The quiet of the Shrine of the Sleeping Spirits, so recently a haven for dust and forgotten wisdom, now vibrated with the weight of a terrifying truth. Học giả Phan Thị Ánh Tuyết and Linh Mục Cao Văn Dũng sat on the cold stone floor, the flickering candlelight casting long, dancing shadows that seemed to mock the stability of the world. They had confirmed each other's fears – Ánh Tuyết with her texts speaking of ancient neglect and cosmic imbalance, Dũng with his vision of a Spirit World consumed by the Grey Silence. The Hư Vô was not just an invading force; it was the consequence of Lạc Hồng's own profound, long-festering wound.
"So," Ánh Tuyết finally said, her voice low, "it is... an unmaking. Not a conquest."
"Yes," Dũng confirmed, his gaze distant, as if still seeing the corrupted spiritual landscape. "A hunger. For form, for essence, for existence itself. Because the balance... is broken. The ties between worlds are severed by disregard."
Their shared understanding was a fragile thing, useless in a world that wielded swords and schemed for power, a world that fought the smoke while ignoring the fire. What could a scholar and a priest, armed only with this devastating knowledge, possibly do?
"We cannot fight this with steel," Dũng said, echoing her earlier thought. "And the court... they are blind, or choose to be."
"They are part of the neglect," Ánh Tuyết added, thinking of Đại Quan Nguyễn Văn Luận and the rot she'd witnessed in the capital. "The imbalance extends even there."
Their immediate task was clear, if impossible: find a way to act on this knowledge. To mend the imbalance? To rally the uncorrupted spiritual forces? To find someone in a position of power who possessed both integrity and the capacity to believe in something beyond the immediately tangible?
A sound reached them then, faint at first, carried on the evening breeze that whispered through the valley. The distinct, rhythmic thud-thud-thud of marching boots.
Both Ánh Tuyết and Dũng tensed. Soldiers. In this remote valley? The main front lines were miles away.
They extinguished the candles, plunging the shrine into near darkness. Ánh Tuyết's heart hammered against her ribs. Had her disappearance from the capital been discovered? Had Luận sent agents this far out? Or were these simply patrols?
The marching sounds grew louder, closer. Voices could be heard now, gruff commands, the clinking of gear. Not many, perhaps a squad.
They took cover behind one of the ancient stone altars as the soldiers entered the shrine's courtyard. Firelight flickered outside as torches were lit. A weary-looking officer, his uniform mud-stained, scanned the area, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword. He was accompanied by perhaps a dozen soldiers, their faces grim and tired.
"Anything, Sergeant?" the officer asked, his voice flat with exhaustion.
"Nothing, sir," a soldier replied. "Just... old stones. And a bit of smoke from inside. Priest's maybe?"
The officer sighed. "Alright, check the interior. Quick. We don't have all night. And keep an eye on the valley. Reports say the mist is pushing harder near the foothills."
Two soldiers cautiously entered the shrine. Ánh Tuyết and Dũng remained hidden, barely breathing. The soldiers' boots crunched on the dusty floor. One coughed.
"Anyone here?" a soldier called out, his voice hollow in the small space.
Silence.
The soldier grumbled. "Just empty, Lieutenant."
As they turned to leave, a sound split the air outside – not the rhythm of marching, but a wet, scraping drag, followed by that low, unnatural humming that Mai had heard near Bến Đoạn.
The officer and the soldiers in the courtyard reacted instantly, weapons snapping up, forming a defensive circle. The two soldiers inside the shrine froze.
"What was that?" the Lieutenant barked.
The dragging sound came again, closer now, from the edge of the tree line just beyond the courtyard. The air grew colder. A faint, grey tendril of mist seemed to creep out from behind a large banyan tree.
"Manifestation!" a soldier yelled, his voice tight with fear.
The soldiers inside the shrine scrambled back out, rifles ready. Ánh Tuyết and Dũng remained hidden, watching the scene unfold.
A figure shambled out of the shadows beneath the trees. It was a Hư Vô-Twisted, grey and distorted, moving with that same disjointed, horrifying gait Mai had witnessed. It emitted the low hum, which seemed to vibrate in the very air.
The soldiers opened fire. Rifles cracked, muzzle flashes briefly illuminating the scene. Bullets struck the manifestation, tearing through its grey form, but like the one in Chapter 2, it didn't fall. The holes began to close, the grey mist knitting the wounds shut.
The Lieutenant yelled orders, trying to maintain discipline as his men faced this unnatural foe. They were trained for human enemies, for battle lines and clear objectives. This... this defied their training, defied logic.
From her hiding place, Ánh Tuyết watched the horrifying resilience of the creature, confirming the texts' description of 'unmaking,' not just killing. Dũng watched too, his face etched with sorrow and dread, seeing not just a physical abomination, but a corrupted spiritual echo made manifest, a piece of the dying Spirit World intruding upon the physical.
The fight was brief but brutal. The soldiers, despite their fear, fought with grim determination, using bayonets when their rifles proved insufficient. They managed to hack the manifestation apart, limbs falling, the torso collapsing. But even as it fell, the pieces didn't lie still. They dissolved into patches of grey mist that swirled and expanded, merging with the tendril from the tree line, the humming sound fading as the form disintegrated, leaving behind only the metallic scent and a deeper, heavier silence.
The soldiers stood panting, shaken. One was clutching a bleeding arm. Another stared wide-eyed at the spot where the creature had been, his face pale.
The Lieutenant, though visibly rattled, regained his composure. He glanced back at the shrine, then at his men. "Alright. It's gone. Just... grey vapor." He didn't understand what it was, only that it was hostile and unnatural.
He looked back towards the valley mouth, where the Hư Vô mist was a more solid, distant threat. His priority was scouting the area and reporting back, not investigating strange shrines or finding missing scholars – unless ordered to do so directly. The incident, though terrifying, was just another grim example of what the front was becoming.
"Alright, let's move out," the Lieutenant ordered, his voice weary. "This place... feels wrong. Report the contact. Keep moving."
As the soldiers gathered their gear and reformed their small patrol, the Lieutenant paused at the entrance to the shrine courtyard, looking back at the spot where the manifestation had dissolved. He frowned, then shook his head, dismissing the lingering unease.
They marched away, their bootsteps fading back into the night.
Ánh Tuyết and Dũng waited in the darkness, listening until the sounds were gone. When they finally emerged, the air felt heavier, colder. The Grey Silence had visited their valley.
The physical threat had passed, but the encounter reinforced their terrible understanding. The military fought against manifestations they couldn't kill permanently. The capital ignored the problem or exploited it. Meanwhile, the true battle – the battle against the fundamental unmaking of reality, the consequence of centuries of imbalance and neglect – raged on, unseen and misunderstood by almost everyone.
Their brief sanctuary was no longer truly safe. The Hư Vô, in its physical manifestation, had found them. The military, the arm of the kingdom's decaying authority, had also found their location. They could not stay.
The scholar and the priest looked at each other in the dim light. They possessed the truth, but they were powerless and exposed. Their path forward lay not in hiding, but in actively seeking a way to use their knowledge before the Grey Silence consumed everything. Where that path led, they did not know, but it had to be away from here, towards those rare points of light or power that might, just might, stand a chance against the encroaching dark.