h4Chapter 342: The Phantom/h4

strongVincent/Vaelthor~/strong

strongBang!/strong

The sound from the stick ripped through my arm before I even understood what was happening. One second I was upright, the next my body buckled, mming me against the filthy pavement. My knees hit hard, and the pain felt like the ground itself had turned on me.

Then the fire came. White-hot, brutal, not content to stay where the sound hadnded. It roared through my whole body, every nerve screaming like it had been set on fire. A sound tore out of my throat—half growl, half broken cry—something I couldn’t hold back even if I wanted to.

My sleeve was already soaked, blood spreading fast, warm and slick against my skin. It ran down my fingers in steady drops, sttering the cardboard we’d been calling a bed. The sight of it made the truth sink in deeper: survival wasn’t some big, heroic thing. It was fragile, paper-thin—like this cardboard, already ruined beneath me.

The shadows inside me reacted before I could. They surged, loyal and furious, rising like serpents to coil around the wound. I felt them stitching, binding, knitting torn flesh back together with threads darker than night. The healing burned almost as much as the injury, but I clenched my jaw and bore it. Pain meant progress. Pain meant I was still alive.

But this wasn’t the usual fight. I knew ws, fangs, knives in dark alleys—I had scars to prove it. This was different. That sound, that brutal thunder from their strange sticks, it had punched through the air and into me without them having toe close. No warning, no chance to block, no chance to strike back.

It terrified me in a way ws never could. Because if they could hurt us from a distance—if they could pick us off like prey without ever stepping close—then the rules I lived by meant nothing. My fists, my shadows, my instinct to meet danger head-on... all of it was useless against this. And that realization iced my veins with terror. Winter and I—we were exposed, vulnerable in ways I’d never imagined.

"Vincent!" Winter’s voice tore through the night, jagged and raw, abination of desperation and fury that made the air itself tremble. She stumbled up from the ground, her slight frame quaking—not from fear, never from fear—but from the kind of wrath that only burned brighter when pain threatened to break her.

The wind caught her golden hair, whipping it across her face like a banner of defiance. She nted her boots into the cracked earth, wide and strong, shoulders squared with the ferocity of someone who had already chosen war. Her chest heaved, and I could feel the storm building in her veins.

At her fingertips, her shadows stirred. They writhed and coiled, bleeding into the air like ink spilling into water, thick and alive with malice. The night bent around her, the world itself recoiling from what she carried inside.

Her eyes locked on the enemy with a heat that could set the world aze. "Get away from him!" she spat, her voice shaking but unbroken, a promise forged from blood and rage. "You hurt my brother—" she lifted her chin, a predator about to strike—"and you’ll pay for it."

The Wardensughed, a chorus of mocking snarls that echoed off the brick walls. The scarred woman at the front cocked her head, her metal stick—whatever hellish weapon it was—still aimed steady. "Look at the little demon spitfire. Cute. But you’re done here."

"Winter, no—wait!" I rasped, forcing myself upright on my good arm, every muscle screaming in protest. The shadows inside me throbbed, pulsing through my veins like a second heartbeat, lending me just enough strength to stay conscious.

I knew what wasing. When Winter lost control, it wasn’t subtle—it was a storm. Her fury could light the night with darkness itself, and in a ce like this, it was thest thing we needed. The Wardens weren’t patient men. If they caught even a hint of her power, those cursed sticks of theirs would start hissing, spitting death into the air without care for who they hit.

I tried to reach her, voice cracking under the weight of desperation. "Please, don’t—"

But the plea fell toote. Her hands shook, ck veins of shadow curling between her fingers, and I could feel the pressure shift—the world bracing for her to break it wide open. Winter was already seconds from unleashing hell.

And then—like a phantom conjured from the air itself—she appeared.

One heartbeat, the alley was nothing but fractured shadows and hostile stares. The next, a woman stood in its mouth, tall andmanding, her presence striking like a sword drawn in silence. Midnight-ck hair tumbled down her back in silken waves, catching faint light as though it wove the night itself into every strand. Her eyes shimmered with an unearthly violet glow, not human, not safe, but utterly impossible to look away from.

She positioned herself squarely between us and the Wardens, her back shielding us as if we belonged under her protection. With arms raised in a gesture ofmand, she became the still center of the storm.

"Everyone—calm down!"

The words boomed like thunder, her voice resonant with a power far older than lungs or breath. It carried an incantation threaded through every syble, humming through the air like a thousand vibrating strings. Even the shadows seemed to pause.

For a single, stunned second, the Wardens froze, caught mid-motion like puppets. Confusion rippled through their ranks. Then the female Warden—the one with the jagged scar down her cheek—snapped back to herself. Her irritation dripped like acid as she barked, "Who the hell are you supposed to be?"

The woman didn’t spare her a nce. She didn’t need to.

Her lips parted, and what spilled forth was not for mortals. Ancient sybles slipped into the air, curling like smoke, warping reality around them. The very alley shuddered as though her voice was unraveling its seams.

strong"Porta aperire, umbrae fugere!"/strong

Themand cracked through the night, and the world itself seemed to tilt, shadows pulling back as if afraid.