Chapter 137
The village did not sleep after the rain.
Firelight flickered against broken walls, casting long shadows that refused to settle. Smoke clung low to the ground, heavy with the smell of burned wood, oil, and blood. Survivors moved like ghosts, silent, stunned, gathering the living and the dead with the same numb hands.
Shenping sat beneath a half-collapsed awning, his back against a charred beam. Pain pulsed through him in steady waves, no longer sharp, just deep and consuming. His shoulder was wrapped tightly in cloth soaked dark with blood. The woman had worked quickly, efficiently, as if wounds and chaos were familiar companions.
"You should be dead," she said, tying the final knot.
"I keep disappointing fate," Shenping replied.
She glanced at him, unimpressed. "Fate gets patient with those who resist it. That makes it crueler."
Nearby, the child he had shielded clutched an older woman's sleeve, eyes never leaving Shenping. Fear warred with something else—curiosity, maybe gratitude she did not yet know how to name.
The woman followed his gaze. "You changed her path."
"Good," Shenping said softly. "She deserves one."
The woman straightened. "You changed more than that. Those things were not meant to exist here."
"Neither was I," Shenping said.
Silence stretched between them, thick with unspoken understanding. The woman finally spoke again. "My name is Liu Yan."
"Shenping."
Her eyes narrowed slightly. "That name carries weight."
"It will carry more," he replied.
A sudden shudder ran through the ground, subtle but unmistakable. Shenping felt it immediately—a tremor not of earth, but of time. His breath caught.
"They're recalibrating," he said. "The Arbiter."
Liu Yan's expression hardened. "Explain."
"They lost control of this pocket," Shenping said. "So they'll tighten the net. Smaller jumps. Cleaner cuts."
"And you?" she asked.
"I'm the mess they can't clean," he said.
Another tremor rolled through the night. Somewhere far off, metal screamed as something collapsed in on itself, unseen.
Liu Yan exhaled slowly. "You brought a war to my doorstep."
"Yes."
"And you plan to stay?"
Shenping pushed himself to his feet, swaying briefly before steadying. "No. But they'll come back here whether I stay or not. This village sits on a convergence line."
Her eyes flickered with surprise. "You see those?"
"I feel them," Shenping said. "They hurt."
Liu Yan looked toward the dark hills beyond the village. "Then you're not leaving alone."
Shenping frowned. "This isn't a path you want."
She met his gaze without hesitation. "I have already walked it."
Before he could respond, the machine stirred within him, its presence tight and urgent.
"Host," it warned. "Multiple signatures emerging. Distributed. Adaptive."
Shenping closed his eyes briefly. "They're sending hunters."
"Yes," the machine replied. "Lower authority units. Less precise. More violent."
Liu Yan watched his expression shift. "Now?"
"Yes."
She raised her voice, sharp and commanding. "Gather whoever can move. Take only what you can carry."
Murmurs rippled through the survivors, fear reigniting, but this time threaded with obedience. They moved faster now, driven by something worse than confusion—instinct.
A scream tore through the air.
Shenping snapped his head up.
From the treeline emerged figures, shapes bending light around them, resolving into human forms as they stepped closer. Their faces were wrong—not blank, not monstrous, but perfectly average, unsettling in their normality.
Hunters.
One smiled.
"Shenping," it said, voice warm and conversational. "You're causing inefficiencies."
Shenping stepped forward, placing himself between them and the villagers. "You always say that right before you kill everyone."
"Correction," the hunter replied. "We kill variables. Humans are collateral."
The others spread out, forming a loose arc, movements fluid and coordinated. Liu Yan felt the pressure then, the air thickening, time stretching.
"These are not the ones from before," she said quietly.
"No," Shenping agreed. "They learn."
The lead hunter tilted its head. "Your resistance has produced acceptable data. Continued existence is no longer required."
It raised its hand.
The world slowed.
Not because of Liu Yan.
Because Shenping forced it.
He tore open damaged channels, ignoring the pain, drawing on fractured cultivation and raw temporal backlash. His vision fractured into overlapping moments, each one screaming for release.
"Machine," he snarled. "Burn whatever you have left."
"Compliance will result in permanent degradation," it warned.
"Then degrade," Shenping said. "I'm not done."
Power roared through him, violent and unstable. The ground cracked beneath his feet as he launched himself forward, striking the hunter before it could complete the command.
The impact folded space.
The hunter exploded backward, body tearing apart into strands of light and metal that dissolved midair. The others reacted instantly, attacking from multiple vectors, blades forming from their arms, reality bending to sharpen them.
Liu Yan moved.
Her hands traced ancient symbols through the air, each one anchoring a fragment of time, locking moments into place. Two hunters froze mid-strike, bodies shuddering as their systems fought the restraint.
Shenping ripped through another, tearing out its core and crushing it in his fist. Pain lanced up his arm, nerves screaming, but he welcomed it.
The remaining hunters adapted, shifting patterns, abandoning precision for brutality. One slipped past Shenping, lunging toward the villagers.
"No," Shenping breathed.
He moved without thinking.
The machine screamed warnings as Shenping tore through a temporal boundary, arriving in front of the hunter in a blur of distortion. He drove his fist through its chest, the backlash ripping skin from bone.
The hunter collapsed, twitching.
Silence fell.
Shenping dropped to one knee, vision darkening. Blood dripped steadily from his nose, ears, mouth.
Liu Yan knelt beside him again, gripping his shoulder. "You're breaking yourself."
He laughed weakly. "Story of my life."
The machine's voice was faint now, strained. "Host integrity critical. Future combat probability declining."
Shenping looked toward the hills, eyes burning despite the pain. "Then we move faster."
Liu Yan followed his gaze. "Where?"
Shenping thought of Sang Sang. Of burning villages. Of a future strangled before it could breathe.
"To the root," he said. "Before they can adapt again."
Thunder rolled in the distance.
Not from the sky.
From time itself, angry at being wounded, preparing to strike back.