The Ascension of the suppressed Dragon

chapter 3:the shadow's return

“Again!”

Yue Xuān’s voice cracked like a whip across the frozen valley floor.

I slammed my fists into the snow and forced myself upright. My knuckles were split open, black ichor staining the ice beneath me. “I’ve punched the air ten thousand times today, Old Man,” I snapped. “The air isn’t fighting back.”

“That’s because you’re still trying to hit air, you idiot,” Yue Xuān barked. He stood atop a jagged obsidian pillar, arms folded, eyes sharp with disdain. “The Void is not something you strike. It is the absence of things. Break the distance. Strike what isn’t there.”

“There is no distance!” I roared and lunged.

I threw a punch, hatred for Zhaoyang surging through my arm. I didn’t aim at the stone wall. I aimed at the space between us, at the invisible gap reality pretended didn’t exist.

CRACK.

The wall didn’t shatter.

It vanished.

A perfect circular hole appeared in the granite, edges smooth, reality eaten clean away.

Yue Xuān dropped down beside me. “Better,” he grunted. “Still slow.”

I barely had time to breathe.

A wave of condensed frost slammed into my back.

I didn’t turn. I didn’t panic. I felt the vibration in the space behind me and shifted sideways.

One moment I was there. The next, I wasn’t.

The frost shattered against the ground where I’d stood.

“Too much effort!” Yue Xuān shouted, suddenly inches from my face. His palm shot toward my chest. “You’re thinking about where you want to go. Stop thinking. Be the Void.”

“I am the Void!” I snapped, catching his wrist.

Black light flared.

For a heartbeat, his hand passed through mine as if I were smoke.

“Hmph.” He yanked free. “Seven years to learn a basic phase shift. Pathetic.”

“Seven?” I laughed harshly. “It’s been ten.”

I glanced at my reflection in a pool of dark ice. The boy with the soft face was gone. In his place stood someone sharp, hollow-eyed, predatory.

“I’m twenty,” I said quietly. “Ten years in this valley.”

“And you’ll stay longer if you can’t beat me,” Yue Xuān replied calmly. A blade of solid shadow formed in his hand. “Touch the valley exit and you leave. If I catch you, I break your legs.”

“Deal.”

He vanished.

The next hours blurred into pure violence. Shadows lashed. Space twisted. Pressure crushed my lungs. Every step toward the narrow pass earned punishment.

“You rely on speed!” Yue Xuān mocked, slamming me into the cliffside with crushing spatial pressure. “I am the space you move through, boy! How do you outrun the ground beneath you?”

I coughed blood. “I’m not… running.”

“Oh?” His voice dripped with scorn.

“I’m folding.”

I stopped resisting. Stopped pushing. I pictured where I stood and where the exit was and folded the two points together.

The pressure vanished.

I wasn’t running anymore.

I was there.

Snow crunched beneath my boots as I stood on the ridge. Below, Yue Xuān stared up at me in silence. For the first time in ten years, he nodded.

“Don’t die in the first hour, Mo Ying!” he shouted. “The world isn’t ready for you.”

“Good,” I muttered, turning away. “Neither am I.”

Blackwood stank of mud, cheap ale, and desperation. I walked through the gates with my presence sealed tight. To them, I was nothing.

“Oi.”

I kept walking.

“Shadow-boy!”

A massive man stepped into my path, scarred chest puffed out, three thugs laughing behind him. “Lost? This is the hunters’ district.”

“I’m looking for a guild.”

“A guild?” He laughed loudly. “You? No aura. No badge. You’re a zero.”

“Move.”

The laughter died.

“What did you say?”

“I said move.”

His face darkened. “Nice boots. I’ll take them.”

He kicked.

I didn’t move.

SNAP.

His leg twisted unnaturally. He screamed and collapsed into the mud. “My leg! He didn’t even touch me!”

“He tripped,” I said flatly. “Uneven ground.”

No one stopped me as I walked away.

The Silver Edge Hunter Guild smelled of sweat and stale beer.

“I’m here to join.”

I dropped a single copper coin on the desk.

The one-eyed leader burst out laughing. “Join? We don’t take civilians.”

“I’m not one.”

“Then where’s your aura?” he sneered.

“Try me.”

He opened his mouth to insult me—

The doors exploded inward.

“Boss!” A blood-covered runner collapsed. “North patrol wiped out! Scale Serpent heading for the gates!”

Silence fell.

“Move!” the leader roared, grabbing his blade.

They rushed past me.

I stayed.

The ground trembled.

Screams echoed.

An emerald-scaled head rose beyond the walls.

I stepped into the street as shadows rose to meet me.