A slick sound followed with the grunt of the falling leader of thugs. Those sounds surprised me enough to waver my mana for a second.

  I turned up and looked around. To make a paper-triangle, a confetti into a weapon, only the Weaponiser could do that. I was sure.

  But the thugs didn't seem to agree with my assessment.

  The two standing men looked at their fallen boss, then at the shadows stretching across the alley walls. Their faces went pale. Not just scared, but drained of blood entirely.

  "The Yakshi..." one of them whispered.

  "It's here! The Yakshi is here!"

  They scrambled back, tripping over their own feet. They didn't even look at me anymore. I was invisible. The only thing they saw was death coming for them from the dark.

  "Run!" the second thug screamed at me. "Run if you don't want to be eaten!"

  They bolted. Leaving their boss groaning on the cobblestones, they sprinted out of the alley like their heels were on fire.

  "Yakshi...?" I muttered.

  A demon? Here?

  I didn't stick around to ask questions. If the locals were running, I was running too. I was brave, sure, but I wasn't stupid.

  I chased after them.

  As soon as I burst out of the alley and back onto the main street, I skidded to a stop.

  The lights were gone.

  The red lanterns that had been swaying in the wind, the warm yellow glow from the windows, the streetlamps. All of it was extinguished.

  The town was dead.

  Only the moon hung above the jagged mountain peaks, casting a pale, sickly blue light over the wooden buildings. It was silent. No crickets. No wind. Just the sound of my own heart hammering against my ribs.

  "Gah!"

  A scream tore through the silence.

  I looked ahead. One of the thugs was running down the street. He passed under an old wooden sign hanging from a shop.

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  The sign didn't fall. It didn't break.

  Instead, a rusty nail shot out of the wood like a bullet.

  It caught the man in the shoulder. He spun around from the force of the impact and crashed into a pile of crates.

  The second thug kept running, screaming his head off. He turned a corner, running past a stone fountain.

  Water.

  A stream of water shot out of the fountain. It wasn't a splash. It was a whip. A concentrated lash of liquid that sliced through the air and wrapped around the man's legs. He went down hard, his face slamming into the pavement.

  He didn't get up.

  I backed away, pressing myself against a wall.

  What was this? Nails? Water?

  It was like the environment itself was trying to kill them. Everything was a weapon.

  "The Weaponizer..."

  It had to be her. But why was she attacking like a ghost? Why the darkness?

  I looked around. I was in a small plaza. There were loose stones, fallen leaves, discarded trash. Anything here could be used to kill me.

  If I ran, I would be hit by a flying roof tile. If I stayed, I would be skewered by a stray twig.

  I needed to neutralize the environment.

  "Think, Elara. Think."

  I couldn't stop the objects from existing. But I could stop them from moving.

  I stomped my foot down.

  "[Ice Magic: Sheet]!"

  I poured my mana out. Not just a thin layer this time. I wanted a glacier.

  The ice spread rapidly from my feet. It covered the cobblestones, freezing the loose pebbles in place. It climbed up the fountain, freezing the water mid-flow. It coated the crates and the walls.

  Everything within twenty feet of me was encased in a thick, unmoving layer of frost.

  "Try throwing a rock now," I panted.

  The silence deepened.

  For a second, I thought I had won. I thought I had outsmarted the invisible assassin.

  Then a shadow peeled itself off the wall.

  It wasn't a person. It was a silhouette. A dark, shifting mass that looked vaguely human but moved like smoke. It stepped onto my ice without slipping.

  It raised a hand.

  I flinched, waiting for a weapon. A knife. A dart.

  The shadow flicked its wrist.

  A button. A simple, brass button from a coat tore through the air.

  I tried to dodge, but it grazed my cheek, leaving a stinging cut.

  Before I could react, the shadow was on me. It didn't use a weapon this time. It used a fist.

  A dark, heavy punch slammed into my gut.

  "Oof!"

  My breath left me instantly. I folded over, clutching my stomach.

  The shadow didn't stop. It spun and delivered a kick to my side, right where my ribs had just healed. It was fast. Brutal. My strategy meant nothing if the enemy just decided to beat me up the old fashioned way.

  I fell to the ice.

  The shadow loomed over me, raising a hand for a finishing blow. Its fingers elongated into claws.

  "No you don't..." I wheezed, trying to summon a spear.

  But I was too slow.

  The claw came down.

  Wham.

  A fist connected with the shadow's face.

  But it wasn't mine.

  A figure had stepped out of the darkness. A human figure. She wore a long coat and moved with a terrifying precision. She had intercepted the shadow mid-strike and punched it square in the jaw.

  The shadow shrieked. It was a hollow, unnatural sound. It stumbled back, its form flickering like a dying candle.

  The newcomer didn't let up. She swung her arm again, and the air whistled.

  The shadow turned and fled. It dissolved into the darkness, scrambling up the side of a building and vanishing into the night.

  The human stood there, her back to me. Her silhouette was almost identical to the monster that had just attacked me.

  She lowered her fist and turned around.

  "You're loud," she said.

  It was the voice of a ghost.

  Hana Ryu. The Weaponizer.