They had been walking for a long time.
Dry stones crumbled under their feet, and the barren land seemed endless.
Koharu broke the silence:
> "Shinju… can we stop for a moment? I don't even want to carry my own shadow anymore."
Swen chimed in at once:
> "Agreed. This pace feels like torture."
Shinju stopped and gave a brief glance.
> "Five minutes."
Koharu sat on the ground with a weary smile.
> "Five minutes… feels like a lifetime right now."
Swen leaned his back against a rock, squinting at the surroundings.
> "What a strange place… there isn't a single sound of life."
Shinju was quiet for a moment.
> "This used to be the Void."
Just then, a faint rustle came from between the stones.
Koharu turned her head on reflex.
A single swamp rat darted out from the rocks.
Swen raised an eyebrow:
> "Did I say something and scare the silence away?"
The creature moved too fast to track with the naked eye.
Hissing, it lunged toward Swen's bag.
Shinju's voice sounded:
> "Stand back."
He lifted a finger—there was a faint crack in the air.
The creature froze and then collapsed without a sound.
Koharu held her breath.
> "What did you just do…?"
Shinju was composed:
> "A Yin-energy needle. Low dose, straight to the brain stem."
Swen stared, wide-eyed:
> "Your level of cold-bloodedness concerns me medically."
Shinju shot him a sharp look.
> "Worry is a luxury for the weak."
Swen grumbled, but there was a flicker of admiration in his eyes.
> "I'll pretend I didn't hear that… but it was pretty cool."
Shinju quietly crouched beside the creature.
The swamp rat's eyes were still open, their red glint not yet faded.
> "It's been years since I've seen a swamp rat," he murmured.
"When they sense someone stronger, they vanish. They're fast… and usually attack in groups of twenty or thirty."
Koharu looked surprised.
> "So this one being alone…?"
> "Interesting," Shinju went on.
"They don't show themselves in broad daylight. Something must have provoked it."
Swen opened his bag and showed the bundle of moss inside.
> "This might be the provocation. It went straight for my bag. I'm guessing it came for this sweetened moss I prepared for you."
Shinju smiled faintly.
> "There's our meal."
Koharu's face scrunched immediately.
> "What? We're going to eat that disgusting thing?!"
Shinju, matter-of-fact:
> "In the Void, you can't waste anything."
Swen wrinkled his nose, peering at the creature.
> "It really does look vile. Look at those red eyes… like it's still alive."
Shinju slit the creature's belly. A black, mud-like flesh oozed out.
He set his fingertips upon the meat. The darkness in the flesh drew up into Shinju's fingertips.
In an instant, the meat began to glow—the murky tissue giving way to a color like white gold.
Koharu swallowed without thinking.
> "Actually… it doesn't look so bad now," she whispered.
"Maybe… I could try a bite."
Swen cut in at once.
> "I've got plenty of moss for you, Princess. That meat is too fancy even for me."
Without lifting his head, Swen spoke:
> "You just absorbed the Yin energy inside it, didn't you, Shinju?"
> "Did your power increase?"
Shinju:
> "A swamp rat is a very weak species. Nothing noteworthy changed."
Swen's eyes lit up.
> "But they live in packs, right? If you absorbed a hundred of them, would it make a difference?"
Shinju answered with a cool half-smile.
> "If it's a hundred, it will certainly make a difference."
Koharu shivered.
"I've run into them before. In large numbers, they're unnerving. Luckily, when I used Light magic, they stopped attacking and fled."
Swen was already scheming.
> "What do these creatures eat?"
Wiping his fingers, Shinju replied:
> "Mostly moss. Sometimes carrion… and they'll even eat their own dead. They're cannibals."
A spark flashed in Swen's eyes.
> "Then this'll be simple. If the sweetened moss lures them… I can concoct an essence. We'll bait them by scent and trap them."
Swen neatly cut half the creature and slipped it into his bag.
Koharu sprang to her feet.
> "Hey! What are you doing with my meat?!"
Swen answered calmly:
> "If my plan works, you'll have more meat than you can eat."
Koharu pouted, then nodded reluctantly.
> "I hope it's as easy as you say."
Shinju
> "We won't have many chances to hunt," he said firmly.
