Shadow in the Night

The brown-furred gnoll's eyes filled with terror. He spun and bolted.

"D-don't — don't come near me!!"

The tall elf said nothing.

He didn't get far. Lu Yuan caught up in two strides and drew Beetle Claw in a clean line across the gnoll's throat. The gnoll crumpled.

Lu Yuan looked at the bodies on the ground and took a slow breath.

His first time killing sentient beings.

If anything, he was in good spirits about it. Who told them to hunt him down?

When the second gnoll fell, items gradually materialized from thin air above the bodies — Spirit Crystals and gray stone carapaces, scattered across the stone floor. He crouched, collected everything, and did a quick count.

Forty-five Spirit Crystals. Forty-five gray stone carapaces.

More than a full day of hunting Gray Rock Beetles.

He was mildly disappointed that neither gnoll had dropped a Gene Armament — but those had been acquired during a previous trip to the Land of Origin, not this one. Nothing to be done about it. Even the cheapest Gene Armaments ran in the tens of thousands on the open market.

He stashed it all away.

While Lu Yuan tallied his haul, the elf leader's group of four — watching from a distance — had gone very quiet.

A Huang stared at the two gnolls sprawled on the ground. His throat moved.

*Gulp.*

"B-boss..." He glanced sideways. "Should we... go in?"

The elf leader's cheek twitched. His hand shot out and smacked A Huang on the back of the head.

"You want to die, you go yourself."

A Huang clutched his head and shook it frantically. "No — no, no, no. I don't want to die."

The tall elf gave a small, dismissive curl of her lip.

The human male was still staring in Lu Yuan's direction, eyes wide, voice climbing.

"He has to be from one of the great families," he announced, working himself up. "There's no other explanation for strength like that. He's obviously encoded a Transcendent Gene — a powerful one, probably elite rank. I'm just an ordinary person. How am I supposed to compare?"

The tall elf glanced at him.

"Encoding an elite-rank gene during the probationer stage is an accomplishment in its own right," she said dryly. "Could you do it if someone handed you the chance?"

"..."

"Enough." The elf leader cut in. "We're leaving — now. He's probably finished packing up. If we wait any longer and he spots us, that won't end well."

The other three snapped out of their daze and slipped quietly away.

Lu Yuan felt the pull from the light gate growing stronger. Twenty-four hours — almost time.

The haul was good. He saw no reason to resist.

He let himself be drawn in. His consciousness entered the light gate, a brief moment of disorientation, and—

When his thoughts settled, he was back in his cramped, bare-bones room.

He checked his phone. He had entered the Land of Origin at nine in the evening; it was now eleven at night. The beginner's forum had mentioned this — the Land of Origin and the real world ran on different time scales. That checked out.

He confirmed the time and stopped thinking about it.

The Spirit Crystals from the gnolls hadn't lasted long. All forty-five were already gone. After encoding the Transcendent Gene, he could absorb nearly one crystal per breath — fast, though still no substitute for sustained cultivation. His base Spiritual Energy absorption rate had improved as well.

Which led him to a problem he'd just identified.

After encoding an elite-rank gene, each tempering cycle for the Gene Chain consumed dramatically more Spiritual Energy than before. Those same forty-five Spirit Crystals that might once have pushed his tempering progress toward ten percent had now barely moved it to three.

He pressed his fist against his palm.

Fully tempering the Gene Chain was going to require far more material. Far more Gray Rock Beetles.

He felt the current of power inside him — steady, surging — and looked at the deep black-iron striations running up his neck to both sides of his jaw. The mark of Black Iron Body, etched in by Petrified Skin. The strength he had gained in the Land of Origin had carried through intact. That was the upside.

The downside of dying in the Land of Origin, he reminded himself, was that your haul didn't follow. Everything spilled out of the battle-mark space. Worth bearing in mind.

All in all — he was on the rise. The gene, the Gene Armament, the loot — for someone only days past Awakening, this was absurd progress. He let himself enjoy it for a moment.

He went to shower, then settled cross-legged on the bed and resumed cultivating with the Guidance Technique. No Spirit Crystals left — it was the only option. Slower, but better than nothing.

He glanced out the window. Night, heavy and still. Neon lights blinking in the distance, same as always.

He could probably venture into other zones at his current strength — hunt stronger beasts, gather more Spirit Crystals. He'd do that next time. For tonight, he'd pushed things far enough.

He breathed out slowly and cultivated.

Time passed. Midnight came and went. Outside, the darkness seemed to thicken — denser, somehow, than it had been before.

In the corner of Lu Yuan's room, a shadow slowly took shape.

Silently. Without a sound.

It emerged from the dark and drifted toward him.

When it reached him, it pressed against his chest and began to seep inward — slow, steady, and utterly silent.

Without warning, a wave of icy cold crashed through his entire body. Nausea. A crushing pressure in his chest, as if something were wedged against his lungs, forcing the air out.

His eyes flew open.

*What—*

He convulsed. Spiritual Energy detonated through him in a roaring cascade. The Black Iron Body combat technique activated.

The black-iron striations blazed to life across his skin, racing up his neck to both sides of his jaw. His constitution and defensive power spiked in an instant. The shadow let out a shriek — and was wrenched free, expelled from his body.

With a final ear-splitting scream, it twisted, collapsed into black smoke, and vanished.

Lu Yuan sat there, staring at the space where it had dissolved. His pupils had contracted to pinpoints. Every hair on the back of his neck stood on end.

He didn't relax. He stood up, turned on the light, and swept the room with his eyes.

The cramped little space looked exactly as it always did. Ordinary. Still. As if nothing had been there at all.

He sat back down on the bed, frowning hard, heart still hammering.

*What in the hell was that thing?*

He forced himself to think.

*That nauseous, chest-tight feeling... I've felt that somewhere before.*

It reminded him of something from childhood — that horror show he used to watch as a kid, the one about the elementary schooler and the shinigami. The moment the black-robed figure appeared on screen.

The feeling was close to what he felt now.

He frowned harder, reaching back through memory — and then something clicked.

*Aberration Event.*

The word surfaced, and with it a cold flash of clarity.

He jolted. His eyes went wide.

*Could it be that this thing — this shadow — had been responsible?*

He stared at the ceiling, his mood turning heavy.

*So it was this thing causing all of it.*

The original body had been completely ordinary. A normal person with no particular abilities whatsoever. What could he possibly have done to draw the attention of something like this?

And it had been years since the original body's Aberration Event — yet here it was again.

Even though the shadow had dissolved into smoke, Lu Yuan was certain it wasn't dead. Things like this didn't simply cease to exist because they lost their form.

*It's coming back.*

The weight of that settled over him.

He knew nothing about it. Not what it was, not where it came from, not the first thing about how to deal with it. The unknown was always the most terrifying kind of threat. If he could find even a small amount of information, he might be able to work out a countermeasure. But right now, he had nothing.

There was one small comfort, at least.

Black Iron Body had held. Whatever the shadow's attack was, the combat technique had managed to repel it.

*If I hadn't just acquired Black Iron Body,* he thought, *would I even have been able to push that thing out? If it had dug in any deeper — I could have been done for. Wait...*

He sat with the implication for a moment.

All he could do for now was get stronger. Keep tempering the Gene Chain. The stronger Black Iron Body became, the better his odds when that shadow inevitably returned.

He looked out the window one last time. Night, and the distant neon lights blinking away, indifferent to everything.

He sat back down cross-legged on the bed, took a slow breath, and resumed cultivating.

This time, he left the light on.