"Those bastards… they only won because they have numbers."
Han Lu muttered under his breath as he walked, one hand pressed tight to his ribs. The slash Qiao Min had left him with throbbed every time he breathed even after an entire day, like the wound enjoyed reminding him it existed.
Beside him, Duan Hesheng snorted. "Save your anger. We'll get our payback. Fate is unpredictable."
Han Lu opened his mouth to reply.
Then his wound stung.
Not the normal sting of torn flesh.
This was sharper. Colder. Like someone had pressed ice into the cut.
A prickle crawled up his spine. He slowed, eyes sweeping the trees.
Nothing.
No footsteps. No rustle.
Duan Hesheng noticed his hesitation and frowned. "What is it?"
Han Lu didn't answer right away, instead, he strengthened his senses with Qi. The air felt wrong. Even the birds that had been chirping moments ago had gone silent, like the forest had been pinched shut.
A faint pressure brushed his skin. Light as dust, but it clung.
Han Lu swallowed and lowered his gaze without meaning to.
His shadow, stretched long by the slanted light… twitched.
Just once.
A small jerk, like an insect leg.
Han Lu's throat tightened. His fingers dug into the cloth on his ribs. "Duan…"
Duan Hesheng's brows drew together. "What are you-"
Han Lu raised a shaking hand and pointed, not fully sure what he was pointing at.
Between two trees, a patch of shade looked darker than its surroundings. Not natural darkness. More like ink spilled and left to dry.
The ink then moved and pulled away from the trunk.
A girl stepped out.
Her hair was black and tangled, falling past her shoulders. Her clothes were plain and worn, the kind a poor village girl would wear, and they looked like they hadn't been properly washed in a long time. Her skin was pale beneath the trees, pale enough to look unreal.
Her empty eyes, like water that didn't reflect the sky, lifted.
Han Lu's instincts screamed, but his thoughts lagged behind. A person didn't step out of shade. Shade wasn't a doorway.
Duan Hesheng followed Han Lu's stare, then scoffed, irritation flashing across his face. "Han Lu, who are you staring a-"
He stopped.
Not because he saw her.
Because he saw Han Lu's face.
Han Lu's blood ran colder.
Duan Hesheng's gaze had passed right through the girl. Like she wasn't there at all.
Han Lu understood with a sinking certainty.
He can't see her.
The girl's gaze drifted to Han Lu's ribs. To the wet stain spreading under his hand. Her head tilted, a small motion, almost curious.
Then the shadow beneath Han Lu's feet tugged again, harder.
His knee buckled. He tried to step back.
His foot didn't move.
No vine wrapped his ankle. No mud held him.
The ground simply refused to let him go.
Panic surged. Han Lu yanked Qi up from his dantian and forced it through his meridians toward his legs. Pain flared so bright his vision whitened at the edges.
The girl still hadn't touched his skin.
But she lifted one hand anyway, fingers half-curled, like she was grasping something invisible.
Han Lu's shadow rose.
Not like a person standing up.
It thinned, stretched, and peeled upward like wet cloth pulled from stone.
Han Lu's stomach lurched. Pressure clamped down on his chest. His breath refused to fill his lungs.
"Duan! There's-" he rasped.
His tongue went numb mid-word.
His shadow jerked again, and the sound that came out of him wasn't even a shout. It was a broken, strangled rasp.
Duan Hesheng snapped fully toward him, irritation turning to alarm. "What are you doing? Stop messing-"
His eyes dropped to the ground.
And he finally saw it.
Han Lu's shadow was wrong. Too thin. Too pale at the edges, like it was being erased.
Duan Hesheng's expression changed instantly. His hand flashed to his sword.
Steel hissed from the scabbard as he stepped toward Han Lu.
Then he stopped.
The air between them felt like cold smoke. His arm hairs rose. His eyes flicked to the trees again, searching with a focus he hadn't shown a breath ago.
This time, his gaze caught.
The girl stood a few paces away, half-merged with shade, like the forest refused to fully admit she was there.
Duan Hesheng's pupils tightened. "Who are you?"
The girl didn't answer.
Han Lu tried to move his arms, but they felt too heavy. His dantian churned, Qi slipping out of control in small, panicked bursts. The more he struggled, the more his shadow trembled, and the more it seemed to tear.
He could feel it being drawn out of him.
Not blood. Not breath.
Something quieter. Something that made his skin crawl.
His vision dimmed around the edges.
Duan Hesheng's jaw tightened. He lunged.
His sword cut toward the girl's neck in a clean, practiced arc.
The blade passed through.
No bite. No resistance.
Just cold emptiness, and the shade behind her rippled like disturbed water.
Duan Hesheng twisted away at once, heart slamming.
