Breathe. Focus. Yuan Xuelan licked his lips, tasting copper.
His eyes were upon the field around him. The rain would not relent. It was cold. Hair, clothes and fat droplets clung to his skin as lightning drowned out other sounds.
It was damned cold.
Maybe it had to do with the deep gash littering his body, rainwater mixing with blood as it doused him. Maybe it had to do with his chest straining against his lungs with each breath. Or how he still refused to take out any talismans that might warm the flesh when he was so rapidly losing heat.
How could he? When his concentration was so entangled.
Again, that slight blip in the atmosphere, a presence that approached without any visual cues or sound. It sliced through reality, the very tip of a blade he couldn't dream of blocking or parrying.
Yuan Xuelan dodged, his thighs straining as he dashed away, just barely protecting his arm from being severed.