"If I kill a few, the rest scatter like the wind. That instinct is how they've survived to this day."
Swen bit his lip.
> "Then we need a good plan. First, the right place and time."
They walked a while longer.
At last, they found a place that looked like a dead-end pass.
The ground was cracked, a narrow channel ran through it, and a steep ridge loomed behind—too high to climb.
Swen pointed, eyes gleaming.
> "Perfect! The channel is narrow, and that ridge is too steep to escape.
Koharu, you'll cast Light magic over the mouth of the channel. Once they're inside, you flood it with light and seal the exit. Then Shinju cuts them down."
Koharu frowned, anxious.
> "I hope it goes the way you think."
Swen exhaled through his nose with a confident grin.
> "Think well, and it will be well. This plan was made by the great alchemist Swen, after all."
Koharu rolled her eyes.
> "Fine, genius; if we die, you can carve the formula onto our gravestones."
As evening neared,
Swen crouched in the middle of the channel and unpacked her materials: a cut of meat, bundles of moss, a few crystalline powders.
She brought her fingers together within a magic circle.
The ring of light began to spin—the meat and moss merged and liquefied.
Swen inscribed another sigil.
> "Distillation complete… now volatilization."
The liquid popped, vaporizing into a dense gas that drifted outward.
Swen lifted her head and called to Shinju:
> "The rest is yours, master of war."
Swen and Koharu slipped behind the rocks.
Shinju knelt near the mouth of the channel and steepled his hands.
Gray sparks gathered at his fingertips.
Three Yin needles hovered silently in the air.
The wait began.
First one…
Then two.
Three rats emerged from the cracks.
Shinju tracked them with his eyes.
Crack. Crack. Crack.
All three dropped in an instant.
But then, dozens of red points glimmered in the dark.
A hiss—then another…
Soon the channel crawled like a living nightmare.
Swen held her breath.
> "I did it! See, Koharu? They're all here!"
Koharu's voice was tight.
> "Swen… there are too many. Instead of fleeing, more are coming. Something's wrong with this plan."
Shinju summoned more needles, but not fast enough.
For every one he killed, three more rushed in.
The dead piled up, and still they came.
Through clenched teeth, Shinju muttered:
> "There are too many…"
Koharu suddenly leapt into the middle of the channel.
> "Light, now!" Swen shouted—but Koharu had flipped the plan.
Instead of blocking escape, she cast Light magic across the channel's mouth to block the entrance.
But the rats ignored it—surging past as if it weren't there at all.
They were a flood now.
Hundreds poured from the front—and down the ridge behind Shinju as well.
Koharu's cry echoed:
> "Shinjuuuu!"
Swen's voice turned into a hoarse whisper.
> "What have I done…"
---
Rats hemmed Shinju in up to his chest.
Claws, teeth, shrieks…
With every strike, pieces of flesh tore away and sealed at once with yellow light.
The healing felt like branding his own flesh with fire, pain splintering his consciousness.
> "I have to hold on," he whispered.
"No matter what… I must not lose myself. If I pass out, it's over."
But again the ridge spilled another wave of rats.
Like rain.
Like a flood.
Koharu fell to her knees, tears streaming as she could only scream his name.
> "Shinju!"
Swen was silent.
Only watching.
Before them rose a moving mountain—entirely of living, climbing, snarling rats.
Koharu's voice trembled:
> "Is… is he still in there?"
A long silence.
Then Swen slowly turned her head.
> "Look, Koharu…"
When Koharu raised her eyes, the mountain of rats was slowing.
A few stilled—then hundreds.
Motion ceased.
Silence.
Only the sound of bodies collapsing like ash.
And then…
A hand rose from the summit of the rat-mound.
A trembling hand, slick with blood.
Shinju, his body drenched in crimson, slowly pulled himself up.
He closed his left eye and reached his right hand toward the sky.
His voice rang out:
> "Essence of the Void… come to me."
Black fumes rose from the corpses, spiraling around him.
From below to above, in winding coils.
They gathered in his palm; Shinju clenched his fingers.
The energy condensed, shivered…
and at last became a small, gleaming droplet.
Yin essence.
Condensed, materialized Void.
Shinju lifted the droplet to eye level
and opened his right eye.
The droplet drifted in, slowly, toward that eye.