No one had seen Lin Shui since the attack began, and that was exactly what she wanted.
She had disappeared from the formation the moment the flaming arrow rose into the sky, as ink vanished from a white sheet when wind blew across it.
She knew that fighters went where the noise was, while those who thought went where silence remained.
And in every family compound, where did the heads of the family hide when danger came?
Not in the largest hall.
That was the first place an attacker would strike.
In a building behind it, with two doors, thick walls, and the shortest route to the forest beyond.
She had been right.
At the rear entrance of the central building, an old woman stood alone in the darkness.
Her hair was completely white, tied back tightly in a practical knot, and her robe was plain, without a trace of ornament.
Nothing about her suggested danger except for her gray eyes, which did not tremble.
They watched the flames on the horizon the way a woman might watch the fire of her oven.
Beneath her feet, small stones trembled against the ground without any wind, as though there were a faint vibration buried in the earth that no one else could hear.
Lin Shui stopped ten steps away and felt a strange weight pressing against her chest.
The air around the old woman was twice as dense as normal.
Peak Soul Core at the very least, she calculated.
Perhaps even approaching Law Dominion.
What did a sensible man do when he realized his opponent was an entire realm above him?
Turn around and run.
And what did a woman who had worked in intelligence for years do?
Ask first: Why is this old woman standing here instead of fleeing?
Is she waiting for someone?
“I was waiting for someone to come through here,” the old woman said, her voice soft as wet silk.
“I didn’t expect it to be you personally, Lin Shui.”
The name.
It passed through Lin Shui’s chest like a nail driven into wood.
How did she know?
Since when?
And how many other names did she know?
Questions for which there was no time now.
Lin Shui stored them away in a dark corner of her mind to revisit later.
If the Shen Family knew her name, then the eye inside her branch was real.
And what Yuan had told her in his hut had not been an exaggeration.
“So you know me,” Lin Shui said calmly, slowly drawing her short sword from its sheath.
“That saves us the introductions.”
The old woman lunged.
Her speed was terrifyingly out of proportion to her frail appearance.
Stone cracked beneath her feet as she moved, a thin line racing toward Lin Shui faster than the eye could follow.
Lin Shui blocked the first strike with her sword.
She immediately felt an unnatural weight behind the blade, as though some invisible force had multiplied the impact of every blow.
She stepped back, then attacked, her sword searching for an opening.
There was none.
Every movement the old woman made was calculated with the precision of someone who had spent decades fighting for real, not practicing for show.
The swords collided once.
Twice.
Three times.
Blue sparks scattered through the darkness.
On the fourth exchange, Lin Shui was suddenly driven backward as if an invisible hand had slammed into her chest.
Her back struck a wooden wall.
Pain shot through her.
The old woman gave her no chance to recover.
She slowly raised one palm, as though pushing against something invisible in front of her.
Suddenly, weight descended.
It felt as though a mountain had been placed on Lin Shui’s shoulders.
Her knees trembled.
The wood behind her groaned as the boards bent beneath the pressure.
Two nearby flames went out at once, as if the air had been sucked from them.
Lin Shui tried to move.
Her legs felt as though she were wading through thick mud.
Pressure, she realized, barely containing her alarm.
She’s manipulating the weight of the air and gravity itself.
The old woman approached slowly, without urgency, certain her prey could not escape.
“This is called Mountain’s Weight,” she explained like a teacher giving a lesson.
“Few who reach my level can wield it with this density.”
Lin Shui forced all her will into her legs.
One step.
Then another.
The pain in her muscles felt like carrying an ox across her shoulders.
As she counted her steps, an idea occurred to her.
Any technique this dense required constant concentration.
Anything that disrupted that concentration, even slightly, should weaken the pressure for a moment.
One moment was enough.
Lin Shui pulled a small hidden dagger from inside her robe and threw it toward the old woman’s face.
It was never meant to hit.
They both knew that.
But the old woman’s decades of combat instinct made her tilt her head slightly to avoid it.
Enough.
The pressure weakened for a moment.
Lin Shui surged forward with everything that had been released.
The old woman gave her no chance to recover.
She attacked again, her sword drawing a swift line toward Lin Shui’s shoulder.
Lin Shui barely ducked, but the tip grazed her arm.
A shallow, painful cut opened, blood immediately beginning to seep from it.
She bit down on her cry and retreated two steps.
Direct strength won’t work here.
She invoked a technique never taught in combat arenas, but instead in intelligence chambers.