The girl's gaze flickered to him. For the first time, her expression changed, not into anger or cruelty.
Into focus.
Like a predator deciding whether a second animal was worth the trouble.
Duan Hesheng felt his own shadow twitch.
Terror hit him so suddenly his mind went blank. He jerked his feet, trying to step out of his shadow like a man trying to step out of his own skin. But was too late.
The shadow beneath him thickened, rising around his ankles like black water.
It didn't bind flesh.
It bound movement.
Every time he tried to push off the ground, it was like pushing through tar. He bared his teeth and forced Qi into his legs anyway. His meridians burned.
He broke free for one step.
Then the shadow yanked again, stealing the second, making him stumble.
Han Lu's throat made a strangled sound. His lips had turned bluish, his eyes wide and wet with panic. His shadow kept peeling upward, thinning into strands, and those strands streamed toward the girl like smoke being inhaled.
Duan Hesheng saw it clearly now.
This wasn't blade. This wasn't poison.
This was something that didn't need to cut to kill you.
"Let him go!" Duan Hesheng snapped, voice raw.
The girl didn't react. Her fingers only tightened a fraction.
Han Lu's entire body jerked once.
A single convulsion.
His eyes bulged, his jaw slackened, like his muscles forgot how to hold themselves up.
He collapsed forward onto the forest floor with the sudden stillness of a candle being pinched out.
Duan Hesheng's breath hitched.
For half a heartbeat, Duan Hesheng didn't understand what was wrong. Then it hit him like a cold punch.
Han Lu lay in sunlight.
And there was no shadow beneath him.
Duan Hesheng's grip whitened on his sword. His mind raced, trying to fit this into anything he understood.
Unorthodox techniques.
Curses.
Demons.
Things others warned about in low voices.
The girl stepped closer. The shade under her feet moved with her, too smooth, too obedient.
Duan Hesheng forced his panic down. Han Lu had only been a temporary teammate. His death didn't matter.
He attacked again, faster, but this time he didn't aim for her body.
He aimed for the darkness clinging to her.
The blade bit.
But not into flesh.
A thin line carved through the dark at her side, and the air shivered like it had been struck. The girl's head turned slightly, like she felt a sting.
Duan Hesheng's eyes sharpened.
So she can be hurt.
He pressed the advantage with a second strike.
His shadow surged up his calves.
Pain flashed through his legs, sharp and prickling, like needles driven into muscle. He stumbled mid-step.
The girl lifted her hand toward him.
Duan Hesheng's dantian tightened on instinct, Qi surging up in defense-
And the surge caught.
Not blocked by a wall.
It Refused.
Like the shadow had grabbed the rhythm of his circulation and made it stumble inside him.
His breath turned ragged. And He understood in one awful flash: He was no match for this thing.
His legs were being held. His Qi was being disrupted. His sword barely mattered.
He reached into his robe, fingers scrabbling for his token pouch, for anything, talisman, tool, anything at all.
The shade near the girl flickered.
She moved.
Not like a sprint.
Like a shift.
One moment she was in front of him, the next she was half a pace to his left, tucked into deeper shade cast by a tree.
Her hand reached out, not toward his throat, not toward his chest.
Toward his shadow.
Duan Hesheng felt the world tilt.
His shadow peeled off the ground the same way Han Lu's had.
His stomach dropped. It felt like his balance was being stolen from inside his bones.
He tried to scream, but only a thin rasp came out. His sword slipped from his numb fingers and sank into the leaves with a dull thud.
The forest around them stayed unnaturally still, as if it was holding its breath for him.
Duan Hesheng's eyes flicked once, toward Han Lu's body.
Then back to the girl.
As if begging for a reason.
But her face remained calm. Not cruel. Not pleased.
Just empty.
Like this was simply what she did.
Duan Hesheng's body jerked once.
A sharp, involuntary spasm.
His eyes locked wide. His mouth opened, caught mid-breath-
And then he went still.
He collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut.
No wounds. No blood.
Only a face frozen in horror too deep for reason.
The girl stood between the two corpses and looked down.
Two bodies in sunlight with no shadows.
Then she crouched, fingers slipping into Duan Hesheng's robe with quiet efficiency.
A small pouch of spirit stones. A few coins.
And the entry token, stamped with the Verdant Pine Sect's mark.
Then she rose.
The shade beneath her gathered tighter.
She stepped backward.
Darkness behind a tree trunk accepted her, and she disappeared, continuing her search.
Somewhere far off, a bird called again, uncertain at first, then louder.
On the ground, Han Lu and Duan Hesheng lay unmoving.
And when the next shaft of light shifted with the wind, it slid over them without casting anything at all.