The cat didn't pounce. It circled him slowly, its movements utterly silent, its silver eyes tracking his every move. He felt its spiritual pressure wash over him a wave of cold, primal fear that sought to clench his heart and turn his blood to ice. It was a command whispered directly into his hindbrain: 'Freeze. Die.'
Aryan's mind registered the input. External spiritual influence detected. Threat: psychological paralysis.
He didn't fight the fear. He observed it, quarantined it, analyzed its mechanics, and then dismissed it. His own will, forged in the furnace of two lifetimes and tempered by the System, was a fortress that such a primitive assault could not breach.
The Shadow Cat's silver eyes widened almost imperceptibly. Its prey was not reacting as it should. This was not a frightened deer; this was a rock.
The stalemate was broken by the cat. It vanished. It didn't run; it simply dissolved back into the surrounding shadows. Aryan's eyes darted around the clearing, but the creature was gone. His senses, however, told him something else. The cold spot, the feeling of being watched, was now directly behind him.
He didn't turn. He dropped, falling forward into a roll just as two sets of razor-sharp claws sliced through the air where his neck had been a moment before. The Shadow Cat materialized from the gloom, its attack having missed by a hair's breadth.
As he came out of the roll, Aryan was already on the offensive. He unleashed a Gale Palm, not at the cat, but at the ground in front of it. The blast of wind kicked up a massive cloud of glowing blue fungus spores and loose soil, creating a temporary smokescreen.
The cat, its superior night vision momentarily blinded, let out a frustrated snarl. Aryan used that single moment to act. He charged through the glowing blue haze, his sword finally singing from its sheath. He didn't aim for a killing blow; he knew the creature was too agile. This was a probe. A test of its defenses.
His blade, wreathed in a thin layer of Qi, slashed toward the cat's flank. The cat twisted in mid-air with an impossible, fluid grace. He felt a jarring, unnatural resistance as his blade met the cat's shadow, which had momentarily hardened into something like obsidian. The shriek of protesting metal bit at his ears as sparks flew, the impact sending a painful vibration up his arm. The technique had been deflected.
Aryan landed, putting distance between them again. The blue haze settled. The cat stood twenty meters away, a thin, shallow scratch marring its shadowy hide. It was a superficial wound, but it was likely the first time in its life as an apex predator that prey had fought back and drawn blood. Its silver eyes now burned with a focused, hateful fury.
It crouched low, its muscles coiling, gathering itself for a final, decisive pounce. Aryan did the same, his Qi gathering at the tips of his fingers, preparing the Void Piercer. He knew this would be the final exchange. One of them was not walking away.
The cat launched, a black arrow, silent and deadly.
Aryan prepared to unleash his attack.
Twang.
A sound, alien and sharp, split the forest's silence. An arrow, wreathed in a pale green light, shot out of the darkness outside the clearing. It moved with incredible speed and precision, striking the Shadow Cat in mid-air. The beast let out a choked cry as the arrow pierced its shoulder, its momentum ruined, and it tumbled to the ground in a heap.
Before Aryan could process this new variable, two figures dropped from the high branches of the trees surrounding the clearing, landing in silent, practiced crouches. They were human. They wore tight-fitting, dark green leather armor and masks that covered the lower halves of their faces. On their shoulders, a simple insignia was stitched: a silver leaf.
One held a longbow, the other a pair of wicked-looking short swords. They ignored Aryan completely, their full attention on the wounded, snarling Shadow Cat.
"Finish it, Dev," a sharp, female voice commanded.
The man with the short swords, Dev, nodded. He blurred forward, his blades a whirlwind of steel, and descended on the injured beast.
Aryan stood frozen, his Void Piercer still gathered at his fingertips. His duel had been interrupted. His experiment had been contaminated by a new, unknown variable. And he had no idea whether these newcomers were more or less of a threat than the beast they were now expertly dispatching.