The steam rose higher, curling and coiling through the shattered courtyard like a living thing. What had been drifting vapors surged upward in heavy, roiling waves, swallowing the space whole. Within its thick, choking haze, the world lost its edges. Sound dulled. Light dimmed. In a matter of breaths, man and beast, stone, shattered ice, scorched earth—all vanished beneath the white, misty curtain.
Yuanji's knees trembled, though he forced himself upright. Blood dripped from his lips, streaking his hands and glinting in the dim light. His glaive remained poised, a trembling extension of his will. He blinked through the mist, straining his senses, yet his vision could not pierce the opaque veil.
"What's this…?" His voice rasped, disbelief cracking through the pain. "Where… where is it?"
He whispered, not to question the mist itself, but to anchor his own fading awareness. If this was an attack, he needed to recognize it before it tore him apart.
His eyes widened as the cold realization sank in: the mist was not a mere byproduct. It was deliberate. A veil. A cover. The lizard was hiding. Waiting. Calculating.
He gritted his teeth and forced himself to expand his divine sense—pushing his perception to its limits. He spread it across the courtyard, tracing every shard of ice, every trace of scorched stone, every flicker of residual qi.
Nothing.
No heartbeat. No subtle energy. No whisper of movement.
The lizard's presence had evaporated, swallowed entirely by the mist. It was nowhere to be found. Yuanji's breath caught, and for the first time in this battle, unease gnawed at him.
His body froze.
Eyes wide.
Everything sank in at once—the impossible truth slamming into him like a hammer.
He could no longer sense the creature.
It was as if it had simply… vanished.
Impossible.
Hiding? No. Even the cleverest concealment would leave a ripple, a faint trace of qi, a subtle drag of its weight on the battlefield.
Nothing.
Not a whisper. Not a tremor. Not a shadow.
His gaze flicked across the thick mist and froze mid-scan. Unseeing, yet watchful, he sensed it: the air was unnaturally cold, frost clinging to the cracked stone beneath his feet. A pulse of patience lingered, a predator waiting beyond perception.
Of course.
It was not a byproduct. Not incidental. The fog itself was either shield or trap. The lizard had used it deliberately—to vanish. Or… to conceal something far more dangerous.
A chill slid along his spine.
"This… this isn't just concealment…" he murmured through clenched teeth. "It's a disappearance."
He tightened his grip on the glaive, bloodied hands steady on the haft. Every muscle coiled, every sense strained, but the mist offered no answers. It was a living silence, dense and suffocating, hiding whatever threat was coming next.
It did not matter which.
What mattered was the battlefield. The mist had to go.
Yuanji drew a slow, ragged breath. Blood trickled from his already bruised lips, down his jaw, but his hands remained steady. With a skillful, sweeping arc, he cut through the air.
Wind erupted.
A sharp, spiraling gust tore outward, slicing the mist in ribbons, peeling it from the shattered courtyard like paper. The vapor hissed, curling back into itself, scattering under the force of his technique.
The air cleared.
The ruins—stone, scorched earth, shattered ice—lay exposed once more.
Yuanji stood alone, bloodied and trembling, glaive at the ready. His chest heaved with ragged breaths as his eyes swept the courtyard like a predator, scanning every shadow, every crack, every corner.
Nothing moved.
Nothing breathed.
Qi surged outward from his body, a desperate wave of awareness trying—and failing—to probe the battlefield. Blood, warm and wet, dripped from his lips, splattering the cracked stone beneath his feet. The sound was stark in the silence, amplified by the oppressive stillness.
Then it hit him.
A jolt of icy terror ran through him, sharp enough to make his teeth chatter. His eyes widened, pupils shrinking against the sudden awareness. Something had… torn through his protective Qi.
It was instantaneous. A blade slicing clean through his defenses, leaving him raw and exposed. Every hair on his body stood on end. A chill slid along his spine, crawling into his bones, rooting him to the spot.
He snapped his head to the side, instincts screaming, but the courtyard remained empty. The mist had gone; the battlefield lay in ruin, yet he could feel it—a weight, imperceptible but undeniable, pressing on the edge of his perception.
His grip on the glaive tightened, knuckles white against the haft. His mind raced through possibilities, each more horrifying than the last. Nothing visible—nothing at all—but his protective Qi, the subtle barrier that had shielded him for years, had been shattered.
There was only one explanation.
He did not want to believe it. It shouldn't be possible. Yet the evidence was undeniable.
Something—was here. Not in the courtyard. Not in the ruins. Not even in the air he could see it. But it had touched him. It had breached him.
Yuanji's breath caught in his throat. Every instinct screamed to strike, to charge blindly, to hunt the invisible predator—but another, deeper instinct restrained him: precision. Patience. Awareness.
His head tilted, ears straining. Even without sight, he could sense the faintest shifts in the air, the imperceptible drag of an unseen presence. It was waiting. Watching. Calculating. And it had already struck.
"This… this isn't just concealment," he whispered through clenched teeth, voice trembling despite his effort to steady it. "It's… something far worse."
Every muscle coiled, every sense reaching outward, straining to pierce the invisible. His glaive, slick with blood, felt impossibly heavy—an anchor against the void of uncertainty surrounding him.
And then—a whisper. Not a sound, not a voice, not even movement. Just the undeniable pressure of intent.
Yuanji's stomach clenched. His protective Qi was gone. He was exposed.
And whatever had done this… was still here.