Chương 25: Parting Ways

The forest was silent. Wei Chen sat in the blacksmith's forge, the silver resonance zone pulsing gently around him. His sword lay across his knees, his qi circulating in the pattern that mimicked wounded prey. Hours passed. Midnight came and went. The forge was cold, but the resonance zone provided its own warmth. Wei Chen did not move. His meditation maintained the zone's stability while keeping his awareness extended. He felt the grain barn two hundred yards away, its occupants huddled in fear and hope.

He felt the forest beyond, its nocturnal life moving in ordinary patterns. And then he felt something else. A pressure against his spiritual senses, faint at first. It came from the east, moving slowly, testing his perception. The Void Stalker was approaching, drawn by the bait. Wei Chen did not react. He maintained his breathing, his posture, his illusion of vulnerability. The creature was cautious—it had survived by hunting intelligently. If it sensed a trap, it would withdraw. The pressure grew stronger.

The creature circled the forge, examining the resonance zone, probing for weaknesses. Wei Chen felt its confusion—the reinforced barriers were unlike anything it had encountered. It pressed against the boundaries, withdrew, pressed again. The attack came at the hour before dawn. Wei Chen felt the moment of commitment—a surge in spiritual pressure as the Void Stalker abandoned caution. It materialized in the forge's corner, emerging from the wall like smoke.

It was eight feet tall, humanoid but wrong, its skin translucent, revealing organs that pulsed with dark light. Its eyes held an intelligence that was ancient and hungry. Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

"You're not easy prey," it said, its voice like wind through hollow bones.

"No," Wei Chen agreed, rising.

"I'm not." The Void Stalker lunged. The creature phased in and out of physical reality, striking from impossible angles, its claws passing through his sword and reaching for his chest. Only the resonance zone prevented it from phasing through him entirely—the reinforced barriers forcing it to solidify partially. The Thousandfold Palm was useless against something that dematerialized before impact.

His sword passed through the creature more often than not, meeting resistance only when the Stalker solidified for attack. But the legacy had prepared him. Among the legacy's techniques were methods for fighting phase-shifting entities—strikes timed to moments of solidity, qi patterns that disrupted spiritual coherence. He waited. Watched. Learned. The Void Stalker's pattern emerged: three phase-strikes, then a moment of full solidity as it prepared to consume spiritual energy.

That moment—less than a second—was its vulnerability. Wei Chen struck. Not with his sword. Not with the Thousandfold Palm. With a technique called Spirit Anchor, designed to fix a phase-shifting entity in physical reality by flooding its spiritual matrix with incompatible qi. His palm touched the creature's chest. His qi surged, disrupting the balance that allowed phase-shifting. The Void Stalker shrieked—a sound that shattered windows—and solidified completely, trapped by the binding.

Wei Chen's sword ended it before it could recover. The body dissolved into smoke, then mist, then nothing. Only a single crystal remained, dark and faceted, pulsing with the spiritual energy the creature had accumulated. Wei Chen picked it up, feeling the weight of seven lives in his palm. Dawn was breaking when he emerged. The villagers looked at him with expressions combining gratitude and fear. He had saved them, but he had also shown them something they could not understand.

Bo was waiting at the village's edge, the caravan already assembled.

"Two days," the old man said.

"I'm ready."

"Are you?" Bo searched his face.

"You look like you've aged years."

"Maybe I have." They left Thornwood behind, the villagers waving with trembling hands. Wei Chen did not look back. The crystal in his pack pulsed with residual energy, a reminder of lives consumed and a life saved. He would sell it in Dragon's Rest and try to forget the intelligence in the Void Stalker's eyes.