The sky over Bali Kumbat was quiet now, deceptively calm. After the disaster, the fractures had healed, yet Salemadon felt a tremor lingering beneath the surface — a hum in the lattice of Threads that was not his own.
He stood at the edge of the glowing platform, the black-and-white ribbons of his power coiling around him in patterns that reflected his concentration. The platform itself pulsed faintly, almost in rhythm with the energy still settling in the city and the paradise realm.
Something was off.
The chrome buildings glimmered normally, but their reflections — the mirrored glass surfaces — did not quite match reality. Waterfalls shimmered with faint ripples that seemed to move against gravity. Even the air felt thicker in places, vibrating subtly, a sensation only someone attuned to Threads could feel.
Salemadon extended a hand slowly. The Threads responded immediately, reaching toward these anomalies. They bent, spiraled, and pulsed as though alive, and he realized what Maweh had been hinting at: there are threads that do not belong to him.
"These are the threads of the hidden," Maweh's voice whispered in his mind. "They are not yours, but they touch yours. Observe them, do not force them. They will show their truth if you are patient."
He closed his eyes and let the Threads extend naturally, feeling the vibrations. The anomalies resolved into faint patterns — almost imperceptible, like scratches on a polished surface. A skyscraper's reflection flickered twice before stabilizing. A waterfall paused for an instant, then flowed normally.
Salemadon opened his eyes. The world appeared unchanged, yet he could feel the pulse of an intelligence behind it.
And then he saw it.
A shimmer in the corner of his vision — like light refracting off crystal, but too precise, too deliberate. He turned toward it. Nothing. Only the mirrored surface of a chrome skyscraper reflected his own image back at him.
He reached out with a ribbon of white Thread. It drifted toward the shimmer, coiling gently around the space where he felt it. The Threads pulsed.
Something moved.
A whisper of energy flitted along the lattice, running parallel to his own Threads. Not attacking, not defending — probing. Salemadon instinctively tightened his grip on the Threads, coiling them into protective loops.
"Who's there?" he muttered aloud, though he knew no human could hear him.
A subtle pulse answered — a vibration along the Threads, almost like a heartbeat. Not his own, but similar, familiar, deliberate.
The Threads reacted violently, bending and twisting in ways he had never seen. For a moment, he felt disoriented, as though gravity had reversed and he were floating inside a storm of invisible strands. He struggled to maintain control.
"Calm," Maweh's voice urged. "Do not push. Observe. Let the Threads speak. They will show you the truth."
Salemadon inhaled deeply, releasing tension from his body. Slowly, he let the Threads extend in arcs, following the pattern of the foreign pulse. They moved with precision, coiling and stretching without forcing. He began to see shapes forming — delicate, fractal patterns in the air, almost like invisible spiders' webs spun across the city and paradise simultaneously.
Then he understood: the shadow was everywhere, but nowhere he could touch. It did not occupy space as he did, but it manipulated space itself. Small objects shifted minutely, reflections were off by millimeters, water droplets hung longer than they should, shadows fell at impossible angles.
Salemadon felt a shiver run through him. Whoever — or whatever — this was, it was not human. Not fully. And yet it was intelligent, calculating, and patient.
He stretched a ribbon of black Thread toward the shimmer again, this time letting it merge softly with the foreign energy. For a brief moment, Threads connected, pulsing together like two instruments harmonizing. Then the foreign energy retreated, slipping back into the unseen lattice.
Salemadon clenched his fists, threads coiling around him protectively. "I will find you," he whispered.
Maweh's voice returned, faint but steady:
"Patience. You cannot strike what you do not see. Learn the pulse first. Observe the hidden threads. They are testing you, and you are responding. That is the first step."
He nodded, understanding that this was not just a battle. It was a lesson, delivered in silence and shadows.
For hours, Salemadon stayed on the platform, tracing the hidden threads, letting them speak to him. He discovered patterns — subtle distortions in the flow of time, ripples in air and water, tiny anomalies in reflections and surfaces. Each one left a faint mark on the Threads, like the shadow's signature.
And with each signature, he began to anticipate, predicting the next pulse, the next movement, the next anomaly.
By mid-afternoon, the city below began to hum faintly. The villagers did not notice, but the air itself vibrated. Tiny shards of crystal, almost invisible, hovered above streets and gardens, suspended by threads he could not yet fully see. It was as if the shadow were reaching out, testing the limits of the world itself.
Salemadon's Threads pulsed faster, wrapping around him in protective coils. The foreign energy shimmered again in the mirrored windows of the chrome city. This time, it left a pattern behind, almost like a symbol — a faint geometric spiral that whispered to his mind, "I am watching."
He frowned. He had felt the Threads react instinctively to danger before, but now it was different. This presence did not attack him, but it manipulated reality to challenge him, to teach him, to mark him.
He exhaled, letting the Threads relax slightly. Maweh's voice lingered:
"Do not fear them. Fear only distraction. Every shadow leaves a mark. Every mark is a lesson. Learn, or you will stumble."
Salemadon stared at the pattern left in the air. It pulsed faintly, a reminder of something he could not yet comprehend. Yet he felt a spark of understanding — that the Threads themselves were alive, connected to everything, and that every action he took resonated through reality like ripples across water.
The sun began to dip below the horizon, casting long shadows across the city and the paradise realm. Salemadon stayed, watching, learning, letting the Threads speak in whispers he could almost understand.
And then he noticed a small shift: one of the shards hovering above the streets had moved slightly closer to the village. It was almost imperceptible, but the Threads hummed in warning.
Salemadon's eyes glowed faintly in the twilight. He could feel it: the shadow was preparing, and now the first real challenge had begun.
He clenched his fists, letting the Threads lift fully, coiling around him in spirals of white and black energy. He was not yet ready to fight, but he was ready to see, to understand, to anticipate.
Maweh's final words echoed softly:
"The Threads will teach you what eyes cannot see. Observe carefully, Salemadon. The hidden is always watching, and the first move is always yours to anticipate."
Salemadon exhaled. The Threads lifted higher, spinning, stretching, alive. He could feel every vibration of the city and the paradise world, every whisper of energy, every subtle pulse left by the shadow.
For the first time, he realized the truth of being a thread-walker: power was nothing without awareness, and survival meant learning to see what others could not.
And somewhere, in the spaces between worlds, the shadow smiled silently.
"The world is never silent. Some threads whisper when you are not listening, and some dangers move unseen."
"Not every enemy steps into the light. Some move in silence, in shadows, and in threads you cannot yet touch. Salemadon had felt it — and the unseen battle had only begun."