A God, or a Ghost

Xie Xu looked up at the sky in exasperation, took a deep breath, and let his expression return to its usual calm.

Forget it. No point arguing with her.

He planted the long blade on the ground, his fingers wrapping around the hilt.

"In the Threshold, besides the aberrants, there's another type of creature. You could think of them as supernatural beings. They don't like firearms, so all guns malfunction in their presence."

Xie Xu paused, making sure Tu Ran understood, then continued, "When you encounter them, the only weapons you can use are cold steel."

Tu Ran frowned. "Why can they make guns malfunction? Why call them 'supernatural beings'? Why haven't I run into anything like that before? Have you?"

Xie Xu answered her questions one by one.

"The world inside the Threshold is inherently inexplicable. Most of the physical laws that apply to our world simply don't work there."

"It's practically a magical world. Those unnatural beings possess abilities humans could never have. You can think of them as gods or ghosts—as long as you stand before them, you must accept their rules."

His voice was unhurried, peeling back the veil of another world that few knew existed.

"Unnatural beings are few in number. Compared to the many varieties of aberrants, they're more like higher rulers. The chances of encountering them are extremely low. To this day, none of the intel your Pioneer Team has brought back contains even a shred of information about them."

"As for how I know—because I've encountered one. A year ago, when I went into the Threshold, I met a 'human.' His appearance was identical to a normal person's, but the way he spoke and moved was utterly different from any human."

Xie Xu gazed at the distant lights, recalling that inexplicable encounter.

"I determined he wasn't human and fired a shot at him, but my gun failed at that very moment. When I aimed it elsewhere, it worked fine again. This repeated several times, and I realized whatever I was facing couldn't be dealt with by bullets."

Tu Ran listened intently, her heart growing heavy.

With all the grotesque aberrants in the Threshold, she was already terrified enough to think twice about going in. Now there was some half-human, half-ghost thing on top of it all—how was she supposed to survive?

Xie Xu noticed her anxiety and said, "You don't need to worry too much. They only possess the ability to disable firearms. Aside from that, they have no other special traits—not even as dangerous as a large aberrant."

Still sounded creepy, though. Tu Ran was full of dread.

In her mind now, the Threshold was no different from a haunted house—push the door open, step inside, and you never knew what kind of monster might jump out at you.

"Chin up. I'm telling you this to give you motivation to learn the blade, not to make you hang your head." Xie Xu said coldly.

Tu Ran lifted her eyes to glance at him, then lowered her head again.

This guy was just like her high school homeroom teacher, nagging her to study hard so she could get into a good college.

Seeing how earnest he was, Tu Ran gripped the hilt with both hands and raised the blade.

During her training, the instructors had taught the original body some basics of cold weapon use.

But because the Federation didn't place much importance on such skills, the cold weapon course only lasted a month.

Now, holding this blade, Tu Ran wasn't very proficient.

This time, she didn't even have muscle memory to fall back on.