Telekinesis worked.
It actually freaking worked.
Thank god!
A sharp exhale escaped my lips, my entire being vibrating with gratitude—whether to fate, some long-dead guardian spirit, or just the manic fragments of my own psyche that had suggested the idea in the first place. Whoever, whatever it was... it had just handed me a breath more of life. A single heartbeat that now separated me from certain death.
But I didn't have the luxury to bask in relief. Not yet.
The enemy was still standing, unflinching, unrelenting. A figure draped in writhing shadows, eyes—or at least what I assumed were eyes—fixed on me with an inhuman emptiness. This Wraith was a force of death given shape, a blade sharpened by everything we'd failed to prepare for. It was faster, stronger, more experienced in its own twisted craft of murder. It outclassed me in nearly every conceivable way...
Except for two.
Reflexes. And senses.
The only domains where I reigned supreme.
For what felt like the thousandth time, I debated falling back. Now that I had proven that I could resist its scythe using my refined telekinesis, retreat was no longer a suicidal option—it was a viable one. I could carve an escape path. I could live to warn the others. I could live.
And yet...
Snowhite shimmered with my mana, its edge thirsting for another strike. I lunged forward, attempting to bisect the creature's torso in one clean horizontal slash. My timing was perfect. My angle—flawless.
But the Wraith… it blocked me.
With almost casual precision, it angled the hilt of its obsidian scythe to parry the blow. I had focused my telekinesis only on the curved blade, assuming that was the only material portion of the weapon that mattered. I left the shaft unrestrained—just a minor oversight. A split-second gap.
It exploited that gap without hesitation, using its superior leverage to twist Snowhite away and stagger me. Just for a moment. A single, cursed moment.
But it was enough.
Enough for the Wraith to backstep, melting once more into its smoky veil before I could land so much as a graze.
I clenched my teeth, blood pumping louder in my ears than the crashing winds. My reserves had refilled, and my telekinesis—god, it was roaring inside my mind now, surging like a storm waiting to be unleashed. My very soul begged me to test it, to stretch the limits, to see what I had truly become.
But this was no testing ground.
This was not a sparring match, not a practice arena, not a trial designed by some kind of mentor to gauge my progress.
This was death personified. An entity forged from the unknown. Born in shadows, we had dared not illuminate.
Still, that was exactly why I couldn't turn away. If this thing escaped now, there was no telling when or where it would reappear. It could hunt the ones I loved. It could stalk them in their sleep. Appear in their most vulnerable moments—when I wasn't there to protect them.
I couldn't let that happen. I wouldn't.
Even if it meant dying here.
Because if I didn't learn something now, anything, then next time, we wouldn't be fighting on my terms. Next time, we won't be fighting at all. We'd be dying.
'All that investment, all those upgrades to the Lunar Walls…'
I scoffed inwardly, my lips curling in bitter irony.
What will the higher-ups think when they discover these bastards treat our fortifications like decorative arches? Walking through them like mist in the morning sun…
My breath steadied. My stance lowered. I refocused.
I was strong enough. I was skilled enough. I didn't need to win. I just needed a clue—a detail that cracked open the truth behind the Wraith's nature. Once I had that, I could retreat.
But not before.
Not until then.
So we continued—the Wraith and I—locked in a dance of blades and shadows.
Every time our weapons met, it was like a thunderclap. Blades collided with such force that the earth crumpled beneath us. The surrounding forest—if it could still be called that—was now a battlefield of fallen titans. Trees splintered into dust. Rocks shattered. The very wind distorted with our movements. But the Wraith? It showed no fatigue. No stagger. No shift in momentum.
It was a machine. A void wrapped in cloth and darkness.
It never slowed.
It never slipped.
Its pace, strength, and precision remained constant, monotonously perfect. If this fight dragged on another ten minutes, I'd be dead—not from a killing blow, but from the sheer mental breakdown of keeping up. My brain was already running hot, my nerves strained from tracking its movements every second. Telekinesis only made it worse—amplifying the pressure on my mind until I could feel my consciousness fraying at the edges.
Then the Wraith vanished again—this time lunging into the shadow cast by a half-charred bush ten meters away.
I had just nearly slashed through its neck.
It didn't phase through me that time. It didn't turn intangible like before. It dodged instead, physically.
Why?
The answer struck a heartbeat later, painful and raw, as mana flared around my blade, still coated in uneven telekinetic waves. The inconsistent application had made it visible, perhaps tangible to a being like it. That explained it. A piece of the puzzle clicked into place, as blood trickled from the corner of my eye—my own brain punishing me for thinking too hard while outputting too much mana.
