Chapter 123: Shadows Collide
The courtyard was already broken.
Yet the clash destroyed it even futher.
The first strike had shattered the flagstones, cracked the stone walls, and sent echoes howling through Solaris Castle like a scream buried in stone. Dust churned in the air, a choking fog that dulled moonlight and turned both combatants into shifting silhouettes of menace.
But they moved too fast for the eye to follow.
Karahad’s presence was a rending blade in itself. His shadow stretched unnaturally wide across the rubble, quivering as if alive, fangs of darkness snapping in silence. He shifted once, a whisper in space — and then he was gone.
Lan’s eyes narrowed, pale grey trying to catch the distortion.
The answer came a breath later, too late for most men to even flinch.
First Breath.
Space folded. The world tilted. Karahad’s form simply ceased to be before him, only to flare alive at Lan’s flank, blade already thrusting forward with the inevitability of death. The steel hissed like a serpent striking, edge carrying the crushing weight of shadow law.
Lan barely tilted Devil’s Lie across to parry, sparks streaking as steel shrieked against cursed rust. The impact numbed his arm, his muscles screaming from the sheer force of it.
Another shift. Another fold.
Again Karahad was gone. Again he reappeared. This time behind.
Lan dark-stepped, body dissolving into a smear of black and reappearing meters away — but even that wasn’t enough. The merciless edge grazed his shoulder. A whisper of dark rot followed the wound, black veins clawing down his flesh like spider cracks.
"Fast," Karahad murmured, voice flat, disdain dripping from its calm. His blade lowered a fraction. "But speed is an answer I have erased a thousand times."
Lan rolled his aching shoulder, Qi burning through the rot. The corruption hissed as golden light flared, staving off the spread. His voice was steady, carrying across the dust and ruin.
"And yet here I stand. Not erased. Not forgotten."
The words drew no more than the faint twitch of Karahad’s lip, a ghost of contempt that was not quite a smile. His answer was another strike, too quick for even sound to follow.
The battlefield blurred into endless exchanges.
Each time Lan tried to cut the space with Devil’s Lie, Karahad was already gone, stepping through folds of shadowed space, his blade always arriving a heartbeat early, a nightmare of inevitability. The clang of steel against steel was relentless — sparks danced, Qi rippled, stone walls cracked under the weight of their duel.
Lan summoned a Qi Shield, golden and blazing bright, forming a barrier of will. For a moment, it seemed like enough. Karahad’s thrust stabbed into the light, rebounding in a shimmer.
But the shadow moved differently.
His blade fragmented into smoke as it touched the shield, the steel splitting into strands of writhing dark that slipped through the barrier as if it were nothing more than water. A shallow cut bloomed across Lan’s ribs.
The flesh rotted instantly.
Lan grimaced as his body screamed, Qi surging wildly to push out the invasive law. His hand darkened, Severance Touch pulsing to burn away the shadow rot. The stench of scorched corruption filled the courtyard.
Karahad’s eyes were glacial. He never pressed too hard, never overcommitted. His movements were efficient, surgical. Every strike spoke the same truth: I am above you. I do not need to try.
Dust spiraled between them.
And then the shadow flared wider. Karahad’s voice, almost ritualistic in tone, cut through the clash.
"Doomed Reflection."
The words were law.
Lan staggered as his own shadow tore itself free from the ground. It rose in a jerking convulsion, black mist filling its hollow frame until it shaped itself into something almost solid.
Himself.
The same pale grey eyes. The same rusted blade. The same aura of dark intent. Only emptier, colder — an imitation sharpened to cut him apart.
The shadow moved first.
Lan dark-stepped to its flank. But the shadow stepped with him, instant, mirrored.
Lan’s Qi Blades flared from his outstretched hand, a storm of razor wind shrieking toward the figure. But the reflection’s hand moved too, blades identical in speed and angle, crashing into his with equal violence.
The air filled with tearing shrieks as blades met blades, canceling into ruin.
Devil’s Lie swung. Shadow Devil’s Lie answered.
Rust clashed against rust. Sparks painted the battlefield in grotesque symmetry.
Lan ground his teeth as the truth revealed itself — every strength, every path, every desperate tool he reached for, the shadow mimicked with mechanical cruelty. His techniques turned against him. His own cultivation snarling to devour him.
The fight slowed into attrition, cuts scoring his arms, his side, his cheek. Shallow wounds, but endless. Each one burned, each one carried the lingering weight of Shadow Maim. His body bled, golden Qi spilling to fight the corruption while exhaustion bled faster.
In the distance, his men watched from broken walls and ruined alleys, too far to intervene but too close to deny what they saw. The Fourth Guard’s jaw was locked, Garran’s hands trembling though his eyes stayed sharp. Even Venom — who once thought himself a beast — clenched his fists like a chained hound.
On the opposite side, Solaris soldiers huddled together, terror lining their eyes. They felt it too — the crushing pressure of a predator dismantling something that should not have been dismantled.
Karahad stood with calm detachment, watching both duel and reflection as if orchestrating a lesson rather than a fight. His voice was cool, clinical.
"It will not take long."
Lan staggered back, blood dripping into the dust, his breath ragged but his eyes still fixed forward. His chest rose and fell heavy, his frame aching with the weight of mirrored death. And yet his gaze remained sharp, iron-grey cutting through the shadows.
The shadow hissed and lunged again, its rusted blade gleaming like a mockery of hope.
And as the clash resumed, those watching shuddered — for it felt as though the curtain had closed tighter, and death itself leaned closer.