The bamboo grove was silent.
Kael sat cross-legged beneath a crooked stalk, its shadow slicing across his face like a sniper's scope. The wind did not stir. The birds did not sing. Even the insects held their breath.
He had not moved in three hours.
His lungs were full, but still.
His heart beat once every twenty seconds.
The scroll lay open before him, its edges frayed, its ink faded. Turtle Breath Technique. No diagrams. No instructions. Only one line:
> "To vanish, become the shell."
Kael closed his eyes.
He inhaled—not through his nose, not through his mouth, but through his skin. Qi seeped into his pores like mist. He did not guide it. He did not shape it. He let it settle.
His spine curved.
His shoulders dropped.
His presence thinned.
The world forgot him.
A squirrel darted past, unaware. A cultivator walked nearby, sensing nothing. Even the grove itself seemed to lose track of his existence.
Kael did not smile.
He did not blink.
He memorized the feeling.
The weight of stillness.
The shape of silence.
The breath that did not betray.
He had found his first ritual.
Not a technique of power.
A technique of absence.
He would refine it. Layer it. Bury it within every movement. Every aim. Every shot.
He would become the shell.
---
Arc I Ending: The Phantom's Vow
That night, beneath the moonless sky, Kael carved his first weapon.
Not from steel.
From bamboo.
He split the stalk with a single breath. Hollowed it with qi. Etched runes into its spine with the tip of his fingernail. It did not gleam. It did not roar. It whispered.
He named it Silent Recoil.
He fed it qi.
It pulsed once.
Then slept.
Kael stood atop the grove, rifle slung across his back, breath buried deep in his core.
He had no sect.
No master.
No allies.
Only fear.
Only memory.
Only resolve.
He would never run out again.
He would never be seen again.
He would walk the path of the sniper cultivator.
And every breath would be a ritual.
Every kill, a legend.
Every chapter, a vow.