The dead rose like smoke. Their joints cracked as they pulled themselves upright, eye sockets empty but burning with green threads of necromancy. Some still wore scraps of the lives they'd lost—charred uniforms, blood-stained coats, fragments of masks clinging to jawbones.
Hung Chu didn't flinch. His robe brushed the street as if the ruined city had been waiting for him. He looked like he belonged here, like the apocalypse was a stage he had been rehearsing for all his life.
Shitsubo stood across from him, body taut, the new silence wrapping around his skin like invisible armor. The Insight whispered the truth: the corpses weren't real soldiers anymore. They were puppets. Their strings glowed in Hung's hands, veins of mana twined with shadows.
Shitsubo wanted to speak, to spit out a curse, to name the foreigner with venom on his tongue—but his throat caught. The trial's aftermath clamped his voice. The system's message echoed still: Emotion will fade. Words will rot on your tongue.
So he gave Hung nothing. Just the weight of his stare.
Hung tilted his head, lips curling. "Not even insults anymore? I almost miss the days you hounded me in class, Date. At least then, you were loud."
He snapped his fingers. The nearest corpse lunged.
Shitsubo didn't step back. He let the silence thicken, pressing like a second skin. The Draugr-shade of Hrym answered his call, spilling from the shadows at his feet like tar. It took shape in a ragged warrior's outline, blade jagged, movements unnatural.
The corpse and Draugr collided in a crack of bone. Rotten arms snapped, black ichor spilling, but the Draugr's strength held.
Shitsubo moved too, closing the distance to Hung. He wasn't going to waste himself on pawns.
But Hung's hand swept the air, and five more corpses surged forward, blocking the path. "You always underestimate me," he said calmly. "Even before the Rift. You thought I'd just bow my head while you mocked me."
Shitsubo's teeth clenched. He ripped the knife from his belt and cut one corpse's spine in half, twisting free before another claw scraped his face. The silence absorbed the shock, steadying him even as his skin stung.
The Draugr cut down two more, but each kill seemed hollow—the corpses dissolved, and the ground itself pushed up another in their place.
Hung's mana pulsed steady, measured. He wasn't even sweating.
"Do you see it, Date?" he asked, voice soft but slicing. "The Rift isn't punishment. It's liberation. The strong can remake themselves. Even you… though you'll never admit it."
Shitsubo hurled the knife into another corpse's skull. It toppled, lifeless. He kept running, boots pounding the ruined street. He wanted Hung's throat under his hands.
But Hung raised his palm, and the ground split. Skeletal arms burst from below, clamping onto Shitsubo's legs. Cold bit into his skin, dragging him down like the earth itself was hungry.
Shitsubo's silence pulsed. He gritted his teeth and pulled. Not with strength—strength was failing—but with defiance. The trial hadn't given him resilience for nothing.
He didn't scream. He couldn't. But the silence around him cracked like glass. The pressure reversed—suddenly the skeletal arms trembled, bones splintering under the unseen force.
Shitsubo tore himself free, chest heaving. Blood smeared his arms, but he felt no pain. The silence drank it.
Hung's eyes flickered. For the first time, his voice dropped lower. "…So you did survive a Trial. I thought the Rift would eat you whole."
Shitsubo lifted his chin, wordless. His expression was carved from stone.
Hung smirked. "Then we're alike, after all."
The corpses stilled. Every one of them froze mid-motion, heads tilting toward Hung as though waiting for command. The necromancer lowered his hand, threads of mana curling back into his palm.
"This isn't the place for us to finish it," he said. His tone was measured, dangerous. "Osaka is only the beginning. If you survive long enough, Date, you'll understand."
The corpses melted into ash. Hung stepped backward into the shadows, his form unraveling with them. In seconds, only silence remained.
Shitsubo stood in the middle of the street, sweat running down his face, his heartbeat thundering but mute to his ears. He wasn't sure if he had won anything.
The Draugr collapsed back into shadow, leaving him alone.
The Rift pulsed again in the distance, brighter than before. And for the first time, Shitsubo wondered if his silence had not only saved him—if it had also marked him, claimed him.
The city would learn soon enough.