Nieth remained motionless, like part of the corridor shadows themselves.
His years of training had perfected him in the art of invisibility; not re visual concealnt, but the complete suppression of his presence. His breathing, so slow that it barely disturbed the surrounding air. His scent, so light that the best beast olfactory senses would take several minutes to perceive. And his mana, hidden so deep within his core that it didn't stand out even in the city's almost null mana environnt.
He observed the three young people and the elderly Ashenway walking away down the opposite hallway. It was ti to return and complete his mission... he would withdraw to inform Kharzan of what he had witnessed.
The information about the strange glowing creature would be of particular interest to his masters.
It was then that he felt it.
A subtle change in the density of the shadows behind him. An almost imperceptible shift in the texture of darkness. A stealth as good as his own.
The black snake launched itself behind him, its shadow attack unfurling like a wave of ink in the night.
But Nieth was no ordinary spy. His Dark Trickster Spirit, a Silver 3 rank beast with natural affinity for shadows, responded instantly. The snake's attack was canceled against an equally dense shadow barrier, each strand of darkness counteracted.
With a fluid movent, Nieth reversed the dynamics of attack and defense. His Trickster extended shadow tentacles that coiled around the snake. The shadow tendrils wrapped around the serpent, restricting its movent.
They've discovered , he thought, maintaining calm despite the situation. The decision was made in a fraction of a second. Priority: imdiate withdrawal.
He began to lt into the shadows of the floor, his body rapidly vanishing. It was a technique he had used and perfected over decades, an infallible escape even against higher-level tars.
The cage would only last an instant against the trapped Silver 3 rank snake, but it should give him the precious milliseconds he needed to completely disappear.
But sothing changed much faster than expected.
The captured snake seed to dissolve. The chains imprisoning it broke instantly to Nieth's surprise.
A flash of light, so intense it seed to tear the very fabric of darkness, burst from the snake's core.
Where the snake had been, now stood Sirius Starweaver.
And just before Nieth could escape, Sirius's hand closed around his throat, ripping him from the shadows and lifting him off the ground with surprising strength.
"Spy from Yino or the Goldcrests?" Sirius pronounced, his voice as cold as ice. "Did you think we wouldn't notice your presence?"
Nieth was genuinely astonished. His concealnt technique was legendary among Yino agents, capable of deceiving even several beasts specialized in detection. He hadn't expected to be discovered with such ease, much less caught with such precision.
'Suicide or forced escape?'
But he hadn't survived so many years in his profession by surrendering to the first complication. With a calm born of countless life-or-death situations, he made a quick decision...
He activated his trump card.
If he used it, he would reveal the use of abyssal power among Kharzan's troops, but the leader had already used it himself so it should have little significance to use a bit more for a second.
His second beast, hidden until that mont, erged to the surface. The Abyssal Dark Coyote, a synthetic creature specialized in escape and information gathering, a perfect complent to his Trickster. His body combined and expanded, altering the structure of his cells to make them more malleable.
The corrupt synergy between both beasts transford his body. His shadows mixed with the abyssal corruption, converting his humanoid form into sothing black and more fluid.
Sirius squeezed, but his fingers sank into a mass that was no longer completely solid. Despite this, thanks to his shadow control, he didn't let go.
However, Nieth's neck had transford, shifting laterally while his arm took its place in the grip.
A distorted and cacophonous laugh, a mix of the Coyote's howls and the Trickster's cackles, resonated in the hallway.
Nieth opened a mouth that had expanded far beyond natural limits, revealing rows of sharp teeth that glowed with a sickly purple tone. With a brutal movent, he sank these fangs into his own arm, cleanly severing it from Sirius's grip.
The separated limb lost its shadows and beca normal in Sirius' hand while Nieth plunged into the floor again at a vertiginous speed.
'I've made it,' thought Nieth, feeling the freedom of the shadow jump. The between-space welcod him, a realm of pure darkness where he was faster than anyone. 'Not even a Gold tar can…'
His thought was abruptly interrupted when he felt a presence behind him. Impossible. No one could follow him inside his own shadow jump. It was supposed to be an absolute domain, an inviolable sanctuary.
And yet, there was Sirius, sliding through the darkness as if it were the domain's sovereign.
Starweaver's face had transford. His eyes, normally cold and expressionless, now burned with fury. The irritation initially directed at Ren had turned into pure anger, fueled by the abyssal presence he had detected in the spy.
"Don't underestimate a guardian," Sirius growled, his voice distorted by the shadow realm's properties.
A strange light spun around him, interwoven with shadows in a perfect and impossible balance. The pure white of his celestial tiger rged with the absolute blackness of his serpent.
With a movent that defied all logic, Sirius extended his hands toward the very edges of the dinsional tunnel through which they were traveling. His fingers seed to grab the fabric of shadows and, with a brutal pull, tore the bridge.
The world around them fragnted. Nieth felt how he was violently expelled from the interdiate space, his body forcibly materialized in the hallway. The transition was so abrupt, so contrary to the natural laws of the shadow jump, that his body suffered the equivalent of a dinsional whiplash. Pain beyond description tore through him as his physical form was wrenched back into reality.
Before he could recover, Sirius erged beside him. But this was no longer the sa Sirius who had initiated the pursuit.
Sirius had fused the power of his beasts, reaching a state that few tars in the world could even conceive.
With a speed that contradicted his apparent calm, Sirius lunged at Nieth. His hands, now wrapped in that strange combination of light and darkness, pierced through the spy's shadow armor as if it were wet paper.
Nieth felt how his last defense and his mutations were vanishing. The Coyote and the Trickster tried to reform the protective shell, but Sirius's mixed energy neutralized their efforts. The corruption that had been his strength now writhed in agony, unable to withstand the light of the Tiger combined with the darkness of the Snake.
Sirius's hand closed again around his throat, this ti with an inflexible firmness. Nieth tried to transform once more, but discovered with horror that his control over his own form had been nullified.
"Yino," Sirius pronounced, his voice resonating with power.
The fingers began to squeeze, gradually increasing the pressure. Nieth felt how his trachea began to yield under the relentless force.
"Abyssal corruption," Sirius continued, "is not a power that should be mastered. It is a plague that must be exterminated."
The first crack was soft, almost inaudible. Cartilage yielding under pressure. Nieth tried to speak, negotiate, beg, but no sound could escape from his compressed throat.
Sirius's eyes, now two orbs of intermingled light and darkness, showed no rcy whatsoever. The shadow of the coming war, the threat to his family, to his... everything was symbolically concentrated in this act of elimination.
The second crack was more audible, the hyoid bone fracturing under inexorable pressure. Nieth's eyes opened wide, absolute terror reflected in them as life began to leave his body.
The Yino spy, who had survived countless impossible missions, who had outwitted the best security systems and many powerful tars, t his end in a dark hallway, at the hands of a power he had fatally underestimated.
The last thing he saw before darkness claid him was Sirius's face, not with the satisfaction of victory, but with the somber resolution of one who knows that this is probably... only the first death of many to co.
The final crack resonated in the empty hallway, followed by the soft sound of a lifeless body sliding to the shadows on the floor.
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