The air was heavy—too heavy.
Thick with moisture, thick with tension. As if the forest itself was waiting.
Above the jagged treetops, thunder rolled behind swollen clouds, dragging echoes through the ruin like a warning. Rain hadn't started yet, but the scent was already in the air—sharp, earthy, electric. The kind that hit just before lightning strikes.
Lu Chen crouched behind the shattered ribs of a collapsed stone wall. His chest rose and fell, each breath shallow, measured. He could still feel the flickering warmth of Falselight fading from the dagger in his grip. It had sliced clean through the first Engager. A perfect kill. Too perfect.
That's what bothered him.
And then—
[System Notice: Anomaly Detected.][Threat Evolution Logged | Recalibrating…]
A low vibration crawled through his vision. Not from the air. From the Ghost Signal still active in the back of his skull—etched into his perception like phantom code. He'd triggered it moments after the first kill, already moving, already repositioning.
He had to.
It was the only reason he was still breathing.
The world through Ghost Signal shimmered. Not bright. Not stable. But… useful. Trails of movement, subtle distortions, heat ghosts left by recent presence—all visible in fractured pulses. It hurt to keep it on. It ached in his teeth, down his spine. But it gave him windows—seconds ahead—just enough to move before death arrived.
His hand trembled.
Another jolt spiked behind his eye. He clenched his jaw until the pain dulled to a throb.
[Ghost Signal Integrity: 62%][WARNING: Sustained Use Will Accelerate System Strain]
"Noted," he muttered, spitting blood into the grass.
He wasn't turning it off.
He couldn't.
The dagger dimmed completely now—Falselight's charge burned out, the blade no more magical than a piece of steel. One tool down. One system burning through his nerves.
The clouds above finally cracked. A slow sheet of rain spilled across the canopy, cold and deliberate, like a hand brushing over stone. Drops hissed softly as they struck the broken ruins.
Somewhere to his left, just past a wall half-swallowed by vines—something moved. Slow. Dragging metal. Deliberate weight.
Lu Chen didn't breathe.
The Ghost Signal pulsed. The trail twisted. Something was circling him.
He slid a hand into his belt pouch and pulled a charm paper—still dry, barely—and inked a quick sigil with numbed fingers. Not for offence. For misdirection.
He'd need a distraction.Because when this one stepped out of the dark, it wasn't going to hesitate.
The charm sparked once in the underbrush, ink bleeding in the cold drizzle. Faint light, then nothing. Lu Chen didn't wait. He vanished behind crumbled stone, heart thudding.
[Ghost Signal: Concealment Active | Interference Rising]
Rain dripped steadily from the fractured canopy above, trailing off rusted beams and twisted vines. Not a downpour—yet. But it carried sound. Carried scent. Carried risk.
He crouched low beneath a shattered archway, ghosted by the charm's fading distortion. The Ghost Signal still clung to him, but thinner now. Unstable.
Hidden… for now.
But not from them.
The first shape crossed into the clearing ahead—broad-shouldered, crooked-bladed, dragging a chain like it was part of its spine. It didn't stumble. It didn't sniff. It moved like it knew he was here, even if it couldn't see him. The chain rang low against stone. A rhythm.
A lure.
Lu Chen held his breath. One wrong exhale, and—
Thunder rolled.
Not sharp—yet. A deep growl overhead. Still distant. Still climbing.
The storm was close.
Another flicker in the corner of his eye: the second Engager. Lithe. Barefoot. Its twin hooked blades gleamed like glass. It moved around the sound, not toward it—calculating space more than scent. It didn't hunt like a beast.
It hunted like a tactician.
The third came after. Slower. No metal. Just bone. Long limbs. Blackened fingers curled into fists. And it didn't move until the thunder rolled again—then it reacted.
That's when he saw it.
They weren't chasing him.
They were positioning.
The open ground wasn't open at all. It was a funnel. Broken walls at his back. Vines. Moss. Debris. No clean angle to run. No exit behind. And now, one Engager on every side.
He was in the centre.
They were the ring.
[Ghost Signal: Distortion Stability 32% | Masking Effect Weakening]
The charm still held. But just barely.
They shouldn't have seen him. They shouldn't have known.
And yet, the chain-bearer was moving in a slow circle. Calculating. Listening.
He shifted his weight—softly.
A pebble crunched beneath his heel.
The chain snapped upward.
Lu Chen didn't breathe.
But the Engager turned anyway.
Not all the way. Just enough.
It knew.
