Kael moved.
The shadow man's signature was faint—damaged, flickering, barely visible through the dust and debris—but still trackable. A dying ember was still an ember. You just had to know where to look.
He vaulted through the hole in the wall, boots crunching on rubble, eyes scanning the slum alley. The crater was obvious—fifty meters away, a building had a new-shaped hole in its facade, and scattered around it were enough bricks to build a small house.
Kael reached the crater in seconds only to see the man's body gone except the residual dark energy still clinging to the destroyed wall like a fading bruise.
Kael's eyes narrowed.
He extended his senses—gravity mapping the area, Essence Trace searching for the dark green signature, even his rudimentary shadow ability reaching out like blind fingers.
Gone.
The shadow man had run. Used the explosion as cover, slipped into the chaos, vanished into the labyrinth of the slums like the rat he was.
Kael sighed.
"What a failure."