Shadow Step.
A movement based more on visual deception than energy.
She disappeared behind a pillar, then emerged directly behind the old woman, her sword thrusting toward her back.
But the old woman had anticipated it.
She turned, intercepting the strike at the last possible moment.
The blades collided.
The impact shook Lin Shui’s arm all the way to the bone.
“Good movement,” the old woman said.
“But not enough.”
She shoved Lin Shui backward.
Lin Shui fell onto her back, the air leaving her lungs.
She saw the sword descending toward her head.
Not like this.
This isn’t how tonight ends.
She rolled aside.
The blade passed beside her head so closely that she heard it whistle through the air.
She rose.
Blood now ran from two wounds, her arm and the side of her face where a shard of stone had grazed her.
But she did not retreat.
She changed her entire style.
Short, rapid movements followed by sudden pauses, without any pattern that could be memorized.
It worked, partially.
She saw the old woman slow for half a second, thrown off by a small moment of confusion.
There.
An opening.
When the old woman leaned aside to evade an unexpected movement, her right side was exposed for an instant.
Lin Shui struck with everything she had left.
But the old woman turned at the last moment, blocking most of the attack with her sword.
Not all of it.
A shallow cut appeared on her arm instead of the deep wound Lin Shui had intended.
“Close,” the old woman said, breathing harder now.
“But not enough.”
She lunged again, faster this time, anger feeding her movements.
Four consecutive clashes shook Lin Shui’s arm.
On the fourth, her sword slipped from her grip, slick with sweat and blood, and flew aside.
For one terrifying moment, Lin Shui stood unarmed with the old woman before her, sword raised.
She did not think.
Instead of retreating, she stepped closer, entering the range where the longer sword lost its advantage.
Then she drove a short, direct punch into the old woman’s face.
It landed.
It was not powerful, but it was enough to disrupt her concentration.
Lin Shui ducked, grabbed her fallen sword, and turned in one fluid motion.
The blade struck the old woman’s side.
This time, it went deep.
The old woman cried out and staggered backward, blood pouring from the wound.
She looked at Lin Shui in shock mixed with genuine anger.
“No one has wounded me this deeply in many years.”
Lin Shui did not answer.
She was breathing heavily, blood running from three wounds now, her body trembling from exhaustion.
But she remained standing, sword in hand.
The old woman charged one final time, furious and less cautious.
That was exactly what Lin Shui had been waiting for.
She avoided the final strike with a small, calculated movement, and her sword pierced through a defense already weakened by pain.
The old woman collapsed.
A deep wound ran across her chest, and she struggled to breathe.
But she was still conscious.
“Who leads your family now?” Lin Shui asked, her voice exhausted but firm.
The old woman did not answer.
A pale smile appeared on her lips.
Then she lost consciousness from blood loss.
Lin Shui stood alone in the sudden silence, her sword dripping.
She looked down at her trembling hands.
It had been many years since a single battle had left her this exhausted.
She sat on the ground and pressed one hand against the wound on her arm.
The flames were consuming several buildings now, and screams echoed from every direction.
This family is stronger than we estimated, she thought.
And Yuan was right about the danger.
Perhaps more right than I realized.
She tore a strip from her sleeve and bound the wound with her teeth clenched against the pain.
Then she looked at the old woman lying nearby, her chest rising and falling with difficulty.
For a moment, she considered ending it.
One final strike would ensure the woman never woke to become a threat again.
But she hesitated.
Living information is better than a silent corpse.
In the end, the intelligence officer in her won over the instinct of the fighter.
And this woman knows my name.
Lin Shui bound the old woman’s hands with another strip of cloth, securing them with a knot she had learned during her first year in the profession.
A sharp cry reached her from the direction of the central building.
It came from deeper inside, where neither family’s fighters had reached yet.
She stopped.
Her exhausted senses sharpened.
There’s more.
She had no time to move the prisoner somewhere safe.
She hid the old woman behind a nearby pile of rubble, away from the path of the battle, hoping she would be able to return for her.
Lin Shui wiped the blood from her forehead with the back of her hand, tightened her grip on her sword, and began walking.
Her steps were slower than usual, but steady.
Toward the screams.
Every step reminded her of her three wounds, and she pushed the pain aside as she had learned to do since entering this brutal world.
One night, she told herself.
One night, and we’ll put an end to this threat.
She disappeared among the shadows of the burning buildings, moving toward a confrontation whose true scale she had yet to discover.