章 72: A Mirror Of Shadow (Part 3)

Kai skidded backward, his boots scraping across the icy ground, barely keeping his footing as the figure before him stepped forward.

The air around the Shadow seemed to distort, the darkness swirling in on itself like an endless vortex.

Shadows billowed out from its form, shifting and rippling, as though alive, wrapping around it in tendrils of pure night.

Kai's heartbeat thrummed in his chest, but he didn't dare pause, didn't dare let his mind wander.

His body acted before his thoughts could catch up, moving on instinct alone. He needed to... this didn't feel like anything he'd encountered before, it was something more.

The Shadow lunged.

A dagger — the jagged black thing looked more like a shard of night than a weapon — slashed down toward Kai's head, gleaming with a deadly promise of death. Kai reacted without thinking, his body pivoting on the balls of his feet, dodging the strike by a hair's breadth.