.
No pursuit.
No voices.
Only watching,
from the dark,
as the two figures faded into the distance.
-----------------
On the other side of the forest,
a distraught man stood above the river channel, completely breaking down. He shouted his wife's name until his voice turned hoarse, frantically searching for a way down, his steps panicked and unsteady.
The next second, his foot slipped.
He was swallowed by darkness and the roar of the mountain stream, swept away so cleanly that not even a shadow of struggle remained. No one knew where the current carried him.
Less than twenty meters behind them.
On both sides of the forest path, the reflections of bronze arm-guards appeared in the darkness.
Not from one direction.
From left and right at the same time.
Cold light closing in.
"Go! Jump!"
Lin carried the boy to the edge of the stream and nearly set him down rather than placed him. Then he turned at once and rushed back toward the pregnant woman."Move!"
He ran back less than ten meters and grabbed her arm, yanking her toward the ravine. In that moment, he turned his head sharply—
The boy was still there.
Standing exactly where he had been.
He stared at the corpse below and the blood-smeared rocks, frozen in place as if nailed to the ground. His small body trembled. His crying came in broken gasps, choked by terror. He would not move. He only cried, as though waiting for his mother to climb back out of the water.
The pregnant woman stumbled closer, dragged forward. The cold spray from the ravine and the nearness of death shattered her completely. Her voice rose into a shrill scream.
"Stop crying! If you keep crying, I'll hit you!"
The words changed nothing.
The boy screamed harder. His feet dug into the stones at the edge of the bank, knuckles white, refusing to take a single step forward.
Lin's heart dropped.
There was no time.
The shadows of the forest were closing in, like an unseen net. The enemy advanced faster than the wind.
Lin drew his hunting knife and turned to face the darkness.
But it was already too late.
Bronze bracer warriors glimmered around them in a wide arc. The distance was not close—but there was no escape left.
The child kept crying, his voice piercing in the night, refusing to jump into the stream.
The pregnant woman cursed him through sobs, then looked helplessly at Lin. Her lips trembled. Her body did not move forward.
She could not jump either.
Lin scanned the approaching undead warriors, then tilted his head slightly, searching for another place along the cliff where someone might leap.
"Where are you going?!"
At the edge of life and death, the pregnant woman seemed to realize something at last.
Her voice broke."Now? You're going to leave us—"
Lin did not answer.
He truly had no intention of wasting more time.
If he stayed any longer, he would die here too.
He had already done enough. Leaving this woman and child now was, by any rational measure, blameless.
The forest fell suddenly quiet.
Then a low, steady voice emerged from the darkness.
"You did nothing wrong."
Lin stopped.
"Crying attracts pursuit."
"Extra weight slows everyone down."
"You led us here successfully. I assume more villagers have escaped in the opposite direction by now."
The voice was calm, almost detached. It did not sound like a hunter closing in, but like someone reciting conclusions proven again and again.
"Leave one behind, and the rest have a chance to live."
A skeletal warhorse crushed through the fallen leaves of the forest, each step breaking them with a dry, brittle crack.
"We have walked this road many times."
The sound did not carry the wild urgency of a chase.
Pale bone ran from the horse's neck along its ribs, bare and cold.
The leather saddle had been worn smooth by years of use, bleached pale, its surface catching a faint light.
In the deep cracks of the hide, old blood had dried and darkened, pressed into the seams and never cleaned out.
A torn military banner hung from the saddle's side. The cloth was thin and frayed. It moved slowly in the wind, like a hand lifted long ago and never brought down.
The general in golden bracers reached out and patted the warhorse's back.
The gesture was light.
It was not praise.
It was closer to reassurance.
He did not urge the horse forward.
There was no need.
The prey had nowhere left to go.
—