I ignored it.
I had to.
As the Wraith rippled, nearly vanishing into the shadow again, I spotted something, no, sensed it: a bark. A long, jagged shard of dark wood, blasted from one of the dozen trees we'd reduced to wreckage.
Without a second thought, I reached out with my will.
The bark shimmered. Ambient mana surged around it. My telekinesis latched on instantly, dragging it toward me like a spear launched by thought alone. It wasn't a weapon. It wasn't elegant. But it didn't have to be.
All it had to do… was hurt.
ATTRACT!
The mist-like mana, elusive and spectral, still pulsing with that unknown will of its own, heeded my call once again. Without hesitation, the mana latched onto the large bark chunk I'd seen earlier—jagged, broken, dark with char and soaked in bloodshed—and hurled it like a silent warhammer straight toward the Wraith. The entity was halfway into the shadows beneath that cursed bush, its form flickering in and out of tangibility, when the bark was already mid-air, cutting through the air like a javelin imbued with divine judgment.
For a split second, I thought it would phase through the Wraith like everything else had—meaningless, ineffective, frustrating. My heart clenched.
But not this time.
SMASHHHH!
The sound was brutal—raw, thunderous. Like a tree cracking at its roots under a divine blow.
The bark didn't just collide—it shattered across the Wraith's hooded skull like retribution made physical. The force of impact sent the cloaked horror flying, slamming across the clearing like a ragdoll, colliding with multiple trees that snapped and bent, some exploding on contact. It finally crashed into a cluster of jagged grey stones, half-buried in earth, their edges protruding like monstrous eggs hatching from the ground.
"It worked!" I roared, my voice carried by adrenaline and disbelief.
I didn't stop to marvel. No time for satisfaction.
My hand flared again, drawing in everything I could reach—splintered logs, shards of bark, loose stone fragments, cracked roots—and with the help of the surrounding mist mana, I hurled them all toward the Wraith's impact zone. A relentless barrage.
Simultaneously, I conjured every mana arc I could pull from my nearly-fried core—fifteen, maybe sixteen, who knows—all of them coated in thin sheaths of telekinetic energy, barely stable. They sparked like blue lightning woven with silver threads, as if Snowhite's own resonance was bleeding into the spellwork. I directed them with a flick of my hand—silent, desperate precision.
The result was carnage.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOOOM!
Explosions erupted in waves. Craters formed where the blasts struck. Mist and soil burst into the air. Trees splintered like twigs. A few of the arcs must've connected directly because I saw dark limbs flailing in the blasts, the Wraith trying to strike back mid-air, firing black crescents of shadow that clashed against my attacks. But it was overwhelmed, cornered, suffocated beneath the weight of what I'd unleashed.
The final explosion was massive enough to rattle the bones in my chest.
The earth beneath me vibrated.
Far off, I could hear distant horns—a ripple of alarm spreading through the city. The military... the knights... the Lunar Wall... they'd felt that. They were coming.
Good.
They needed to see, witness this.
I staggered back, trying to catch my breath. My huffs and puffs vigorously bobbed my head up and down. The shockwaves still reverberated through my skull, but Snowhite pulsed gently, parting the mist around me, keeping me upright as I almost collapsed on my knees. My vision was fractured. The world around me bled red and silver. My eyes—weeping blood. My temples screamed. My mental reserves were tapped.
Telekinesis—I had to shut it down. If I didn't, my brain would rupture under the weight. So I released the hold. Just like that, the connection snapped. My head immediately noticed the shut off, as if a boulder was lifted, stabilising my mind a bit, yet the after-effects were still evident, painful. The pain was crushing, but I could think again.
I stumbled forward, each step calculated, deliberate. The mist had thinned, pulled back by the turbulence and heat. The scorched forest floor steamed beneath my boots.
The Wraith lay ahead, slumped.
It hadn't moved.
The tree it had been thrown against was half gone—scorched, split, and crumbling. The impact had taken its toll. And there, crumpled at its base, the Wraith remained, slouched against the bark like a discarded shadow.
It had fallen, yet revealed nothing underneath. No face. No identity. Just a void. A shifting darkness where a head should be, almost like a hole in the world itself. Its scythe was gone—vanished into the ether. No ripple. No trace. Just eerie silence.
I didn't move closer. Not yet.
Snowhite pulsed. A warning from my instincts.
I watched the Wraith with narrowed eyes, chest heaving, drenched in sweat and blood. Was it dead? Gone? Could it die?
Or was this just... the end of the first act?