While the Dream Realm was shaken by the game of deception between the Keepers and the Ash, and the waking world struggled under an invisible threat manifesting in silent madness and despair, far from the glittering city of Aris, a new and formidable presence began to perceive the turmoil.
It was neither a Keeper, with their bond to the chaotic energy of the dream, nor an emanation of the Ash, devoid of its own will.
It was something different, more ancient, whose existence was intertwined with the very life of the planet, yet completely invisible to the senses of those who perceived only the magic of the Realm or the tangible manifestations of the physical world.
In a forest of conifers, thick and silent like a shroud of pine needles and moss, a man sat in deep meditation.
His posture was the quintessence of stillness, a rock that the wind could not chip away. He was not elderly—perhaps not past his middle years—but his face was marked by experience that transcended the counting of time. His dark, piercing eyes were closed in an almost violent focus, concentrated on the internal listening of the world.
He wore simple clothes of coarse, earth-colored linen, allowing him to fade with a simple change of light and shadow. On his back, he carried only an empty sheath, a symbol of his art: his true weapon needed neither metal nor magical smoke.
He was a spiritual Ronin, whose rank and abilities placed him at the pinnacle of his sect on the western continent.
He was a solitary practitioner of arts that drew not upon the magic of the Dream Realm or crude muscular force, but upon the vital energy intrinsic to every living being and the world itself: the Ki. To his people, the Spirit Assassins, Ki was the breath of the universe, the current that bound mountains to men, and flowed in every blade of grass and every drop of dew.
For months, since setting foot on this land to investigate the imbalance, the Ronin had perceived a strange "distortion" in the harmonious flow of the earth's Ki.
It was like a frozen knot in a pulsing vein, a cold, disharmonious current moving on the surface, yet without a clear physical or magical source. These were the traces left by the passage of the Silent Ones, creatures whose essence was so tied to the Ash that it disturbed the natural currents of spiritual energy.
Magic would not have noticed them, but Ki silently screamed them to the sky.
Now, however, those distortions had become more frantic, more irregular, like the strings of a koto, a stringed instrument from his homeland vaguely similar to a guitar, ripped by unskilled hands. The Ronin sensed their confused march, their uncoordinated gait, which proceeded according to a logic devoid of meaning.
He could perceive the Silent Ones' "hunger" and their growing "frustration," an echo of the Whispering One's own torment reverberating in its pawns. He did not know what they were, but their presence was a pulsating scar on the harmonious flow of Ki.
Kenji opened his eyes.
The dark color reflected the shadows of the forest, but his gaze carried the depth of a thousand-year-old monk's meditation. His perceptions were precise, more so than anyone could imagine. Through focused manipulation and the refined use of Ki, he could "see" the spiritual imprints in the waking world—imprints that magic would never detect because it was not their domain.
It was the main reason why his sect, the Spirit Assassins (or Reika Eishū, the "Brotherhood of Cursed Spirit Shadows"), had remained unknown for millennia, operating in the shadows, outside the comprehension of the Keepers or the sorcerers.
They were masters of dissimulation and the Whisper of Ki, capable of manipulating their vital energy to render it indistinguishable from a stone or a stream, concealing their presence and striking with lethal precision that left no magical trace.
He closed his eyes again, but this time his mind did not seek silence, but a connection.
It was not mental or magical telepathy like that used by the Keepers, but spiritual telepathy, an alignment of Ki flows that allowed the transmission of pure concepts and sensations, like water joining water.
He projected the vivid image of the distortions he perceived, the urgency of the Silent Ones' movements, their irrational dance of destruction.
The message propagated like an immaterial wave across the continent, reaching the other members of his sect. They had arrived from the Eastern lands only a few months prior, and their presence was a truth known only to themselves, the result of gradual infiltration and methodical camouflage.
The thirty Spirit Assassins had dispersed with calculated precision.
They did not move in groups, but in pairs or individually, each headed toward a different precise point on the continent. In a few days, they had transformed into shadows living in plain sight.
During the day, their camouflage was nearly indistinguishable. They did not hide; they blended. Many had taken on humble or transient roles: one was a silent spice vendor in a crowded market, whose intense aroma covered every spiritual scent; another was a wandering monk, whose poverty and isolation repelled attention. Still others worked as dockworkers or solitary artisans—activities that allowed observation without requiring deep interaction.
The key to their dissimulation was the Veil of Will, a technique that went beyond the simple concealment of Ki.
The goal was not to seem absent, but to seem irrelevant.
The Assassin not only reduced their Ki emanation to minimal levels—making it seem similar to a sun-warmed stone—but subtly manipulated their mental presence. They created a kind of cognitive fog around themselves, a slight annoyance to others' perception, that led anyone who encountered them to forget them immediately.
They were faces whose eye color one could not recall, voices whose tone was not grasped.
To the Keepers or sorcerers, trained to look for extraordinary or anomalous energies, the Assassins were unobservable. They did not emit magic, and their Ki energy was so well controlled that it perfectly imitated the environmental energy background.
A Keeper searching for magical traces would only find fresh air; a sorcerer using clairvoyance would only see an ordinary man performing an insignificant task. Thus, no one, neither the Keepers nor the Ash, had ever suspected their existence.
This discipline extended to every aspect of their lives.
Their movements were calculated to be efficient yet mundane. Their speech was brief and devoid of emotion. Even their heartbeat was regulated to imitate the placid indifference of one who has nothing to hide.
They received the Ronin's message with the same imperturbable calm with which he had sent it. They were scattered, camouflaged in smoky inns, hidden in abandoned temples or isolated mountain dens, their senses—trained for years to listen to Ki—always alert.
They felt the urgency, they perceived the unusual "nature" of these new Ki disturbances: they were disharmonious, impure, but above all, they were not magic of any kind.
Something tremendous was moving in the world, something that did not fall under their old esoteric knowledge. This "disturbance" was a threat of a different order, a corruption of energy itself. It was tangible proof that their mission on this continent, in response to the increase in global distortions, had been justified.
Their arts were ambivalent: the use of Ki could heal the most serious wounds or seal corrupted energy flows, but it could also destroy, transforming Ki into an invisible and lethal blade.
They were trained to eliminate threats to balance, but their morality was a labyrinth of ancient codes and brutal practices. They were judges and executioners, guided by a principle of universal balance that could appear ruthless to an outside observer.
They were natural allies of none: they did not know the Keepers, considered magic a vulgar and dangerous practice, and would not hesitate to eliminate anyone deemed a threat to the harmonious flow.
Their appearance on the stage of this conflict could be a blessing or a curse for Aris and the Keepers.
They were the eyes of the shadow, whose messages traveled along the invisible currents of life. And now they had noticed the invisible war being fought on that continent. The Ronin's hand tightened on the mossy earth until his knuckles turned white.
The observation was over. The balance was broken. It was time to act and re-establish the harmony of Ki.
At any cost.