Chapter 36: Battle against “Shadow”

The archive room’s air turned frigid the moment Chen Dongyang vanished.

Yin Xiran’s senses sharpened, a venomous chill crawling up her spine, as if unseen eyes locked onto her.
The room was empty except for the computer’s hum and the blinking red surveillance light.

The boy who blushed at her teasing, who fumbled under her gaze, was gone—without a struggle, a cry, or the faintest energy ripple.

Something’s wrong.

Her mind raced.
Chen Dongyang’s time-rewind ability, though limited, was near-infallible.
Even under sudden attack, he’d have a split second to trigger it, alerting her.
But this was silent.

Two possibilities: an attack so swift it outpaced human reflexes, killing him before he could rewind, or he was trapped in a state or dimension where his ability was nullified.

Both were dire.

Her face darkened, a cold, murderous glint replacing her usual sly smile.
She’d vowed to protect him, yet he vanished under her nose.
It wasn’t just a failure—it was a personal affront.

She scanned the room.
No second exit.
Whatever took him was still here.

Closing her eyes, Yin Xiran extended her telekinetic senses, attuned to the physical world—airflow, temperature shifts, dust trajectories.
But the room was a stagnant void, her own breath and heartbeat the only disturbances.

Nothing.

If she couldn’t find it, she’d make it show itself.

Taking a deep breath, she swapped her cold resolve for exaggerated panic.
“Chen Dongyang?!”

Her voice trembled, perfectly mimicking a frightened girl, helpless in the dim room.
“Chen Dongyang! Where are you?! Don’t scare me!”

She flailed, screaming, as an invisible force erupted around her.

Boom!

The nearest metal shelves buckled as if struck by a beast, twisting with a screech.
Hundreds of file bags launched like cannonballs, slamming into the opposite wall, leaving dents.
Papers fluttered like snowflakes.

“Come out! Come out!”

Her telekinesis unleashed a storm.
Shelves tore apart, papers shredded, the computer ripped from the desk, its screen shattering.
In seconds, the archive room became a chaotic wreck.

But destruction wasn’t her goal.
She was scanning every object’s structure, density, and mass, hunting for an anomaly.

As the last shelf crumbled, she found it.

In the room’s farthest corner, on a damp-blackened load-bearing wall, a faint human silhouette clung—Chen Dongyang’s outline.

Found you.

Before she could act, a cold breath grazed her neck.
A twisting, folding black shadow seeped from the floor, its formless “arms” swallowing light as it lunged at her back.

“Finally,” Yin Xiran muttered, spinning around.
The panic on her face vanished, replaced by a cruel, knowing calm.

She didn’t glance at the shadow monster.
Instead, she thrust out her hand, clenching her fingers at the air before it.

“Try this.”

Her power targeted the air’s molecules, stripping electrons from nitrogen and oxygen.
In a billionth of a second, they heated to tens of thousands of degrees, forming an unstable plasma glowing white-hot.

Boom!

The plasma ball exploded, its heat and shockwave vaporizing the shadow monster instantly.
Its form dissolved, leaving no trace.

But Yin Xiran didn’t relax.
Just before the blast, a smaller shadow split from the monster, darting to a broken concrete wall at unnatural speed, dodging the plasma.

Chen Dongyang’s silhouette reappeared on that wall.

The vaporized shadow was a decoy.
The true entity, with Chen Dongyang’s “shadow,” now clung to the concrete.

It was baiting her.

Yin Xiran smirked, unfazed.
“So that’s your game… Turning people into shadows, binding them to objects. Destroy the object, and the shadow vanishes, right? Clever.”

Her eyes gleamed with excitement, like a child with a new puzzle.
“Let’s see if your rules are stronger than my power.”

She raised her hand toward the concrete block, fingers spreading slowly.