The darkness outside the temple pressed down heavily, the sound of the wind smothered by thick clouds, even the sway of tree branches seeming a beat too slow.
That blurred silhouette still stood at the ruined temple's entrance—neither advancing nor retreating. The flash of metal from earlier lingered on his retina, sharp and clear.
Shen Lan did not move immediately. His breath felt drawn away, leaving only the slow, heavy pounding of his heart in his chest.
He was waiting—waiting for the other side to make the first, smallest mistake.
The shadow moved at last.
Light footsteps, almost soundless, but to a killer's ears, the rhythm was familiar—not the aimless pacing of a beast, but the deliberate avoidance of dry twigs and loose stones. A hunter's stride.
Shen Lan's hand inched toward a wooden stick by the fire, but his other hand pressed lightly at the inside of his wrist—where a strip of cloth was wrapped. Inside it was a small pouch he had sewn earlier that day, filled with powder fine as dust.
The shadow halted at the doorway, seemingly studying the interplay of light and shadow inside the temple.
The next instant, Shen Lan swung the stick hard toward the edge of the fire!
Sparks burst forth, carrying heat and scattering embers, stretching the room's light into an unsteady flicker. The shadow was forced to turn his head, revealing half a face—young, yet with a faint bluish-gray tinge to the skin, its surface marked by the subtlest scales shimmering in the light. His breathing wasn't the steady rise and fall of a human's, but short, segmented intakes—like the air was being swallowed in discrete gulps.
That was not an ordinary human.
Shen Lan's pupils tightened instantly.
A cultivator.
---
He didn't waste time.
In that instant of firelight bursting, he slid his foot and his body swept sideways along the ground like a shadow. His wrist snapped, flinging the powder toward the figure at the doorway.
The other seemed prepared—silver light flickered in his hand, and a thin, disk-like weapon spun in a half arc through the air. It carried a visible current of air that blew the powder apart.
The current was cold—unnaturally so. Not like wind, but like icy water poured straight into the gaps of one's bones.
Shen Lan stepped back, his gaze instantly parsing the weapon's weight, spin rate, and throw style—this type of circular weapon didn't have a large killing radius, but it could create a brief protective barrier.
The other was watching him, too.
Two pairs of eyes locked at the border of firelight and shadow, like predators testing each other in the dark.
---
"Mortal?"
It was the cultivator's first words—hoarse, tinged with disdain.
Shen Lan gave no answer.
He only bent slightly, picked up a chunk of glowing red charcoal by the fire, and in the instant before heat could bite, flicked it hard toward the man's eyes.
The cultivator instinctively raised a hand to block—and in that half second, Shen Lan's other hand had already grabbed a stone shard from behind the door and flicked it backhand!
Clink—
The shard struck the weapon's outer rim with a sharp ring. The recoil caused the weapon's spin to pause for a fraction of a beat.
A fraction was enough.
Shen Lan stepped forward, every muscle driven by a killer's instinct—half squat, twist, shoulder pulling the arm, the stick thrusting straight for the cultivator's throat!
The cultivator reacted swiftly, shifting his body just enough for the tip to graze his collarbone, leaving a shallow line of blood. The blood was not red, but a pale silver-gray.
---
The air thickened instantly.
The metallic-sweet scent of that blood rushed into Shen Lan's nose, and in that moment the hairs on the back of his neck rose. His shoulders and back tightened, like a beast sensing the threat of another predator.
The cultivator glanced at his shoulder, a shadowed light flashing in his eyes, the corner of his mouth lifting into a cold smile. "Interesting."
Before the words had faded, his figure wavered—thinning like mist in the air. In the final moment before he vanished completely, those bluish-gray eyes flickered one last time, as though trying to etch Shen Lan's outline into memory, and then he was gone.
Outside the ruined temple, the wind rose again, as if nothing had happened.
Shen Lan stood where he was, his breathing still steady.
From that trace of blood's scent, he had recognized it—it was exactly the same as what he'd found in past-life mission intel. The scent of the other side of the spatial rift.
He crouched and ran his fingers over the mud at the doorway.
They picked up a tiny grain of sand—faint silver-gray light shimmered over it for an instant before fading.
> "You've already noticed me."
From somewhere in the distant darkness came a faint shift, like some massive creature changing its breath. The next instant, the wind was split by something enormous, carrying a deep undercurrent. The ground beneath his feet gave the faintest tremor, as though some great weight was drawing steadily closer.