Each of them had a role. Not just monsters. Not just random predators. These things worked like a unit.
Sound, pressure, flank.
They had studied him. Learned him. And now they were circling like hounds, waiting for the break.
Another roll of thunder overhead—closer now, sharper. The trees quivered under it.
Thunder cracked again—closer this time. The downpour was steady now, slicing through the canopy in cold, unrelenting lines.
Lu Chen's legs burned as he pushed through the underbrush, his body urging him to stop, but his mind screamed at him to keep moving. The Ghost Signal flickered weakly in his skull, the strain of its use weighing on his senses. His feet were unsteady, scrambling over tangled roots and slick, wet leaves as the rain began to fall heavier, drenching him to the bone.
The storm had fully descended now—sharp, biting droplets slicing through the canopy above, punctuated by the low rumble of thunder that seemed to make the earth shudder beneath his feet. The forest around him was alive with sound—the rapid splatter of rain, the swish of wet leaves, the groan of tree limbs bending under the weight of the downpour. But there was something deeper, something more unsettling about the rhythm of the storm now. The thunder was almost… synchronised, like a warning drumbeat from the sky.
The dense trees pressed in close as he darted forward, their trunks rising like ancient sentinels, their bark slick with moisture. His breath came in ragged gasps, a quick rhythm in time with the pounding of his heart. Every step was another risk—his foot slipping on the wet ground, his hand brushing past sharp branches, cutting through his sleeve. But none of it mattered. His sole focus was on the gap ahead, the sliver of light through the trees—an opening, a chance.
He didn't dare look back.
Ahead, a low, flickering glow beckoned through the storm—a firelight that seemed too warm, too inviting in the midst of the freezing rain. Maybe, just maybe, there were people there. A settlement. A haven. He didn't care what it was—he was desperate for something to regroup, to breathe.
His pulse quickened as he pushed through the trees, crashing through thick bushes that grabbed at his legs. A branch snapped against his face, and his vision blurred with the sting of cold water. He gritted his teeth and kept going, one foot after the other, every ounce of energy pulled into the sprint. He was so close, so close to whatever lay beyond the trees.
Then he burst through the final line of underbrush and halted.
Before him, the firelight flickered low across the clearing. But there was no warmth in it. No comforting glow.
The ground was scarred and blackened, a wound in the earth that seemed to pulse with an unnatural energy. Corpses littered the area, twisted and mangled—some still fresh, their faces contorted in silent screams, others nothing but brittle bones half-buried in the mud. Rusted weapons were scattered like discarded toys, and shattered shields lay in pieces.
Lu Chen's breath caught in his throat. The firelight seemed to flicker in slow motion, casting long shadows across the battlefield. In the center of it all, an ancient statue loomed—a figure seated cross-legged, arms resting on its knees in a peaceful gesture. It towered above the carnage, its stone face serene, too serene for the chaos surrounding it.
And in front of the statue, kneeling, was a girl.
Her white ceremonial robes were soaked with rain, her face pale and expressionless. She didn't move, didn't acknowledge his presence. Her eyes remained closed as if she were waiting, waiting for something.
Lu Chen's mind raced. This wasn't a settlement. It wasn't a place of refuge. It was a battlefield. A graveyard.
The air here felt… wrong. Thicker. Weighted.
He took a cautious step forward.
Then another.
And that's when he saw them. The Engagers.
Six of them. Positioned around the edge of the clearing. Watching. Not attacking.
Waiting.
Seemingly aware of his presence, the girl in front of the statue… finally raised her head.
Her eyes opened.
Empty. Hollow. Unseeing at first—until, for a brief moment, something flickered within them. A glimpse of hope, a silent plea, as if she was asking for help—reaching out from the depths of her isolation.
Then, the earth trembled beneath him.
Something stirred behind the statue.
Not a shadow. Not a system anomaly.
Something real.
Something waking.
Something ancient.
Thunder cracked overhead with a deafening roar—so loud, it seemed to split the sky itself.
A low growl rose from the shadows.
The massive, cracked statue shifted. Slowly. Reluctantly.
Its arms began to lift, groaning with the weight of centuries.
From behind it emerged a towering figure—blacker than the storm, impossibly tall, its limbs stretching with an unnatural fluidity. No weapon was in its hands, but the very air around it seemed to compress, suffocating everything in its presence.
Lu Chen's breath caught in his throat. He didn't dare move.
The figure loomed—more than a being. A force.
And then—
[Quest Updated: Shadow Champion | Type: Eidolon | Level: Qi Condensation (Late)]