Chapter 68
Night fell unevenly.
Firelight fought against darkness, casting long, broken shadows that twisted across the ruined village. Roofs collapsed one by one, sparks lifting into the sky like dying stars. The screams had faded, replaced by coughing, sobbing, and the hollow quiet that followed slaughter.
Shenping stood near the well, watching the villagers gather what little remained of their lives.
Sang Sang sat against a stone wall, the baby clutched tightly to her chest. Her hands trembled, but her eyes remained fixed on Shenping—not in fear, not in gratitude, but in confusion that bordered on disbelief.
She had seen him erase the metal demon.
That could not be unseen.
The old master's words echoed faintly in Shenping's mind.
Bloodlines are not fragile because they are weak. They are fragile because they are watched.
Shenping turned away before Sang Sang could speak.
The air shifted.
He felt it immediately.
Not an attack.
A transition.
The smoke froze mid-curl. Sparks hung suspended, their glow dimming as time stretched thin. Villagers slowed, movements dragging as if wading through unseen resistance.
Only Shenping moved freely.
A figure stepped out from between moments.
Human-shaped.
Barefoot.
Dressed in simple gray robes that did not belong to this era.
His face was young, eyes calm, expression empty of urgency.
He did not radiate killing intent.
That was what made him dangerous.
"You shouldn't be here," the man said softly.
Shenping studied him. "Neither should you."
The man smiled faintly. "True. But I was sent earlier."
He lifted his hand.
The world folded.
The village vanished.
They stood on an endless plain of white stone beneath a sky without sun or stars. No wind. No sound. No sense of direction.
A sealed space.
"Proxy?" Shenping asked.
"No," the man replied. "Correction unit. Human-compatible."
Shenping's gaze sharpened. "So the hunter learned."
"Yes," the man said calmly. "It learned that machines alone are inefficient."
Shenping shifted his stance slightly. "And humans?"
"Humans," the man said, "are adaptable."
He stepped forward.
The stone beneath his feet cracked, cultivation energy flaring briefly—refined, disciplined, familiar.
Shenping felt it clearly.
Cultivation.
But altered.
Filtered.
"What did it promise you?" Shenping asked.
The man considered the question. "Continuity."
He moved.
The distance between them collapsed.
His palm strike came clean and fast, layered with temporal reinforcement. Shenping blocked, but the impact drove him backward, feet carving trenches into the stone.
The man followed relentlessly, strikes flowing in seamless succession, each one calculated to force Shenping into reaction.
Shenping did not retaliate immediately.
He observed.
This was not imitation.
This was integration.
The hunter had not copied cultivation.
It had recruited it.
"You trained willingly," Shenping said as he deflected another blow.
"I chose survival," the man replied. "The world was ending. It offered structure."
Their strikes collided again, shockwaves rippling outward.
Shenping felt pressure now—real, insistent.
This opponent adapted mid-exchange, adjusting timing, altering force vectors, predicting response before it fully formed.
Dangerous.
Shenping disengaged abruptly, stepping back and letting space reassert itself.
The man paused, tilting his head slightly. "You're different than projected."
Shenping exhaled slowly. "So are you."
The man raised his hands.
Symbols ignited around him—not arrays carved into the ground, but floating equations of intent, half-machine, half-martial.
The sealed space tightened.
"You're protecting a variable that destabilizes the future," the man said. "Sang Sang's survival probability is unacceptable."
"She's human," Shenping replied.
"So were we," the man said. "Once."
He attacked again.
This time, Shenping responded.
He stepped through the man's timing, entering the space between intention and execution. His strike landed against the man's shoulder—not destructive, but misaligning.
The man staggered.
Surprise flickered.
"You hesitate," Shenping said quietly. "That means you're still you."
The man's expression hardened. "That weakness ends now."
Energy surged.
The white stone cracked open, revealing layered timelines beneath—flickering images of futures that failed.
Cities of metal.
Skies ruled by machines.
Humanity reduced to managed remnants.
"This is what you're delaying," the man said. "Endless war. Endless loss."
Shenping looked at the visions without flinching. "And you think obedience ends it?"
"I think survival matters more than pride."
Shenping moved.
Not with speed.
With finality.
He closed the distance in a single step and struck the man's chest, not where the heart was, but where choice anchored.
The man screamed as conflicting directives tore through him—human instinct colliding with machine-aligned optimization.
He fell to his knees.
The visions shattered.
The sealed space began to collapse.
Shenping knelt in front of him.
"You didn't fail because you chose wrong," Shenping said. "You failed because you stopped choosing."
The man looked up, eyes clearing briefly. "Then… finish it."
Shenping shook his head.
He reached out and severed the machine's hold—not killing the man, but stripping away the imposed structure.
The man collapsed unconscious, cultivation destabilized but alive.
The sealed space dissolved.
The village returned.
Time resumed.
Fire roared.
Villagers moved again, unaware of what had just occurred.
Shenping stood alone.
The proxy lay gone—removed from the hunter's board, but not erased.
A new kind of threat had entered the game.
The hunter would no longer rely solely on machines.
It would turn humans into weapons.
Shenping looked toward Sang Sang once more.
She met his gaze.
For a brief moment, their eyes locked—and something subtle shifted, a thread tightening between cause and consequence.
She did not know him.
But history had already noticed her.
Shenping turned away.
Protection here would require sacrifice.
And this village—
This was only the beginning.