"Sir, this is your room."
"Thank you."
A slight young man in an academy uniform followed the inn attendant to the door.
He was An Chen.
An Chen smiled, opened the door, and went inside. The attendant quickly withdrew.
As An Chen stepped into the room, his eyelid twitched. He scanned the room but found nothing unusual.
Without pausing, he entered and shut the door behind him.
But the moment it closed tight, a hum rang out.
A buzzing filled An Chen's ears. Then he felt as though his body had been pulled somewhere else, and the surroundings changed in an instant.
Outside the window, the fair weather vanished into pitch-black night. Only a full moon, white as jade, hung in the sky, shedding a cold light.
At the same time, the clamor from the street disappeared, replaced by a deathly silence.
An Chen's heart sank. He felt the soul power flowing through him turn sluggish, but he kept his composure and reacted at once.
An iron pot appeared in his hand. Endless black fog poured from it, engulfing the entire room with him at its center.
An Chen himself melted into flesh and seeped between the floorboards.
But in the next instant, everything around him except the black fog shattered, turning into metal blades that gleamed coldly.
The blades spun at tremendous speed and swept toward the pool of flesh An Chen had become.
There was nowhere for An Chen to flee. Above, below, left, right—moonlit metal blades surrounded him on every side.
Countless blades whistled through him, piercing and slicing. In an instant, he became a mist of blood, and even the black fog vanished with him.
After a moment, as though certain An Chen was dead, the blades stopped attacking and turned back into the room's furnishings.