The next target did not disappear.
---
He screamed.
---
That was the mistake.
---
The attack happened at dusk.
A supply runner—young, fast, unremarkable—collapsed near the outer node path, clutching his throat as if something unseen had cut him from inside.
---
Liora moved first.
Too fast.
Blade drawn—
ready to strike nothing.
---
"Back!" Kael snapped.
---
Too late.
---
The air shifted.
---
Not visibly.
But—
wrong.
---
Elara felt it instantly.
"Pull back!" she said sharply.
---
The ground itself seemed to distort—
just for a second—
---
Then—
a shape appeared.
---
Not fully.
Not clearly.
---
But enough.
---
A figure.
Thin.
Still.
Watching.
---
Then—
gone.
---
The runner died.
---
Silence.
---
No one moved.
---
Because they had all felt it.
---
Not power.
---
Absence.
---
Kael stepped forward slowly.
---
"Now we see you."
---
That mattered.
---
Because the Null Sect had made its first mistake.
---
It had revealed presence.
---
And once something could be seen—
even briefly—
it could be hunted.
---
Elara exhaled.
"That… was wrong."
---
"Yes."
---
Kael's voice was calm.
---
"And now it's ours."
---
Liora looked at him.
---
"You're not afraid."
---
Kael met her gaze.
---
"I am."
---
A pause.
---
"Which is why they die."
---
That line stayed.
---
Because it wasn't bravado.
---
It was truth.
---
And now—
the hunt had begun.