"W-What do you mean, Senior Wen?" a junior disciple asked. "Among us? How could there be anything among us?"
"Are you sure the tracker is working correctly?" It was Guo Lingling this time. "If only Senior Zhong were here …" she mumbled, "she never makes a mistake with these artifacts."
Wen Shiyin raised an eyebrow, but before she could respond, Li Yuxian spoke first. "My tracker says the same thing," he said and held up a crystal in his hand. I wasn't sure how to read the response from his artifact, though the light glowing in all directions seemed to suggest that the result matched Wen Shiyin's. "So stop whining, Guo Lingling. Also, stop shifting so much to make all those noises under your feet."
Guo Lingling's face flashed multiple colors quickly, turning white and then red. "I'm only suggesting reasonable possibilities! And I'm not making any noises!"
As soon as the last word was out of her mouth, another sound of something squishing against the mud on the forest floor came from where she stood, so loud that I was sure everyone heard.
"Then what is that sound?" Li Yuxian asked. "If it's not you—"
He paused. The next moment, everyone quieted.
If it wasn't her …
"S-Senior Yun," Qi Lian whispered next to me. His voice couldn't be any lower, though it still sounded particularly loud in the dead silence. "Weren't you watching for footprints earlier? Have these always been here?"
I looked in the direction he was gesturing to. Five paces away from where Guo Lingling stood, there was a footprint almost the size of my head. Round palm, six fingers, claw holes sinking deep into the ground.
I shook my head, but Qi Lian was no longer looking at me. Everyone's eyes were fixed on Guo Lingling now, because half a pace ahead of that footprint, another one was forming. Forming right in front of our eyes without a body that could be seen.
With a soft squish that was suddenly all we could hear in the unearthly quietness, the shape of a palm slowly molded onto the ground, sinking deep and smearing the mosses and mud into a dark pool of goo. Six claw holes appeared around it next, starting at the size of a thumbnail and growing larger and larger until it was wide as a coin. The finger marks came last, a twisted web connecting the rest. Then all sounds stopped.
No one was breathing.
Staring round-eyed at the two footprints in front of her, Guo Lingling was white as a ghost. "S-Someone help me …" Her voice was a thin tremble that made the words almost intelligible.
"Stay quiet if you value your life," Li Yuxian whispered and drew his sword. The rest of us all did the same, but I saw the hesitance in everyone's eyes—what creature was this? If we couldn't even see it … Would common steel be able to do any damage?
A cold wind sighed past, stirring the thick canopy above us. It was the first sound from the woods that we heard in almost an hour, but instead of comforting, it only felt eerie to my ears. Was this a sign? What else was coming?
As if on cue, a shriek sliced through the rustle of the leaves just as the third footprint started to form on the ground. Ear-piercing like a high-pitched elephant squeal, but loud as a lion's roar. "Ahh!!!" Guo Lingling's scream came the next moment. Before any of us could raise our swords, she suddenly flew backward like a puppet pulled by invisible strings, smashing into a giant tree trunk a few paces behind her.
"Lingling!" someone shouted, but the voice was soon drowned in a cacophony of more shrieks and screams. As if startled into a maniac flight, the creature seemed to have started hopping within the circle made by our bodies, and more people started tumbling backward or dropping to the ground in pain. The rest of us swung our blades aimlessly in front of us, but it was no use. We didn't know where the creature was, and—
"This thing is like air!" someone cried. "A sword cuts right through it!"
A cold sweat broke on my back. What could we do then? An invisible and intangible target, with only footprints that we could use to trace its presence. And now, with it moving so fast, even footprints were useless. The thing could leap out of the shadows right in front of us at any moment …
But wait. The shadows.
My head snapped up. It was almost noon, yet the thick canopy of the ancient pines blocked so much sunlight that everything around us was dim as dusk. The forest wasn't like this before we found this creature. Was this what its habitat required?
"A light spell!" I shouted. "Someone try a light spell!"
I hadn't learned one of those yet, but someone else should be able to do it. If the creature would only exert its full power within the darkness …
A beam of white light flashed in front of me. Wen Shiyin was chanting a spell with her sword raised, her blade shining like a dazzling sun, engulfing everything around us with such blinding brightness that I had to squeeze my eyes shut. In the hazy chaos around us, I heard another shriek, filled with dismay and agony this time. More footsteps followed, but instead of a soft squish, it was a thundering slam that shook the ground beneath us, and the sound traveled farther and farther, slowly growing more distant until the forest floor settled once more.
Screams and cries faded around me, and when I opened my eyes again, the light had dimmed from Wen Shiyin's sword. We were back to the dusky shadows under the tall pine trees. Everyone was heaving with their swords in hand, staring at a long trail of footprints on the ground leading away from us, disappearing into the distance.. The sounds of birds and insects had returned.
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