The battle at Crossroads Pass began not with war drums or battle cries, but in a silence so profound it made men's ears ring. The morning mist hung motionless between the pine trees, swallowing all sound, turning the world into a faded ink painting.
Ying Long's forward scouts had returned with unsettling reports—an abandoned Nine Li camp with cookfires still smoldering, half-eaten meals left on wooden plates, even a child's straw doll propped against a tent pole. But no bodies. No blood. Just the lingering scent of roasted millet and something fouler beneath—like wet metal and spoiled honey.
Then the first soldier screamed.
A bronze spear materialized from empty air, its point bursting through the scout's stomach in a shower of gore before withdrawing just as suddenly. More weapons appeared as if conjured from the mist itself—serpentine swords that curved mid-thrust, axes with blades like crescent moons, arrows that changed trajectory in flight. All moved with deadly purpose yet no visible hands guided them.
"The weapons are real, but the wielders aren't!" Feng Hou shouted, his star-chart cloak billowing as he twisted away from a dagger that materialized inches from his throat. The astronomer's silver hair had come undone from its knot, strands floating around his face like a seer's veil. "Chi You's shamans have learned to bend light itself!"
The Yellow Emperor drew the Xuanyuan Sword with a sound like tearing silk. The meteorite iron blade shimmered with strange refraction patterns, its surface alive with swirling constellations. Where it met the phantom weapons, brief flashes revealed the truth—warriors clad in armor of polished bronze so perfectly mirrored it rendered them nearly invisible. Their breastplates bore the screaming-face sigil of the Nine Li, the mouths contorted in agony that seemed to move when viewed askance.
A dozen unseen blades came at the Emperor simultaneously. He pivoted, the sword becoming a silver blur as it intercepted strikes from all directions. One glancing blow tore through his sleeve, revealing forearm muscles corded like dragon's tails beneath the skin. "We need the Zhibei's third eye!" he gasped, sweat mingling with blood from a scalp wound.
Deep in the cedar forest where the mist grew thickest, Jing Wei crouched behind a lightning-blasted oak. The daughter of Emperor Yan had painted her arms with woad in the shape of flames, the blue patterns pulsing faintly as she breathed. Through a polished bronze mirror—its surface inscribed with counter-charms in the old tongue—she watched the battle unfold in reverse.
In the reflection, the phantom warriors became visible as grotesque distortions, their true forms revealed: men whose skin had been grafted with bronze plates until flesh and metal were indistinguishable. Their eyes were sealed beneath smooth metal sheets, seeing instead through shaman-given second sight.
Jing Wei pressed her palms together, whispering the incantation her mother had taught her on the night of her first blood:
*"Truth revealed by flame's pure light,*
*Burn away the liar's sight."*
Her fingertips ignited with blue fire that cast no heat but made the very air shudder. The flames raced up her arms, setting the woad tattoos ablaze with cold brilliance. In her mirror, the phantom warriors clutched at their faceplates as if suddenly blinded.
On the battlefield, the invisible assault faltered. Weapons clattered to the ground as their wielders became partially visible—flickering in and out of existence like fish breaking water. The Yellow Emperor didn't hesitate. With a roar that echoed across the pass, he brought the Xuanyuan Sword down in a shining arc. The blade connected with a phantom warrior's neck, and for the first time, all saw the enemy clearly as the killing stroke severed head from body.
The decapitated head rolled, its faceplate cracking away to reveal not a man's face, but a hollow void filled with swarming shadows that dissipated in the morning light. The corpse collapsed, its armor plates falling apart to reveal...nothing. Just empty metal shell lined with strange glyphs that smoked where blood should have been.
Jing Wei emerged from the tree line, her arms still wreathed in blue fire. Where she stepped, the mist recoiled as if alive. The remaining phantom warriors turned as one toward this new threat—their movements suddenly jerky, less controlled.
The Emperor met his niece's eyes across the battlefield and nodded once. Together they advanced, the Xuanyuan Sword singing through the air as Jing Wei's flames burned away the Nine Li's illusions. The mist itself seemed to scream as the last phantom warrior fell, his armor plates bursting apart to release a cloud of black moths that dissolved before they could take flight.
As suddenly as it had begun, the silence broke. Birds resumed singing. The wind returned. And from the abandoned Nine Li camp, the straw doll burst into blue flames—its ashes forming the shape of a leering face before scattering on the breeze.
The Yellow Emperor wiped his blade clean on a tuft of grass, watching as the strange stains evaporated before his eyes. "This was no true battle," he murmured. "Only a test."
Jing Wei extinguished her flames, the woad tattoos now faded to pale scars. "Then we passed," she said, staring at the empty armor shells. "But at what cost?"
Above them, unnoticed by any, a single crow perched on a dead branch. Its eyes reflected not the forest, but the interior of a cavern where Chi You smiled at what he saw through its gaze.