Night fell, and Windrunner Spire shed the hustle and bustle of the day, sinking into a profound stillness.
The footsteps of the outer sentries changing shifts reached him through the thick stone walls, mechanical and rhythmic, like some ancient pendulum.
Li Fan went alone to the tool area behind the tower.
Next to the edge-most whetstone sat a basin half-filled with standing water.
Squatting down, he submerged his skinning dagger into the water.
The blade pressed against the coarse stone with a steady rasping sound as he pushed it back and forth to hone the edge.
Without warning, a slender shadow fell silently over him from above.
Li Fan didn’t look up.
The pad of his finger paused imperceptibly against the spine of the blade before he pushed it forward again.
“Approaching a hunter by stepping on his shadow—especially when his blade is turned upward—isn’t very wise.” “Your hearing is sharper than most elves,” a woman’s voice drifted down from above, as cold and smooth as a frozen lake.
Li Fan slowly raised his eyes.
Deep purple ranger leathers hugged a body built for explosive power, her brilliant gold hair entirely tucked beneath a hood.
A pair of refined military boots stepped down the stairs without a sound, the tip of one stopping precisely less than ten centimeters from Li Fan’s fingers.
This was no accidental positioning; it was a deliberate, suffocating probe.
Sylvanas Windrunner.
Li Fan’s hand paused on the whetstone for a moment.
Then, as if nothing had happened, he resumed sharpening.
“Father said you brought back a bag of troll ears.” She looked down at him from above.
“I didn’t.
The damn things reeked too much.” Before his words could fade, she struck!
She bent forward in a flash of movement, five fingers shooting straight for the smoked meat pouch hanging at Li Fan’s waist.
But Li Fan’s reaction was even faster than she anticipated.
He planted his left hand hard against the stone floor, pivoting his entire body around the whetstone like a ghost.
At the same time, his right wrist flipped.
The spine of the dagger snapped around in a blur, striking back toward her oncoming wrist with surgical accuracy.
The force was calculated to perfection—not to injure, but to force a retreat.
*Clang!* A crisp metallic ring echoed through the empty tool area.
Sylvanas yanked her hand back as if struck by lightning, snapping her slender waist upright.
A fleeting, barely perceptible flicker of astonishment crossed her eyes.
It was brief, but she couldn’t hide it completely.
She had never expected a human initiate to match her burst of speed so flawlessly.
“Good reactions,” she said, instantly regaining her icy facade, her voice sounding like a tactical report.
“Your stance is unstable.
Your center of gravity shifted seven degrees off-target when pushing off your right foot.” Li Fan set the dagger back onto the whetstone and lowered his head to continue honing it.
The harsh rasp filled the cramped space once more.
“If you were a troll just now and my blade had been facing up, your tendons would be severed,” Li Fan said flatly, without looking up.
“General, it’s late.
Instead of making your rounds, why are you staring at an initiate’s bag of cured meat?” Sylvanas was neither provoked nor inclined to leave.
She paced over to the tool rack, her cold gaze sweeping over the quiver Li Fan had tossed aside, where her eyes suddenly lingered.
“No fletching correction, uneven arrowhead weighting, and not a single arcane circuit,” she said without sarcasm, stating pure facts.
“A low-grade arrow like this couldn’t kill a wild boar at three hundred meters.” “In the forest, only fools obsess over targets three hundred meters away,” Li Fan snorted softly.
Sylvanas raised an eyebrow.
“True killing happens within fifty meters,” he flipped the dagger over and pushed again.
“At that distance, you don’t need magic or fletching.
You only need a heart that doesn’t beat.” Sylvanas fell into a brief silence.
Her long fingers tightened sharply against the edge of the tool rack.
She had read those exact words in an ancient, obsolete ranger manuscript—a text that predated this human’s ancestors by millennia.
A glint of inquiry flashed in her eyes.
Where had he learned this doctrine of the wilderness?
Or had he deduced this truth on his own?
