The node “Stabbing Blast” may fail to target enemies which are far away from the player character, rather than using the location of the blade to determine distance.
When tested on the training dummies outside the arena, it’s possible to observe the intended behavior when the player and dummies are within a relative distance (about that of the dummy’s circle). Throwing blades will cause them to attempt to target either the only dummy or any nearby dummy within “range” of the player character.
However, once at a sufficient distance away, blades will simply target their center-point (if “Precision Cuts” is allocated as well), or appear to vanish altogether, targeting nothing, regardless of enemy proximity.
This can be replicated during active play in monoliths, where an enemy at the very limit of the throwing range is targeted, leaving an umbral blade in the ground near them (without hitting). The recall sequence of the attack chain will then cause the blades to either target their center-point or vanish, despite proximity to the enemy.
This behavior appears to be contradictory to the node’s text of:
Recalling the blades now sends each blade toward a different nearby enemy instead of to you, but recalled blades no longer pierce.
Given the odd nature of the blades’ targeting behavior when an enemy is out of range (such as when simply throwing them on the ground on an empty screen), it is possible that “Precision Cuts” is interfering with the intended behavior. However, they do not appear to track the cursor in this case.
Note: This is the same issue highlighted in this bug report, which was closed in 2022.