From Wei's point of view—
the mountain wind lifted the fog by a thin corner.
And at last, the thing standing behind the two girls revealed its full shape.
It was not an ordinary undead warrior.
Its body was long and unnaturally slender, as if it had once been crushed from three sides inside an iron box, then forcibly pulled straight again.
The skeleton beneath that form was twisted, wrong in ways no living body should be—yet every crooked angle fit perfectly into a posture meant for killing.
A thin topknot, dry and shriveled like a rat's tail, was tied atop its head.
It hung off to one side of the faceplate, narrow and lifeless, an element so grotesque it felt fundamentally unnatural.
A suit of black leather armor wrapped tightly around it, blending seamlessly into the night.
In the fog, in the shadows, it did not stand out—
it disappeared.
Staring at that unmoving silhouette, Wei found himself wishing,
desperately, that it was nothing more than a corpse that had been dead for a very long time.
He knew how strange the undead could be.
And he also knew that if this judgment was wrong, the price would be unbearable.
Still—maybe there was a way to make them die for good.
Maybe this really was just a body left standing there for too long,
stiffened into place like a piece of rotten wood.
Wei hesitated for the briefest instant.
He thought that if he ran fast enough, maybe—just maybe—he could still make it in time.
But even as he ran, he shouted at the top of his lungs:
"Chun—watch out—!"
The words barely left his mouth before they were shredded apart by the rising fog and the swirling mountain wind.
It was as if an invisible net had caught his voice midair, smothering it completely, leaving nothing that could carry across.
On the far end of the suspension bridge, Chun and Little Butterfly were waving at him.
The smiles on the two girls' faces burned painfully bright through the mist, like two tiny flames flickering in the dark—
and every sound was swallowed whole by the howling wind.
Even the mountain wind itself seemed to hesitate as it passed by the black figure.
The presence it gave off—
was not that of a soldier.
Not a guard.
It felt more like a patient, methodical assassin born from darkness itself.
And now—
it was standing directly behind Chun and Little Butterfly.
Its body leaned forward slightly, knees folded at an eerie angle, as though it were preparing to strike along the shortest possible arc of motion.
The pressure of it was suffocating.
To Wei, it felt more malevolent than any bronze undead warrior he had ever seen.
It seemed as though it needed only a single instant—
to carve death into the backs of the two girls.
Suddenly—
the shadow shifted.
Just barely.
Wei waved his arms frantically, trying to warn them to look behind, but his gestures were misunderstood, lost in panic and distance.
He was certain—absolutely certain—that the shadow had looked at him.
He was certain that it was listening to some command only it could hear.
Then, almost imperceptibly, it nodded.
In the next instant, something twitched beneath its ribs.
Cold light burst forth like a snake awakened from sleep, slipping out of its hand.
A short blade leapt from the fog.
Along its edge flickered a faint red gleam—like the eye of a demon—
cold, unnatural, as though it were calmly evaluating which life would be most suitable to sever.
The suspension bridge began to tremble.
Not because of the wind—
but because Wei's frantic footsteps were pounding against the wooden planks like a racing heartbeat.
The air turned colder.
The fog, like cotton torn apart by a giant's hands, split open in an instant.
And in that moment—
Chun was looking toward the distance.
Wei was sprinting toward them, his face drained of all color, arms flailing wildly, as though he were running out of breath, running out of time.
Only then did Chun finally understand what he was pointing at.
Behind her.
"Little Butterfly?" she thought. Is Wei calling out to Little Butterfly?
She turned instinctively.
And in the instant she did—
Little Butterfly was already on the ground.
She lay there neatly, almost peacefully, as if someone had carefully arranged her into that position.
Her hair was spread across the earth, soft and weightless.
Her chest did not rise.
There was no sound.
Not even the faintest sob.
"…Little Butterfly?"
Something inside Chun screamed that this was wrong.
It wasn't a sound.
It wasn't a smell.
It wasn't movement.
It was something deeper—an instinctive chill that crawled up from the soles of her feet to the back of her neck.
Her heart began to sink.
Slowly.
Inch by inch.
Snap.
It wasn't force.
It was precision.
Something icy seized her hair.
Before she could even see what had happened, a bone blade pressed against her throat.
That cold—
was not the cold of metal.
It was colder than that.
It was the chill of something without temperature at all.
Black patterns along the blade pulsed faintly, as though a dormant malice were breathing, preparing to open its eyes.
Chun did not dare move.
Even swallowing would drive the edge deeper into her throat.
But what crushed her the most—
was not the blade.
Not the gloved hand gripping her hair.
Not the assassin's cold, soundless presence.
It was this—
from the beginning to the end, he had not looked at her even once.
The assassin's gaze passed over her shoulder.
Across the suspension bridge.
Through the rolling fog—
locked tightly onto Wei, who was still running toward them with all his strength.
He did not need to check whether she struggled.
Her existence—or lack of it—meant nothing to him.
The bone blade rested at her throat, steady as an iron spike hammered into empty air.
As if it were not meant to kill her at all—
but to pin the bait in place.
Chun's heart clenched violently.
Her breathing nearly stopped.
Only then did she realize—
the way Little Butterfly had fallen was not the result of a kill.
It was placement.
Placed carefully, deliberately, into an angle that would make Chun rush forward without thinking.
She hadn't been attacked.
She had walked into it herself.
Straight into the assassin's most familiar, most controllable kind of trap.
At her ear—
the shadow finally spoke.
The voice was soft.
So soft it felt like a frozen needle piercing her eardrum.
"Be good. Don't move."
There was no emotion in the tone.
It was flat.
As though stating a simple fact.
"Or I'll kill you."