“Your arrogance,” Sylvanas turned around, her gaze pinning him like a torch, her tone deadpan, “stems from the fact that you have never seen a real army—one capable of leveling entire continents.” Li Fan finally stopped what he was doing.
Dropping the skinning knife into the water trough, he slowly drew himself up.
He met the elven ranger’s stare without the slightest hesitation.
His eyes held neither cowardice nor provocation.
“I heard a story in Lordaeron,” he said.
“It was about an ancient civilization.
They were once so powerful they believed no one could breach their walls.
They said the exact same thing: ‘You haven’t seen a real army.'” He paused deliberately for a second, letting the oppressive stillness spread between them.
“Later, they vanished.” Sylvanas’s pupils contracted sharply.
The air in the tool area seemed to be sucked dry in an instant.
The cold moonlight remained unchanged, ripples still drifted across the water trough, and the damp sheen on the whetstone slowly evaporated.
Yet a deadly aura bled silently from the High Elven general, blanketing the space around them.
“You dare compare Quel’Thalas to ruined dust?” Her voice didn’t rise, yet every syllable bore down like an unsheathed blade.
Li Fan’s expression didn’t flinch.
“I’m just saying,” he said, looking straight into those burning eyes, “arrogance always looks about the same.” Dead silence.
The two stood in silent standoff under the moonlight, oppressive pressure pulling taut in the air as neither yielded an inch.
“Sister Sylvanas!” A crisp shout suddenly tore through the frozen tension.
Vereesa came rushing down from the far end of the corridor, clutching a jug of sweet-scented mead, her silver-white hair slightly disheveled in the night breeze.
As she rounded the corner, she stumbled upon her second-oldest sister confronting the human initiate.
The terrifying aura between the two forced Vereesa to skid to a halt.
She froze for three full seconds.
“Father wants you in the council hall.
People from the Council have arrived.” Sylvanas cast a long, dark look at Li Fan, as if seeking to pierce his soul entirely.
Then, she turned decisively.
The rhythmic tap of her military boots echoed against the flagstones, gradually fading around the bend of the long corridor.
Only after verifying that her sister was truly gone did Vereesa pat her chest and let out a long sigh of relief, the high tips of her ears still quivering slightly.
“Are you insane?
Do you know she hung an initiate who talked back to her in a tree all night long?” Li Fan unceremoniously reached out and snatched the jug of mead right out of her arms.
Biting out the wooden cork, he threw back his head and took a long, hard gulp.
The rich, spicy liquor blended with intense honey sweetness, sliding down his throat like a ball of fire that burned straight into his stomach.
He exhaled a misty cloud infused with alcohol and caught his breath.
“Let me use this to calm my nerves.” “That was for Father!” Vereesa stomped her foot in exasperation.
Li Fan impassively stuffed the jug—now a third lighter—back into her arms, his expression unruffled.
“Your father is a general; he won’t miss a few gulps.
Besides, your sister almost scared me half to death just now.” Clutching the jug mournfully, Vereesa turned back with a huff.
After taking only a few steps, she couldn’t help but stop and turn around, her tone hovering between irritation and fierce curiosity: “How many people have you met who could stand being stared down by Sister Sylvanas like that without trembling?” “Two,” Li Fan answered without hesitation.
“Who?” “One is your father.
The other is me right now.” Vereesa curled her lip in disgust and ran off.
Yet in the dim light, her pointed ears twitched merrily twice, showing she clearly didn’t mind the brazen answer.
Li Fan withdrew his gaze, casually wiped away the traces of liquor at the corner of his mouth, and squatted back down by the water basin to sharpen his dagger once more.
He honed the dagger until it gleamed snow-white.
Sheathing it back into his combat boot, he stood up and stretched his slightly numb knees.
Returning to his cold stone room, Li Fan shut the door behind him.
Through the narrow slit of the window, he could faintly make out a sliver of light still gleaming from a third-floor window of Windrunner Spire.
But the direction of that soft light, along with that woman’s formidable aura, was now etched firmly into his mind.