Only a fool shouts when an action is easier to hear. -Ascendent Shi Reili, the Void Herald

* * *

“How are you bypassing the array?” Shen Tori shouted. “It was drawn by a Gold!”

“You Shens.” I laughed. “You just have the worst misfortune to have me as your enemy. Must be a family failing.”

My body still ached. Despite my success in reaching the void, the battle had still taken a heavy toll. Blood oozed from blisters and cuts all over me.

Yet, despite all of the pains, or perhaps in spite of them, I felt better than ever. Hope filled my heart, and my body shuddered with elated laughter. I couldn’t stop it. Shen Tori’s unnerved spluttering was just too funny.

“You…you really are a monster. Did the Chain-Bound Fury lend you his strength?”

“No.”

Moon qi swirled with the void in my core, mixing together as I called upon them in equal parts. The ground shuddered slightly as a jagged spike of blue-silver light erupted from the earth. It clipped Shen Tori in the side before he could dodge, and I swiftly followed up by rolling into his leg. Off balance, he stumbled, giving me the chance to stand.

“I did not make a deal with the Fury, Shen Tori,” I hissed. “His madness, his anger, they’ve always been mine and mine alone.” Shen Tori didn’t answer. Instead, he vanished into the shadows. I bowed my head and drew three arrows from my quiver. It was time to end this.

I raced forward, sprinting to the side of the arena where Xinya was waiting. Her eyes were wide with worry, but as soon as she saw me, a smile broke out on her face. I winked at her.

Void qi shifted just in front of me. I let my knees collapse beneath me, dropping down just as a void-coated dagger appeared where my throat was. Even as the blade appeared and I slid beneath it, Shen Tori was already disappearing again. I leapt to my feet, ran several more paces, then sprang high into the air.

The Array was like a solid wall to me. It stood to reason that I could use it like one, as well. With a light kick of my foot, I jumped off the invisible wall, leaping even higher and drawing my bowstring back to my cheek.

The arrows were each infused with brilliant voidlight, and as soon as I reached the peak of my jump, I fired. They split and streaked all around the circle before burying themselves into the earth.

There was an ear-splitting CRACK! All around me, shattered qi formed cracks like spiderwebs all across reality. In an instant, the barrier array shattered under the force of the twelve arrows of Heaven’s Rain.

Qi flooded my body, finally unhampered by the array. Brilliant moonlight shone down from above, and I relished the feeling of the cool light upon my cheek.

But, the moment was short. Shen Tori appeared just behind me, slamming a foot into the jagged gash on my left shoulder and forcing me to my knees. I coughed, and blood pooled to the ground beneath me.

“You might have all your power, but that doesn’t change how this fight is going to end,” the Huntmaster growled. “You think yourself a tiger, but really, you’re just a pitiful little moon moth flying around the flames of the more powerful.”

“If I’m a moon moth, then let me dazzle you with my lights!”

With a snap of my fingers, three disks of voidlight streaked towards the void artist, but he was gone in a flash.

How am I going to pin him down? I wondered. He was just too fast. Between his teleportation technique and being an advancement higher than me, the odds were still against me. If I couldn’t even hit him…

This was always the problem with fighting Jinshi, too. At least there, I knew the details of his techniques and could prepare accordingly. With him, his doubles weren’t illusions, and he was just moving so fast as to create after-images. Hit more than one at once, and you’d be more likely to hit him.

Shen Tori was the opposite. Instead of being everywhere at once, he was nowhere. He vanished from view, only to reappear somewhere completely different. He made excellent use of the speed at his disposal, and the longer the fight went on, the more likely it was that he’d get lucky.

Luck? The idea lingered in my thoughts, as if it were a completely foreign concept. I wasn’t used to luck being a significant part of battle, since I hadn’t relied on luck since I’d developed Flash Forward and Flash Back. Maybe it was time to give it a place again…

And what better time than against an incredibly fast enemy? Even the Sword Saint couldn’t outrun the speed of light, let alone Shen Tori.

With a deep breath, I raised a hand. Baleful light sparked to life, basking the entire area in fortune-eroding light. I poured qi into it, equal parts void and moon, and the orb of blue light took on the self-same properties as my void aura. Everywhere the light touched, the ground and buildings sizzled. The spectators gasped and backed away to stay out of harm’s way.

“Do you think a little light will frighten me?” Shen Tori called.

He reappeared nearby, standing still, as if to show me just how ineffective the corrosive light was on him. And, to an extent, he was right. The destructive touch was minimal on him, creating a few blisters but nothing truly substantial. However, that didn’t bother me in the slightest. Threads of voidlight, visible only to my eyes, began to swirl and twist around him like hungry chains waiting to drag him to hell.

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I feigned shock, and he laughed heartily. “Was that your big plan? Try and use a void aura against a greater void artist? I knew you were a fool, but it seems I overestimated you.”

The threads wrapped around his feet and hands, and the ground began to shake. Cracks began to split open in the earth around Shen Tori’s feet. He looked down, concern etched into the lines of his face.

“How unlucky,” I mused, “that the very same aura you’re mocking has destabilized the ground of the courtyard. Shen Yaoxan lost to me the first time because he fell into a ditch. Tell me, did he take after his father?”

“You dare use my son’s name against me?” Shen Tori growled. “You will die for that!” Void qi dripped from his blades as he cut them across the air between us. A net of void energy formed, streaking straight towards me.

