The Shadow's Curse

Hope felt his thoughts stutter, even his movements disrupted—when he heard the birdcall, he immediately wanted to stop, but because of the mental blockage, the command to "stop" failed to reach his body smoothly, and in his daze he took two more steps before halting.

The black shadow... still hadn't appeared...

At this distance, the night hawk's call wasn't actually clear, but the Curse of Darkness's interference with his thinking had already begun, just not yet obvious.

One step forward... Hope thought.

He took a step forward, then stopped immediately, waited a second, and took another step forward. He moved like this, pausing at intervals, stepping and stopping as he advanced.

This was to roughly test how loud the night hawk's call would be when the black shadow appeared.

When he took his thirtieth step, the night hawk's call was already very clear, the most prominent among all the sounds of the summer night.

By the time he counted to sixty-two, the feathers on his back had gone from warm to scorching hot. His vision blurred for an instant, and the black shadow was already floating at the edge of his sight.

Hope had prepared himself mentally. Seeing the black shadow, he didn't panic but quietly observed.

At this point, most of the moonlight was blocked by the canopy. It wasn't so dark that he couldn't see his hand in front of his face, but Hope's eyesight was already poor, and now he had reached the point where he needed to pick up a branch to probe the path ahead.

But he wasn't using his vision to see the black shadow, so he simply closed his eyes to avoid being disturbed by other things.

The black shadow was only a vague human shape, occupying a corner of Hope's sight, yet it gave the impression of being two or three meters away from him.

It was about one meter sixty to one meter seventy tall, thin overall, with no facial features visible. Its hands seemed to wear connected-finger gloves, only differentiating the thumb, and it had no toes at all.

Perhaps because the night hawk's call still wasn't loud enough, its entire body appeared faint, almost about to dissipate.

"Can you understand what I'm saying?" Hope asked.

Actually, based on Hope's earlier speculation about Uncertainty—that it couldn't be activated within the sight of a sapient being—he could confirm that the black shadow had no intelligence.

But there was another possibility: maybe the black shadow had no vision.

After Hope's question, the black shadow still made no move, like a sticker stuck to the corner of his sight.

Hope hesitated for a moment, opened his eyes to carefully observe his surroundings, crouched down to look at the uneven path underfoot and the wild grass covering it, then took another step forward.

Hope... those night hawks... won't fly away, he thought.

He continued as before, counting, stepping and stopping as he moved forward.

When he reached twenty steps again, Hope realized he might have veered off course—the sound hadn't grown louder.

He reoriented himself, eventually leaving the path and entering deeper grass and bushes. He had to probe ahead with his wooden stick at every step to avoid tripping or falling into a pit.

One... two... thirty...

Hope stopped. The night hawk flock... is right... near... by.

The black figure had gradually solidified. As a human form, it was still rough, but no longer as blurry as before.

Hope closed his eyes, focused his observation, and saw that a slit serving as a "mouth" had split open again on the black shadow's face.

He had already begun to picture the location he'd memorized earlier in his mind, ready to use Uncertainty to teleport back the moment the black shadow started chanting.

But after the slit opened, the black shadow made no move, and no sound came out.

Because... the Steel Pen... isn't here...

"Can you understand what I'm saying?" Hope asked a second time.

The black shadow remained motionless.

Hope waited another three seconds. Seeing that the black shadow still did nothing, he activated Uncertainty to return to the location he'd memorized earlier, stayed there only briefly, then activated Uncertainty a second time. After a longer wait, Hope arrived beside the cellar where the Great Night Hawk was buried.

Under the night hawk's interference, picturing the location took longer, but even so, the entire process took no more than five seconds.

The moment he left the night hawk's call, the black shadow went from solid to faint and vanished in an instant.

This exploration didn't help much in understanding the black shadow, but Hope wasn't about to give up.

He climbed onto Old Williams's roof, groped across the concrete surface, and finally found the Steel Pen he'd discarded in a corner.

The silver pen was as clean as ever. Hope found the area where he remembered light glowing and symbols drifting—a section of the pen body near the end.

Hope brought his eyes close. That part of the pen body wasn't pure silver; on the silver base, a few gold threads decorated it.

But the gold threads didn't form any strange symbols; they simply divided the silver into irregular small patches.

Hope removed the cap, then took off the nib and the lever-style filler inside, leaving only the silver pen body.

He found an old newspaper, wrapped the pen body in it, and put it in his pocket.

Then Uncertainty activated, and Hope arrived at his transfer point—that rugged, weed-covered path.

As the night hawk's call sounded, Hope's thoughts stuttered, and the black figure appeared again at the edge of his sight.

"Can you understand what I'm saying?" Hope asked a third time.

The black shadow still had no reaction.

Hope took out the newspaper bundle from his pocket.

"Do you recognize this?"

Hope opened the newspaper, revealing the silver pen body inside.

He turned around at the same time, holding the pen body against his ear in a throwing stance, ready to hurl it at any moment.

Once the pen body was exposed, the shadow finally changed. It opened the split on its head just like yesterday.

Strange, awkward, incomprehensible notes followed as they sprang forth.

All surrounding sounds grew muffled and indistinct.

Hope, having prepared in advance, took out his small pocket watch.

Twelve o'clock, seven minutes, twelve seconds.

One.

Hope counted silently, keeping his eyes on the pocket watch, but sparing some attention to observe the shadow from the corner of his eye.

Though it was no longer trapped within Hope's line of sight, it made no move other than chanting the incantation.

"Can you understand what I'm saying?" Hope asked for the fourth time, waving his hand as he spoke.

The incantation continued without pause. The black figure did not stir.

Two.

Hope quickly understood why all other sounds had grown muffled and indistinct besides the incantation.

Hope gently tossed the pen body. It left his palm by only a few centimeters, but whether rising or falling, its speed was noticeably slower.

The breeze that had always been present in the woods became barely perceptible.

Three.

When Hope counted to three, the small pocket watch finally moved.

Twelve o'clock, seven minutes, thirteen seconds.

It was at this moment that, even though he could still hear Night Hawk's voice, the shadow turned translucent and then vanished.

All sounds became clear again.

The breeze could be felt once more.

Hope tossed the pen body. Rising and falling, everything was normal.

The second hand of the small pocket watch moved again.

Hope understood. The shadow's incantation was to slow down time, roughly threefold.

But this incantation was ineffective against Hope, which was why he could perceive everything around him slowing down... Or from another angle, the shadow's incantation was to accelerate time, and it had been cast on Hope, causing him to lose two seconds of his life.

Hope closed his eyes and checked his stats, finding that the mana bar had returned to zero.