The shadow stared at him.
Its face was his face.
Its eyes were his eyes.
But the smile was wrong—stretched too far, lips pulled into something inhuman, eyes hollow, filled not with life but with endless dark.
Yan Zhi raised a hand, cautious.
The shadow raised its hand at the same instant, mirroring his movement perfectly. As though time itself bound them together.
"Shadow…" Yan Zhi whispered.
And he knew.
This was no illusion.
This was the embodiment of what he had always carried within:
fear, doubt, scars left unhealed.
The figure's mouth split open wider than flesh should allow. From it came a voice like broken metal scraping on stone:
"I am you. The part you never admit."
The words cut deeper than any blade.
Yan Zhi's chest tightened. He tried to deny it—but the shadow laughed, a fractured, jagged laugh that made the air shiver.
The ground convulsed.
From the crimson fissures seeped black hands, smoke-formed, clawing upward to grasp him. They clutched at his legs, his arms, his skin, dragging him toward the pulsing ground.
The shadow stepped forward.
No sound of footfalls—only the world itself shattering, distorting like broken glass. Each step drew the faceless silhouettes in the distance closer, inch by inch.
Yan Zhi summoned the Shadow Vein. Dark light surged, slicing through the grasping hands. But the more he severed, the faster they multiplied, clawing again.
"You fled from the light. You chose the dark. But even in darkness… you cannot escape yourself."
Now only three steps separated them.
A crushing weight bore down on Yan Zhi's head. Memories bled into his vision:
the faces of the slain,
the promises he betrayed,
the eyes that once trusted him before he shattered them.
All of it reflected in the shadow standing before him.
He tried to scream, but no sound left his lips. He tried to retreat, but behind him the ground had become a wall of obsidian—unyielding, final.
The shadow's finger touched his chest.
Yan Zhi's heart stopped.
The world fell silent.
And in that silence, a voice rang inside his skull:
"If you wish to go deeper… first, kill me."
The shadow's smile widened, grotesque.
And Yan Zhi finally understood—this was no stranger.
This was himself.
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