The silence in the clocktower snapped.Not with a shout or a roar, but with the faint, sickening sound of the wooden beams groaning as unseen threads wound through them.
The Weaver raised his right hand. The silver lattice on his face pulsed, and from his fingertips, strands of qi—thin as spider silk but glowing faintly—spread out into the air. They moved with uncanny precision, weaving themselves into an invisible net that shimmered only when the moonlight caught it at the right angle.
Shen Qiye's breath hitched. "He's sealing the space."
Lau Rhen didn't look away from the Weaver. "Good. Then he won't run."
The Weaver flicked his wrist. The net contracted instantly, the threads whistling through the air with a faint metallic hum. In a breath, they were upon Lau Rhen.
Most would have sidestepped. Lau Rhen stepped forward.
Qi surged from his dantian with a sharp, controlled burst—so pure and so cold it was almost tangible. His hand cut upward, palm open, and the threads recoiled as if burned, their glow dimming where his energy touched them.
The Weaver froze for half a heartbeat, then his head tilted—just enough to convey interest."You alter the thread without severing it," he murmured. "Uncommon."
"You measure my depth," Lau Rhen said, voice even. "I'll measure yours."
Before the Weaver could respond, Lau Rhen's qi shifted again—not sharp this time, but heavy, sinking into the floorboards. The wood under the Weaver's feet groaned, then fractured into a spiral pattern, dragging his footing half a pace off balance.
The Weaver countered instantly. The threads that had been recoiling now split into dozens more, darting like living needles, each aimed at a vital point—throat, heart, spine.
Lau Rhen's figure blurred. Not from speed alone, but from control so precise that his movements slipped between the gaps in the net as if he had walked the pattern himself. Shen Qiye stared—this was no brute force defense. It was like watching a man step through a trap he had memorized years before it was laid.
Then Lau Rhen struck.
It wasn't flashy—just a single, perfectly-timed push of qi, condensed to a needle-point strike at the air directly before the Weaver's chest.
The Weaver staggered—not from the force, but because the lattice on his face warped violently, breaking its symmetry. For a moment, the silver threads covering his head unraveled, revealing a glimpse of something dark, hollow, and vast beneath.
Shen Qiye took a half-step forward, but Lau Rhen stopped him with a quiet, "Don't."
The Weaver straightened slowly. His voice had lost its distorted calm—now it was low, almost whispering."Depth acknowledged. Measurement incomplete."
The threads around them dissolved into drifting motes of light. The Weaver stepped back into the shadows of the staircase, and in the next breath, he was gone—as if he had never been there.
The air was still again.
Shen Qiye finally exhaled. "What… what was that?"
Lau Rhen's gaze stayed on the darkness where the Weaver had vanished."An observer. The kind that comes before worse things."
***
The air outside the clocktower was colder than it should have been.Not the night breeze kind of cold—but a deep, marrow-seeping chill, as though something had drawn warmth out of the stones beneath his feet.
Lau Rhen descended the tower steps without speaking. Shen Qiye kept pace, glancing at him sideways more than once, but Rhen's expression remained as still as glass.
"You're not going to tell me who that was?" Qiye finally asked.
"No."
They reached the street. Lanterns swayed gently overhead, the paper shades casting soft halos of orange across cobblestones still damp from yesterday's rain. The city should have felt safe—crowds thinning, shopkeepers calling their last prices—but Lau Rhen could feel it.
A faint, pulling sensation at the edge of his awareness.Like a splinter in the fabric of qi itself.
He stopped at the shadow of an alleyway. His gaze shifted toward nothing in particular, but the stillness of his body made Shen Qiye uneasy.
"You feel it too?" Shen asked carefully.
"No. You can't feel it," Lau Rhen corrected, voice quiet. "But it feels you."
Before Qiye could ask what he meant, Lau Rhen stepped into the alley and vanished from sight. Not into the shadows, but into the Off World.
—
The shift was immediate.
Where the city's air had been cool and heavy with night, the Off World's was dry, sharp, and saturated with qi so pure it hummed faintly in his ears. Mountains that rose like blades pierced a sky painted with two moons, their light pale enough to turn every rock into bone-white sculpture.
Lau Rhen stood on a stone outcropping overlooking the valley. Normally, the qi here was perfectly balanced—clear currents weaving like silk ribbons between earth and sky.
Not tonight.
A thin disturbance marred the flow—a single line of qi darker than its surroundings, twisting slowly upward into the air, vanishing beyond sight. It didn't belong here.
He crouched, touching the stone at the base of the disturbance. Cold. Colder than even the clocktower had been.
"…He followed," Lau Rhen murmured to himself.
The qi was foreign but familiar—the same metallic taste that had clung to the Weaver's threads. It wasn't a physical trail; it was a hook, lodged in the Off World like an anchor. The Weaver hadn't just measured him—he had marked the realm itself.
A faint sound broke the silence.Not footsteps—something subtler, like the whisper of fabric brushing stone.
Lau Rhen didn't turn immediately. He simply let his qi expand outward, catching the movement like silk catching wind. Whoever—or whatever—it was, it didn't belong here either.
Only when it came within twenty paces did he speak, voice low and even."You've followed the wrong man."
Silence.
Then—barely visible in the pale light—a thread of silver stretched from the darkness between two boulders. Not an attack. Not moving closer.
Just… watching.
Lau Rhen's jaw tightened. The Weaver wasn't here in body, but his presence bled across realms.The thread trembled once—almost like a pulse—and then faded into nothing, leaving behind only the lingering cold.
Lau Rhen straightened. The hook remained. Whatever the Weaver intended, this was only the first tug.