# NO TRACE / 侠客行

AI-made. Made with AI, as its festival says: “The 2026 edition of the Artefact AI Film Festival — an international competition for short films made with generative AI, organised by Artefact with mk2.” ([its page](https://artefact-ai-film-festival.com/), read 2026-11-12).

By Lingyi Liu, as [Artefact AI Film Festival](https://artefact-ai-film-festival.com/gallery) names them.

In a ruined desert sanctuary, a warrior fights to protect an unconscious poet. Beyond the wall, the poet's other self enters a luminous banquet where music, dancers and ceremonial splendor conceal a dangerous contest. A fish-shaped token links the struggle inside the mural to the danger surrounding his body. The celebration turns threatening, the mural's boundary breaks, and the two figures are reunited in a battle to escape. Their flight crosses a desert city as vast forces rise beneath the sand, before the journey reaches orbit. Inspired by Li Bai's 'Xia Ke Xing,' NO TRACE sets the poem's promise, courage and refusal of glory against a world where myth, machinery and dream inhabit the same frame.

Plays in YouTube's player, on YouTube, by the link its maker gave the festival: [watch it there](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0swPgc3Q4NM).