Chapter 3: Chapter 1: Yafu’s Revenge (Version 1.1) Part 3

“What’s going on?” shouted a discharging male member of the group breaking his façade of calmness and letting his doubt rise from his gut to his face.

“Nothing, I see nothing abnormal.” Shen snapped back before composing himself in a more pleasant manner, “Please continue, it would be disastrous to stop now.”

Shen had moved eyes onto the questioning member in an attempt to confirm he was not breaking form and perhaps to warn that this man that he was being watched for deviation from the ritual. Cirko, on the other hand, kept his gaze towards Yafu's balcony.

“Everyone must keep their roles going. We have come too far to stop. We either face success or death.” Cirko’s voice started off with a quiet menacing tone and began to crescendo into deep rage. “However, there is no coincidence that would draw both Shen and I’s focus to the same spot.” Cirko continued his hand poses as his masked face turned toward Taia and the one other member of the group not contributing currently to the ritual. “Start at the far balcony and search. Find the intruder and kill them. We cannot allow any disruptions!”

Yafu knew he was in a dire circumstance now. He had to move from his spot. That much was clear. However, the more he tried to move the less effective his camouflage would be. His energy would begin to stick out from the background energy around him. He was going to need to thread the needle if he wanted to stay undetected. Move too slowly and they would get too close to him for any concealment to work regardless of how well done it was. Move too quickly and he may as well just announce himself. He was too weak to fight these people head on and too slow to escape from them. If they found his exact position it meant there was a good chance there was no scenario left where he survived. Yafu could think about that now though, he had to act on the chance he could survive.

Yafu’s mind began to race in desperation. There was only one entrance or exit to this compound; a small door beneath the balcony opposite from where he was. Yafu had arrived several hours early and positioned himself in the opposite end of this door for his concealment to be most effective by putting maximum distance from the door where the Fang would enter and likely perform a scan of the room.

Yafu sized up his immediate threats. He had two people searching for him. The Taia woman and the other man. This other man had a large build and a slight hunch on his neck. He had begun to back up towards the exit. They’re smart, he will be impossible to get around with his frame. That likely meant Taia was coming to corner him. She had been the first one sent here before the others. That meant there was a level of trust for her to scope out threats. It was not a good draw for Yafu.

Taia began to walk over in a deliberate manner towards Yafu’s balcony. Her eyes took on a soft yellow hue as she began focusing her energy on detection. Yafu was facing a very deadly math problem. His concealment was holding up but like regular vision, Taia’s spiritual vision would become stronger and stronger the closer she got. Any attempt to leap to another balcony would siphon off too much energy for him to maintain an adequate shield to her prying eyes. If she detected Yafu’s exact location, she was going to be able to kill him without much difficulty.

How could he have done this to himself! He had everything lined up until he had that slip-up. How could he have been too wired? Even then, his mistake was so small only Cirko and Shen detected him. An impressive feat considering the amount of energy swirling right near their faces.

A rush of adrenaline shot through Yafu. A hyper childlike excitement coursed through his soul. There was a move on the board. The odds were still stacked against him, but he could do something other than wait for his inaction to lead to his annihilation.

Knowing his odds only got worse with time, Yafu did not hesitate to set his final maneuver into motion. Turning to face the balcony to the immediate left of his own, Yafu watered his concealment down for the briefest of moments. In these fleeting moments he prepared himself to jump to the balcony directly to his right. Then he restrengthened his concealment.Taia sniffed this out almost instantaneously and lept like a predator cornering its prey. She landed on the railing of the second balcony and opened her stance to deliver a killing blow.

Cirko, still not breaking focus, shouted, “Bring the body to the light.”

“There is no such body here.” Taia responded, clearly frustrated by the possible inclinations of her initial failure. She quickly lept to the original balcony Yafu was on and found the same result; Nothing!

“Find this intruder. There are no more doubts. We all saw him try to escape.” Shen took a much less scolding tone than Cirko, but it was clear he put immense priority on the defeat of this unknown enemy.

Ironically, Yafu was now much closer to Shen then he was to Taia. He had not jumped to the second balcony, he had only made it appear that way. When he restrengthened his concealment, he retreated back to his original position, gambling his life that Taia would try to prevent a desperate escape to another balcony. She proved him right and her use of energy to propel herself at superhuman speed towards his supposed new location ended up being the final key to his move. His immediate priority had not changed. He had to stay concealed to stay alive. But his means had to change. At a basic level he was using distance to augment his concealment from the Fang. After his blunder, the Fang tried to remove this advantage by cornering him with Taia. He needed a new advantage. In the moment before Taia’s strike, he found one. 

Taia’s sudden use of energy to power her strike created enough background energy for him to camouflage and move without standing out to the others prying eyes. He used the precious few seconds he had created to drop down to the ground floor, paradoxically removing his greatest ally, distance. He was now hitching his wagon to the swirling pool of energy. Could he become like a drop of water in the ocean by standing by this immense ball of soul energy? Would the swirling pool of energy he now hugged be enough assistance to allow his energy to stay anonymous?

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