THE LAST KEEPER

Chapter 220. THE SHADOW UNIT

Even moving at the painfully slow pace, no one had come after them yet, and it was almost sun now. Sagiri’s condition had not improved in the slightest. They had been moving at a slow pace. Sagiri had regained his heightened hearing, but his sensory ability was still lacking. His strength had not improved much, and the archive was still silent.

A few hours before sundown, however, Sagiri got a sinking feeling in his heart. No matter how much he listened, he could not hear anything for miles, yet he could not do away with the feeling that someone was watching him. Watching them. It was like the forest had suddenly grown a set of eyes. The feeling grew thicker when darkness fell. It seemed Lira had felt it too.

"It is too silent," she said, coming to a stop behind Sagiri, who had finally stopped. He closed his eyes and listened harder, but not even the birds were singing. There was no way such a green forest could lack small creatures. The two started moving more slowly again and stopping in intervals. Anytime they stopped, they pressed their backs against each other and watched each other’s backs.

The feeling got even more intense when darkness suddenly fell on the horizon. It was as if the very shadows were watching him. Nokai had not stirred, nor had the archive. They had not recovered from whatever was crippling them. Dang it!

Both sagiri and Lira had their blades drawn this time. Sagiri tightened his grip on his two blades. He wished Nokai could wake the hell up, and the archive could stir, but they both remained silent.

"Show yourselves?" he called to the darkness, though he already knew they wouldn’t.

Something was telling him a unit had caught up with him, and he had a feeling this unit, unlike the event wing squad, was more deadly, and they were not here to only capture him but kill him. Another disturbance and blur circled them. In the dark, it just felt like wind had blown by them, but Sagiri knew the wind had carried someone with it. Another one circled them mere moments later. This time, he moved instantly, swinging his blades in a precise arc aimed at the source.

The blade cut through empty air.

A heartbeat later, a second strike landed, slicing across his side. The attack had come from the opposite direction. A cut had been rendered to his side. It was not deep, but the precision and manner in which it had been executed were scary. They were not merely fast but also unreadable. There was only one unit that was capable of such, and Sagiri very well knew about them. Sagiri steadied his breathing, forcing himself to remain calm as he analyzed the pattern. There were multiple assailants, each moving with impossible speed and perfect coordination. They did not linger nor reveal themselves, and neither did they waste a single motion. It was as if they were toying with him.

They struck and vanished. They lay low, but then a blur could tear through again.

A whisper of displaced air passed behind him. Sagiri pivoted and thrust his blades backward, but once again, he met nothing. In the same instant, a sharp impact drove into his thigh, nearly forcing him to one knee. He suppressed the pain, refusing to yield ground. This could only be the stealth corps of Tagayia.

"The Shadow Unit," he murmured.

These were not hunters seeking capture. They were executioners, dispatched only when death was the sole objective. Their ability to suppress their presence made them indistinguishable from the darkness itself, and their movements were so swift that they appeared as nothing more than fleeting blurs at the edge of vision. Sagiri adjusted his stance, abandoning the idea of tracking them visually. His right eye was dormant, along with the archive. Trying to do so was futile. Instead, he focused on the subtle shifts in the environment, the faint compression of air, the nearly imperceptible tremor of disturbed leaves. It was the only warning he would receive.

Another blur.

He reacted instantly, swinging his blades just in time to intercept a descending strike. Sparks erupted as steel met steel, but even in that brief clash, he failed to see his opponent clearly. The figure dissolved back into the darkness before he could counter. It was clear that they were only attacking him and not Lira. He was their only target. If he kept being back to back with the girl, and if she defended him again, then it would be clear that they were in bed together, and that would deny him any chance of her taking him to their base if things went south this time. Sagiri had a feeling that things were about to get worse.

Without thinking too much and while Lira was not anticipating the hit, Sagiri moved his finger, hitting the vital points on her back enough to cripple her, before he landed a palm to her back and sent her flying forward. She crashed onto a tree with a crash before there was silence. Just like Sagiri thought, a blur went past, and Lira was gone. It seemed they had not been going at full strength because Lira was closer to him.

To them, she was his prisoner.

The attacks intensified soon after. Blurs of motion converged from multiple directions, each strike timed to exploit the smallest opening. Sagiri deflected one blow only to feel another graze his back. He spun to retaliate, but the assailant had already disappeared, replaced by a new threat from a different angle. There was no rhythm to exploit, no formation to break.

The Shadow Unit functioned as a seamless collective, their movements synchronized with terrifying precision. Every defense Sagiri mounted was met with an immediate and calculated response. For the first time since the battle began, Sagiri felt the undeniable pressure of being outmatched. A shallow cut appeared along his forearm, followed by another across his ribs. None was immediately fatal, but their cumulative effect was clear. The Shadow Unit was not rushing to finish him. They were systematically dismantling his ability to fight back.

Sagiri exhaled slowly, forcing his mind into absolute focus. He needed to change the tempo of the battle. He needed to

He closed his eyes.

The next attack came instantly, a blur descending toward his neck. Sagiri moved not by sight but by instinct. He swept his blades desperately. He swept both of them upwards in a decisive arc. This time, the first blade met more than air, but the second blade scraped a blade just barely. Silence returned for a fraction of a second. Then, as if they had just been playing around before, things got even more intense. They closed in. Blurs multiplied at the edges of his perception, converging from every direction. Sagiri tightened his grip on his blades.

Even with him trying to remain in the fight, he knew that with the archive remaining silent, his right eye and Nokai, he did not stand a chance against his opponent. They were the most deadly opponent he had ever faced yet. If something did not give soon. His fate was set in stone.

He was going to die.