Wandao 012
Where the fog slithers and the dead remember...
Night had not yet surrendered to dawn, and the heavens brooded beneath a shroud of low-hanging clouds. The moon, once sentinel of the dark, had vanished behind a smothering curtain of storm-hued mist. Silence lay thick over Niupu Village—a silence unnatural, oppressive, as though the earth itself dared not breathe.
Descending from their mountain trial, Wan Xiaochuan and Lin Qixian followed Xiang Chengdao and the others back toward the village gates. Yet at the base of the mountain, a foreboding sight halted their steps: the familiar wooded path lay drowned beneath a sea of ashen mist, a fog neither born of dew nor season. It crept forth from the bowels of the earth, slithering like serpents or coiling like dragons, inching toward the village with an eerie deliberation.
"This fog… is no gift of nature," Xiang Chengdao murmured, raising his hand as spiritual perception flowed from his palm. His sword-sculpted brows furrowed. "There is malice here. Something unclean."
Wan Xiaochuan's grip tightened on the Wind and Thunder Sword, its etched sigils pulsing faintly as if to warn him. "This fog—" he whispered to Lin Qixian, "—it distorts the senses. Be on guard."
With a nod, Lin retrieved a copper-colored spirit bead from his robes—the Orb of Still Mind, a treasure of alchemists, said to ward against the encroachment of cursed vapors and spectral rot. Infusing it with spirit force, he summoned a translucent veil of light that hovered close about their forms.
"This stench... it's not from any common beast," he said lowly, unease sharpening his voice. "Xiaochuan, do you smell it? The blood in it…"
Wan inhaled, and a sickly tang reached him—a blend of decay and scorched earth, as if old trees struck by lightning still wept resin from their wounds. The weight of something long buried seemed to press against the chest.
"Back to the village," Xiang Chengdao ordered.
They quickened their pace, pressing through the cloying veil. Slowly, the ghostly silhouettes of the village houses emerged—but all was dark. No firelight danced behind windowpanes, no dogs barked, no roosters crowed. Every door sealed, every voice stilled. The quiet was not peace, but dread incarnate.
Then—
A scream tore through the stillness. A woman's voice, raw with terror, rasped into the night like a blade dragged across stone.
"That's Granny Lin's house!" Wan recognized the direction at once and darted forward.
Two alleys and one shattered silence later, they reached a weathered cottage. The door hung ajar; within, only blackness reigned. Carefully, Wan pushed inside.
By the firepit, an old woman knelt, her hair a wild snow of age. She rocked gently, facing the wall, her voice barely more than breath: "...don't come near… leave me be… I'm not what you seek…"
In her arms, clenched with the desperate strength of the dying, she held a Soul-Guard Talisman—a bronze plaque used in the village's ancestral rites to shield households from restless spirits.
"Granny Lin!" Wan knelt beside her, lifting her gently.
Her whole body quivered, eyes wide and empty like glass vessels drained of soul. She raised a trembling hand and pointed toward the back of the house.
"Black… thing… it climbed from the well… with eyes… too many eyes… watching me…"
"The well?" Xiang Chengdao's voice sharpened. In a heartbeat, he was gone from the doorway.
Behind the cottage, beside the forgotten stone well, stood a figure—tall, motionless, draped in tattered cloth. Emaciated limbs jutted at odd angles, and where a face might have been, there were three glowing, blood-red eyes, unblinking.
"Back!" Chengdao shouted, his sword singing free in silver flash.
"A Shadowfiend!" Lin's voice cracked in alarm. "A corpse-forged specter—the Tri-Eyed Wraith! It devours soul and self alike!"
The thing let loose a shriek like rusted blades grinding through bone. Pain exploded in Wan's skull; he staggered, ears ringing. The mist around them surged, thickening into a spectral lattice—a translucent web that closed off every route.
Xiang Chengdao's aura flared. With a twist of his blade and a cry of command, he unleashed a crescent of spiritual light—
"Spirit-Severing Slash!"
The arc swept forward like a second moon, cleaving the mist apart. But the Wraith moved like nightmare, scuttling low on grotesque limbs, curving behind their flank.
Wan turned as a voice thundered in his mind—
"Xiaochuan—behind you!" It was Rinne's, borne on a wind of thought.
Instinct surged. He pivoted, sword raised, and the Wind-Thunder blade exploded in a storm of lightning and slicing gales.
A roar of thunder shook the walls; windows shattered. The Wraith was hurled backward, limbs twitching.
"Thunderbind Windrend!" Wan shouted, driving forward. His sword became a dragon of storm and vengeance, lunging for the creature's core.
But the Wraith twisted, shrieking. Its form dissolved into vapor and reformed beyond reach.
"It's not fully corporeal!" Lin warned, dragging a talisman from his pouch. "We need pure fire—or sealing arrays!"
"Cover me!" he cried, igniting the blue-inked paper.
Wan and Xiang closed ranks, blades flashing, keeping the phantom at bay. Lin began the incantation, voice a litany of flame-born spellcraft. The charm ignited, blue fire flaring. With swift hands, he painted an arcane circle upon the ground—
"Soulfire Seal Array."
The moment the final sigil struck earth, fire erupted. Azure tongues roared skyward, encircling the well. The Wraith, too slow to flee, was caught—half of its frame seared within the blaze.
"Burn!" Lin roared.
A shriek split the heavens, and the Wraith twisted in agony. Its flesh blistered and blackened, then crumbled into soot. Only the well-mouth quivered, shadows within still pulsing faintly.
And then—silence.
The fog began to recede.
Wan Xiaochuan sheathed his sword, sweat on his brow, gaze darkened by more than battle. "This wasn't a coincidence," he murmured. "That fog… was meant for us."
Xiang Chengdao nodded, voice grave. "It reeks of demonic unrest."
Lin Qixian added, low and bitter: "If we want answers… we go down the well."
Overhead, the sky grew darker still. High above Niupu Village, a thread of shadow coiled into the clouds and vanished into the night.
None of them knew—
The ancient well, long forgotten, was one of the Eyes of the Sealed Demon, relics of a time when darkness was chained beneath the world.
Tonight, it merely stirred.
The true calamity… had not yet begun.