The night was as dark as ink. The air in Kuala Lumpur, still damp from the earlier rain, carried a musty scent mixed with the earthy aroma of wet asphalt. Lin Han's shoulder still ached, and the talisman Noya had given him was faintly warm, as if absorbing some kind of malevolent energy.
"This dagger… what the hell is this thing?" Lin Han panted, staring at the blade embedded in the ground. The faint blue glow that once radiated ominously had dimmed significantly, but it still pulsed with an unsettling presence in the darkness.
Noya didn't answer immediately. Instead, she rose to her feet and cautiously surveyed their surroundings. Her right hand remained firmly on her gun, while her left rested on the kris at her waist. The look in her eyes was graver than when Lin Han had first met her.
"Lin Han, we need to leave." Her voice was low, laced with urgency.
Lin Han frowned. "Why? That robed man is already—"
Noya shot him a sharp glare. "You think it's over? If this were just ordinary black magic, I could still accept it. But that dagger…"
She hesitated for a second, her voice barely above a whisper, "...it's alive."
Lin Han felt a cold shiver creep down his spine. He had suspected something was off about the dagger, but alive? What the hell did that mean?
"Come with me. Batu Caves." Noya's words were firm as she turned and strode away.
Batu Caves?!
Lin Han hesitated for only a moment before hurrying after her.
The wind howled through the limestone caves, carrying an eerie, low-pitched resonance. At the entrance to Batu Caves stood the towering, golden Murugan statue, its golden sheen still faintly reflecting the moonlight despite the night's darkness. The deity's presence was both majestic and foreboding, as if silently watching over those who dared step closer.
But tonight, something was wrong. The air was thick—oppressive.
"Why here?" Lin Han asked, glancing around. The place was eerily deserted, not even a stray cat in sight. The silence gnawed at his nerves.
Noya didn't respond. Instead, she reached into her jacket, pulled out a small cloth bundle, and carefully unwrapped it. Inside was a stack of aged, yellowed jampi scrolls—Malay shamanic talismans. She scattered them on the ground in a precise pattern and began chanting in ancient Javanese.
The air shifted immediately.
Lin Han's stomach twisted. It was as if the very atmosphere had thickened, pressing down on them.
"What… are you doing?" he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw it.
The shadows were moving.
His breath caught in his throat as he slowly lifted his gaze toward the base of the Murugan statue—where the darkness itself seemed to seep out, swirling unnaturally like liquid night. A bone-deep chill clawed its way up Lin Han's spine.
That wasn't a shadow.
That was a face. A face that was whispering.
"Don't move." Noya's grip on Lin Han's shoulder tightened, her voice sharper than before.
Lin Han froze. His instincts screamed at him—if he moved, he might never leave this place again.
The darkness thickened, and the whispers grew clearer. They weren't echoes of the wind. They weren't tricks of the mind.
They were words. Spoken in a fractured, raspy Malay:
"Tulang… Darah… Jiwa… Pulang…" (Bones… Blood… Soul… Return…)
Lin Han's heart pounded like a war drum.
"Noya," he whispered, barely able to form the words, "what the hell is it saying?"
Noya didn't respond. Her pupils had shrunk to pinpricks, her entire body tense like a drawn bowstring. She gripped her kris so tightly that her knuckles turned white.
Then, suddenly—
The whispers stopped.
A pale, skeletal hand shot out from the ground—lunging for Lin Han's ankle!