In a flash, Eclipse was out of its sheath. It streaked towards the net, glowing with the same blue light as the rest of my qi. It sliced clean through the air at my command, slamming into the net and slowing its approach. Through the holes in the net, I fired two more voidlight arrows, and Shen Tori was forced to vanish once more.

I glanced up at the orb of Corrosive Light above. It was an extremely costly ability, and my qi stores would not last forever, but if I was right and the light shifted fortune in my favor, then it was worth the cost.

Pain slashed across my back. I’d missed the shift in void qi that heralded an attack! The blade cut deep. With a desperate surge of energy, I whipped around, flinging one of my chains at Shen Tori. It connected with him, sending him staggering to the side, but the damage was done. Off balance and energy waning, I fell, my head slamming into the ground as blood pooled around me.

Shen Tori knelt next to me, shoving me over to see the results of his handiwork. As his hand drew back, I spied a dozen threads of voidlight swirling around him. They danced and twisted around his hands before leaping from him to me. I stared at them, confused by the transfer.

In the past, I’d never been affected by my own voidlight techniques beyond blocking my blooded techniques. That couldn’t have changed now, could it? But, if that was the case, then the only other time that I’d seen the threads leap from one to another thing was when…

…when they jumped from the target to the instrument of their demise.

Without warning, a spike of pain shot through my mind as the voices from Shen Tori’s void techniques pierced a weak point in my mental defenses. I curled up, clutching my head as whispers of destruction and devastation filled my thoughts.

“Are you really listening, Yoru?” Shi Reili’s voice whispered in my thoughts, but whether it was the real one or the fake that the Void favored was unclear. “I said to trust in the void, trust in yourself, and you’ve done neither.”

“I…I just…” Was this really the answer the voidlight created for Shen Tori’s bad luck? The void was suddenly more painfully loud than it had been in years, more so even than when I’d consumed the Chain-Bound Fury.

“Listen. Trust in yourself and listen.”

* * *

Lin didn’t even want to watch anymore, but he had to…for Yoru’s sake. It was like watching an injured falcon trying to outmatch a cat. Yoru was hurt, and even though he’d destroyed the Array that stifled his abilities, Lin didn’t believe it would be enough.

Maybe, if he’d started the fight with his moonlight, he could have overcome… As it stood now, Yoru had already been too heavily wounded by the time he could fight at full strength.

Lin wanted to help. He wanted to intervene, to give Shen Tori someone else to target, if only for a little while, and he could tell that Kansi, Lian, and Pollen all felt the same. They were here for a fight, after all, but the four of them were stuck on the sidelines while their friend was being tormented to death before their very eyes.

“He can’t go like this, right?” Lian muttered. “If so, then what was the point? He’s one of the Five Demons. He can’t go like this…”

“Come on, Master Tsuyuki,” Kansi urged quietly. Her hands gripped Razor Wind tightly, as if she were trying to channel the spirit of her master to help his lost love.

The only one who was stoic through it all was Pollen, whose expression was colder than normal, but otherwise held the aloof neutrality of a ruler. Lin had to admire the way she kept her calm. He wished he could emulate it.

But, when Shen Tori appeared behind Yoru for the last time, slicing cleanly across the moon artist’s back, Lin’s chest ached, and he took an involuntary step backwards. There was a sickening crack as his best friend’s head slammed against the ground.

Xinya’s scream was the only sound Lin could hear. Everything else was drowned out by the sound of his own heart beating faster and faster with every second that Yoru was down.

“You don’t think…” Lian said after several seconds. Yoru wasn’t moving.

“And so, the fool falls,” Shen Tori shouted for all the crowd to hear. “A shame. He never did get to tell me what I’m owed.” The Huntmaster turned to the rest of the group. “Now. Which of you wants to be next?”

“Technically, the wager doesn’t stop us from destroying the place if Tsuyuki fell,” Lian noted. He was already reaching into his pocket for a talisman to summon one of his yokai. Lin’s hand was on his sword, and Kansi’s was already drawn. None of them intended to give up the fight just because their friend had been defeated.

Pollen suddenly gasped. “Wait. Look.” She pointed behind Shen Tori, who frowned and turned to see what everyone else was already looking at.

Blue light swirled around Yoru in streaks of brilliance…and he was standing. Though his chest was heaving, and he looked weary, the threads were slowly stitching his clothes back together. When the blood had all been cleaned away, and his clothes were back to their usual immaculate look, the lights settled into his hair like the dazzling headpiece of an emperor.

“How are you still standing?” Shen Tori asked incredulously.

Yoru didn’t answer. Something about him was…off. Lin expected some kind of witty retort to Shen Tori’s surprise, but, instead, it was as if he couldn’t even hear the villain anymore. His eyes were unfocused, and after a moment, they flared with voidlight, and the orb of lunar qi that hung overhead suddenly exploded. A column of blue, black, and white filled the arena before streaking high into the sky.

Lin had to block his eyes for fear that he’d be even further blinded if he looked for too long. Shen Tori’s screams mixed with the echoes of an eerie laughter that chilled Lin to the bone.

Then, the light was gone. When Lin blinked away the spots in his vision, only one person remained in the arena. Yoru stood at the center of a field of void-ravaged earth, but Shen Tori was nowhere in sight.

“The Darkened Moon…” Lian whispered in awe. Lin could see why. Yoru was staring darkly at a space on the ground where the earth had been transmuted to brilliant silver. That was where Shen Tori had been standing.

The Master of the Lunar Hunt had been completely erased.